Kilroy J. Oldster

We employ free will to design of our own being and therefore we must accept responsibility for our actions.

A person begins childhood with a mind that is essentially a blank slate _ a tabula rasa _ before receiving outside impressions. Early childhood experiences and perceptions begin the formulation of a state of conscious awareness, the infantile steps in forming a personality, developing social and emotional behavior, and acquiring practical and book knowledge. Childhood plays a critical role in forming our final version of a self-concept.

We are each a product of our biological endowments, culture, and personal history. Culture ideology and cultural events along with transmitted cultural practices influences each of us. We are each the product of our collective interchanges. Our county__ domestic and interlinked international conflicts fuse us together. We are each a molecule in the helix of human consciousness joined in a physical world. We form a coil of connective tissue soldered together by cultural links.

Each of us encounters many diverse experiences that make us grow and transform, but we seek to return to our roots, which is quietude.

Liberating a prejudiced mind from its preconceived notions and scripting a life of purposefulness requires constant postulation, observation, evaluation, and synthesizing.

A personality alters itself through a series of self-referential experiences. We are not the same as the day before. Much as a person can never set foot in exactly the same river on any given day, we are different each day. Yesterday made us, but the past cannot contain nor restrain us. We can never mentally scroll backward and be who we used to be. We must move forward in the stream of life until the day that our life force dries up and we return to dust.

Writing about the self to spur intellectual growth or attain a teardrop of emotional salvation is akin to a fish attempting to construct a net that will capture itself.

In order to grow sometimes we must cease striving to meet other people__ expectations and begin establishing new goals that develop our personal potential. If we live a life to satisfy all the direct or implicit anticipations of other people, we end up living a life full of regret because we failed to develop into a complete manifestation of our being.

The strongest principle of personal development is every person__ ability to make conscious decisions how to act and determine what purpose he or she attempts to fulfill. People with a fixed mindset believe that their basic personal qualities such as intelligence, talent, and other skills are traits that are predetermined or fixed and they ignore opportunities for personal development. A person__ growth mindset represents a belief that there are certain basic qualities that a person can cultivate through applied effort, if they exhibit a passion for learning, a resolute willingness to stretch their personality, and through fortitude make personal improvement despite experiencing initial hardships.

Humankind__ amazing grace is the ability to choose right from wrong, and assume personal responsibility for our conduct. With the judicious exercise of composure and appliance of self-discipline, we exceed our humble origins and blossom into a final rendering of whatever type of person we aspire to become.

We each act as the creator of the self, and therefore, we strive to attain self-realization by understanding what we were in various stages of life including what we began as and what we transmuted into becoming.

Life includes unforeseen incidents that prove critical to promote personal growth. Life rarely gives us what we want. We are lucky if life gives us what we need in order to fulfill the path that was in place at our birthing.

A bird with a broken wing cannot survive nor will a man with a broken spirit endure.

Embracing human frailty, fallibility, and heartbreaking aloneness is crucial for any person seeking to attain self-actualization and self-realization.

We cannot measure a person__ value to the human race by tabulating the size of his estate. We must judge each person by his or her final contribution to humanity and nature.

For the philosopher, language, thought, and passion are the same. Ideas are personal to a philosopher; they express their human passion and articulate their novel ideas in language. Ideas are more than mere concepts, trifles that the philosophical mind toys with. Ideas provide both the structure and inner vitality that holds great thinkers_ conceptual structure together.

All of our thoughts _ ideas _ are traceable to a sensation, an encounter with the world that leaves an impression upon the mind.

Similar to a how a flower grows incrementally, people also blossom in stages. As we age, we expand our knowledge of how the world works and how other people respond to our deeds. We also expand our language skills in order to communicate both our thoughts and feelings.