30 Days to Success

Personal Development for Smart People

April 14th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

A powerful personal growth tool is the 30-day trial. This is a concept I borrowed from the shareware industry, where you can download a trial version of a piece of software and try it out risk-free for 30 days before you’re required to buy the full version. It’s also a great way to develop new habits, and best of all, it’s brain-dead simple.

Let’s say you want to start a new habit like an exercise program or quit a bad habit like sucking on cancer sticks. We all know that getting started and sticking with the new habit for a few weeks is the hard part. Once you’ve overcome inertia, it’s much easier to keep going.

Yet we often psyche ourselves out of getting started by mentally thinking about the change as something permanent — before we’ve even begun. It seems too overwhelming to think about making a big change and sticking with it every day for the rest of your life when you’re still habituated to doing the opposite. The more you think about the change as something permanent, the more you stay put.

But what if you thought about making the change only temporarily — say for 30 days — and then you’re free to go back to your old habits? That doesn’t seem so hard anymore. Exercise daily for just 30 days, then quit. Maintain a neatly organized desk for 30 days, then slack off. Read for an hour a day for 30 days, then go back to watching TV.

Could you do it? It still requires a bit of discipline and commitment, but not nearly so much as making a permanent change. Any perceived deprivation is only temporary. You can count down the days to freedom. And for at least 30 days, you’ll gain some benefit. It’s not so bad. You can handle it. It’s only one month out of your life.

Now if you actually complete a 30-day trial, what’s going to happen? First, you’ll go far enough to establish it as a habit, and it will be easier to maintain than it was to begin it. Secondly, you’ll break the addiction of your old habit during this time. Thirdly, you’ll have 30 days of success behind you, which will give you greater confidence that you can continue. And fourthly, you’ll gain 30 days worth of results, which will give you practical feedback on what you can expect if you continue, putting you in a better place to make informed long-term decisions.

Therefore, once you hit the end of the 30-day trial, your ability to make the habit permanent is vastly increased. But even if you aren’t ready to make it permanent, you can opt to extend your trial period to 60 or 90 days. The longer you go with the trial period, the easier it will be to lock in the new habit for life.

Another benefit of this approach is that you can use it to test new habits where you really aren’t sure if you’d even want to continue for life. Maybe you’d like to try a new diet, but you don’t know if you’d find it too restrictive. In that case, do a 30-day trial and then re-evaluate. There’s no shame in stopping if you know the new habit doesn’t suit you. It’s like trying a piece of shareware for 30 days and then uninstalling it if it doesn’t suit your needs. No harm, no foul.

Here are some examples from my own life where I used 30-day trials to establish new habits:

1) In the Summer of 1993, I wanted to try being vegetarian. I had no interest in making this a lifelong change, but I’d read a lot about the health benefits of vegetarianism, so I committed to it for 30 days just for the experience. I was already exercising regularly, seemed in decent health, and was not overweight (6′0″, 155 lbs), but my typical college diet included a lot of In-N-Out burgers. Going lacto-ovo vegetarian for 30 days was a lot easier than I expected — I can’t say it was hard at all, and I never felt deprived. Within a week I noticed an increase in my energy and concentration, and I felt more clear-headed. At the end of the 30 days, it was a no-brainer to stick with it. This change looked a lot harder than it really was.

2) In January 1997, I decided to try going from vegetarian to vegan. While lacto-ovo vegetarians can eat eggs and dairy, vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. I was developing an interest in going vegan for life, but I didn’t think I could do it. How could I give up veggie-cheese omelettes? The diet seemed too restrictive to me — even fanatically so. But I was intensely curious to know what it was actually like. So once again I did a 30-day trial. At the time I figured I’d make it through the trial, but I honestly didn’t expect to continue beyond that. Well, I lost seven pounds in the first week, mostly from going to the bathroom as all the accumulated dairy mucus was cleansed from my bowels (now I know why cows need four stomachs to properly digest this stuff). I felt lousy the first couple days but then my energy surged. I also felt more clear-headed than ever, as if a “fog of brain” had been lifted; it felt like my brain had gotten a CPU and a RAM upgrade. However, the biggest change I noticed was in my endurance. I was living in Marina del Rey at the time and used to run along the beach near the Santa Monica Pier, and I noticed I wasn’t as tired after my usual 3-mile runs, so I started increasing them to 5 miles, 10 miles, and then eventually a marathon a few years later. In Tae Kwon Do, the extra endurance really gave a boost to my sparring skills as well. The accumulated benefits were so great that the foods I was giving up just didn’t seem so appealing anymore. So once again it was a no-brainer to continue after the first 30 days, and I’m still vegan today. What I didn’t expect was that after so long on this diet, the old animal product foods I used to eat just don’t seem like food anymore, so there’s no feeling of deprivation.

