In Personal Development for Smart People (my book review here), Steve Pavlina lists the three core principles of personal development as Truth, Love and Power.
When you combine the principles, you get the secondary principles of personal development; Truth combined with Love gives you Oneness, Love and Power combine to give you Courage and Truth with Power gives you Authority. Together, the six principles combine to give you the seventh core principle of personal development: Intelligence.
Steve says that these core principles are universal and cannot be broken down into smaller chunks. I’ve been thinking that if these truly are the core principles of personal development, then their inverse should also be true.
Personal Atrophy for Foolish People
The core principles of personal atrophy, as opposed to personal development, should then be Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness.
When you refuse to face the truth, you deceive yourself and live in falsehood, also known as denial.
The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. When you hate, you’re still polarized, but when you’re apathetic you can’t even get yourself to care enough to hate, much less love.
And when you’re powerless, you can hardly muster any ability to change your life.
The more you direct your life towards Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness, the more you’ll regress in your life instead of improve.
The secondary principles of personal atrophy are Separation, Timidity and Submission.
When you live in denial and can’t be bothered to care, you feel separated from your life, your surroundings and other living beings.
When you’re powerlessness and apathetic, you live life timidly because you don’t believe you have the power to overcome challenges, and you lack the motivation to even try.
Living in denial and powerlessness causes you to live in submission, or passivity. Instead of being the power in your life, you allow yourself to bow down to circumstances.
The six principles of personal atrophy in their totality become foolishness. Whereas moving towards Truth, Love and Power is a more intelligent way to live your life, moving towards Falsehood, Apathy and Powerlessness is a foolish way to spend it.
Personal Development vs. Personal Atrophy
I’m not looking to add on to Steve’s book here, I think he did a pretty good job of it already.
I offer the principles of personal atrophy as food for thought, and whereas the seven core principles of personal development are a good gauge to aim for, the seven core principles of personal atrophy can serve as warning signs to tell you where you don’t want to go.
P.S. After emailing Steve, I changed ‘Fear’ to ‘Timidity’; Steve reminded me that Courage isn’t the absence of fear, but acting in spite of it. I also changed ‘Weakness’ to ‘Submission’, which also makes sense as the opposite of Authority.
Thanks Alvin,
Knowing how to spot our actions that are working against us is the first stage of improvement. After we identify the personal atrophy only then can we go to work on correcting our actions. I appreciate your point of view and enjoyed your post.
Alvin, here is my take, which is a simpler model.
Oneness is truth, and truth is oneness. Everything comes forth from oneness.
Oneness entails the interconnected of everything in this world. Truth is the relationships of the opposing/complimentary forces that is part of this oneness. Our reality is just our interpretation of truth. Despite our perception, our judgement, truth is as these relationships are.
Intelligence enables us to obtain knowledge, but wisdom (true knowledge) is where we apply those information and understand the working of the different relationships in this world.
All types of knowledge leads to self-knowledge, where an individual is aware of his relationship working with all the different relationships in the world, and he acts base on that. This is the application of wisdom. This is also when one is aware of the oneness of the world. Acting with self-knowledge and awareness is self-actualization.
As a result, intelligence leads to wisdom, wisdom leads to awareness, and ultimately, awareness gives birth to true courage and true love. With those, one has the power to act, to be honest with oneself and others.
That’s why…
True love comes from oneness because knowing we are all connected, compassion arises.
True courage also comes from oneness because fear arises from unknowns, and it is only unknown when one is not aware of oneness.
That’s also why, all types of negativities in this world occurs as a result of derailing from oneness, and more specifically, being unaware of the oneness of the world/universe. Some examples are…
Denial is a refusal to see the relationships of different forces working together (or against each other), or attachment to one’s own perception of truth.
Anger is a result of expecting relationships to go certain way, again, attachment to one’s perception of how things should be.
Separation is when a person is attached to only one aspect of oneness, like being happy. They just want to be happy, but forget the fact that, happiness exists because sadness also exists.
Hence, attachment is the cause of suffering. Additionally, being aware, being in the moment, being present to experience things as they are, lead to peace and joy.
Hi Kin,
That’s perhaps the most thoughtful (and thought-provoking) comment I’ve had all year.
What you say makes a lot of sense, and I would go debating it against Steve’s model except for the fear of over-complicating the ‘map’ to make it useful.
Your explanation of unhappiness deriving from a separation from oneness is something that Steve lacks, and reminds me deeply of Buddhism – that all suffering arises from attachment and a lack of ‘enlightenment.’ Are you yourself Buddhist?
I am grateful for the chance to read such clear and powerful thoughts, thank you.
Not long ago a 5-year old told me the three keys to happiness are:
1- Believe what’s true
2- Stay relaxed
3- Help yourself and help others
This bears a remarkable similarity to”
1- Truth; and acceptance of it, translated into an unconditional belief on what is true; I love Kin’s description of it!
2- Power; emanating from a position of inner peace
3- Love; expressed as assistance and support of others.
I believe this kid got it right, like The Steve
This is great. These are powerful principles. I like the way you broke down these principles in a easy way to read and comprehend.
Um here is my 2 cents worth….Staying in the now elevates us to experience this world as we were truly meant to as human beings. Staying in the now or being aware makes something as simple as a walk in the park a truly joyful experience. We feel the grass under foot, the sunshine warming our skin and the scent of flowers as we are meant to experience. It is actually a very simple concept and free to experience every moment of our lives. So wake up and look around you. You are not your emotions, thoughts or conditioning. You are free. Free to embrace each and every moment as you choose to.
I must say this is a beautiful outlook on negativity. Thanks for the clarity.
I agree “Everything comes forth from oneness”..
Hi there,
Well, this article is very great. The principles are very powerful 🙂
Roger K. Allen
Great information, Thank you !
This is the Great idea to improve your vocabulary and be better at reading…
great,this will help me a lot
i am now going through hardtimes.think it will help me
This is so true, I went through a transformation at one point in my life from being timid and shy to finally being ontop so that I can do business transactions online and such, if you don’t then you get walked on all the time.