3) Also in 1997, I decided I wanted to exercise every single day for a year. That was my 1997 New Year’s resolution. My criteria was that I would exercise aerobically at least 25 minutes every day, and I wouldn’t count Tae Kwon Do classes which I was taking 2-3 days per week. Coupled with my dietary changes, I wanted to push my fitness to a new level. I didn’t want to miss a single day, not even for sick days. But thinking about exercising 365 days in a row was daunting, so I mentally began with a 30-day trial. That wasn’t so bad. After a while every day that passed set a new record: 8 days in a row… 10 days… 15 days…. It became harder to quit. After 30 days in a row, how could I not do 31 and set a new personal record? And can you imagine giving up after 250 days? No way. After the initial month to establish the habit, the rest of the year took care of itself. I remember going to a seminar that year and getting home well after midnight. I had a cold and was really tired, yet I still went out running at 2am in the rain. Some people might call that foolish, but I was so determined to reach my goal that I wasn’t going to let fatigue or illness stop me. I succeeded and kept it up for the whole year without ever missing a day. In fact, I kept going for a few more weeks into 1998 before I finally opted to stop, which was a tough decision. I wanted to do this for one year, knowing it would become a powerful reference experience, and it certainly became such.

4) More diet stuff…. After being vegan for a number of years, I opted to try other variations of the vegan diet. I did 30-day trials both with the macrobiotic diet and with the raw foods diet. Those were interesting and gave me new insights, but I decided not to continue with either of them. I felt no different eating macrobiotically than I did otherwise. And in the case of the raw diet, while I did notice a significant energy boost, I found the diet too labor intensive — I was spending a lot of time preparing meals and shopping frequently. Sure you can just eat raw fruits and veggies, but to make interesting raw meals, there can be a lot of labor involved. If I had my own chef, I’d probably follow the raw diet though because I think the benefits would be worth it. I did a second trial of the raw diet for 45 days, but again my conclusion was the same. If I was ever diagnosed with a serious disease like cancer, I’d immediately switch to an all raw, living foods diet, since I believe it to be the absolute best diet for optimal health. I’ve never felt more energetic in my life than when I ate a raw diet. But I had a hard time making it practical for me. Even so, I managed to integrate some new macrobiotic foods and raw foods into my diet after these trials. There are two all-raw restaurants here in Vegas, and I’ve enjoyed eating at them because then someone else does all the labor. So these 30-day trials were still successful in that they produced new insights, although in both cases I intentionally declined to continue with the new habit. One of the reasons a full 30-day trial is so important with new diets is that the first week or two will often be spent detoxing and overcoming cravings, so it isn’t until the third or fourth week that you begin to get a clear picture. I feel that if you haven’t tried a diet for at least 30 days, you simply don’t understand it. Every diet feels different on the inside than it appears from the outside.

This 30-day method seems to work best for daily habits. I’ve had no luck using it when trying to start a habit that only occurs 3-4 days per week. However, it can work well if you apply it daily for the first 30 days and then cut back thereafter. This is what I’d do when starting a new exercise program, for example. Daily habits are much easier to establish.

Here are some other ideas for applying 30-day trials:

• Give up TV. Tape all your favorite shows and save them until the end of the trial. My whole family did this once, and it was very enlightening.
• Give up online forums, especially if you feel you’re becoming forum addicted. This will help break the addiction and give you a clearer sense of how participation actually benefits you (if at all). You can always catch up at the end of 30 days.
• Shower/bathe/shave every day. I know YOU don’t need this one, so please pass it along to someone who does.
• Meet someone new every day. Start up a conversation with a stranger.
• Go out every evening. Go somewhere different each time, and do something fun — this will be a memorable month.
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning up and organizing your home or office every day. That’s 15 hours total.
• List something new to sell on ebay every day. Purge some of that clutter.
• Ask someone new out on a date every day. Unless your success rate is below 3%, you’ll get at least one new date, maybe even meet your future spouse.
• If you’re already in a relationship, give your partner a massage every day. Or offer to alternate who gives the massage each day, so that’s 15 massages each.
• Give up cigarettes, soda, junk food, coffee, or other unhealthy addictions.
• Become an early riser.
• Write in your journal every day.
• Call a different family member, friend, or business contact every day.
• Make 25 sales calls every day to solicit new business. Professional speaker Mike Ferry did this five days a week for two years, even on days when he was giving seminars. He credits this habit with helping build his business to over $10 million in annual sales. If you make 1300 sales calls a year, you’re going to get some decent business no matter how bad your sales skills are. You can generalize this habit to any kind of marketing work, like building new links to your web site.
• Write a new blog entry every day.
• Read for an hour a day on a subject that interests you.
• Meditate every day.
• Learn a new vocabulary word every day.
• Go for a long walk every day.

Again, don’t think that you need to continue any of these habits beyond 30 days. Think of the benefits you’ll gain from those 30 days alone. You can re-assess after the trial period. You’re certain to grow just from the experience, even if it’s temporary.

The power of this approach lies in its simplicity. Even though doing a certain activity every single day may be less efficient than following a more complicated schedule — weight training is a good example because adequate rest is a key component — you’ll often be more likely to stick with the daily habit. When you commit to doing something every single day without exception, you can’t rationalize or justify missing a day, nor can you promise to make it up later by reshuffling your schedule.

Give trials a try. If you’re ready to commit to one right now, please feel free to post a comment and share your goal for the next 30 days. If there’s enough interest, then perhaps we can do a group postmortem around May 20th to see how it went for everyone. I’ll even do it with you. Mine will be to go running or biking for at least 25 minutes or do a minimum 60-minute hike in the mountains every day for 30 days. The weather here in Vegas has been great lately, so it’s a nice time for me to get back to exercising outdoors.

Self-Discipline

June 5th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

This week I’ll be blogging a series on self-discipline. New posts on this topic will appear every day Mon-Fri. I’ve also added a new self-discipline category.

I’ve already written about 20 pages on self-discipline for my upcoming book, including what it is and how to develop it. I’ll share some of those ideas in this series, focusing on what I call the five pillars of self-discipline.

The Five Pillars of Self-Discipline

The five pillars of self-discipline are: Acceptance, Willpower, Hard Work, Industry, and Persistence. If you take the first letter of each word, you get the acronym “A WHIP” — a convenient way to remember them, since many people associate self-discipline with whipping themselves into shape.

Each day of the series, I’ll explore one of these pillars, explaining why it’s important and how to develop it. But first a general overview….

What Is Self-Discipline?

Self-discipline is the ability to get yourself to take action regardless of your emotional state.

Imagine what you could accomplish if you could simply get yourself to follow through on your best intentions no matter what. Picture yourself saying to your body, “You’re overweight. Lose 20 pounds.” Without self-discipline that intention won’t become manifest. But with sufficient self-discipline, it’s a done deal. The pinnacle of self-discipline is when you reach the point that when you make a conscious decision, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll follow through on it.

Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Within the domain of problems it can solve, self-discipline is simply unmatched. Moreover, it becomes a powerful teammate when combined with other tools like passion, goal-setting, and planning.

Building Self-Discipline

My philosophy of how to build self-discipline is best explained by an analogy. Self-discipline is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger you become. The less you train it, the weaker you become.

Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. Everyone has some — if you can hold your breath a few seconds, you have some self-discipline. But not everyone has developed their discipline to the same degree.

Just as it takes muscle to build muscle, it takes self-discipline to build self-discipline.

The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest.

Similarly, the basic method to build self-discipline is to tackle challenges that you can successfully accomplish but which are near your limit. This doesn’t mean trying something and failing at it every day, nor does it mean staying within your comfort zone. You will gain no strength trying to lift a weight that you cannot budge, nor will you gain strength lifting weights that are too light for you. You must start with weights/challenges that are within your current ability to lift but which are near your limit.

Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge. If you keep working out with the same weights, you won’t get any stronger. Similarly, if you fail to challenge yourself in life, you won’t gain any more self-discipline.

Just as most people have very weak muscles compared to how strong they could become with training, most people are very weak in their level of self-discipline.

It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistently starting the very next day, you’re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.

If you can only lift 10 lbs, you can only lift 10 lbs. There’s no shame in starting where you are. I recall when I began working with a personal trainer several years ago, on my first attempt at doing a barbell shoulder press, I could only lift a 7-lb bar with no weight on it. My shoulders were very weak because I’d never trained them. But within a few months I was up to 60 lbs.

Similarly, if you’re very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that were once impossible for you will eventually seem like child’s play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter.

Don’t compare yourself to other people. It won’t help. You’ll only find what you expect to find. If you think you’re weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you’re strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There’s no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward.

Let’s consider an example.

Suppose you want to develop the ability to do 8 solid hours of work each day, since you know it will make a real difference in your career. I was listening to an audio program this morning that quoted a study saying the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. So there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Perhaps you try to work a solid 8-hour day without succumbing to distractions, and you can only do it once. The next day you fail utterly. That’s OK. You did one rep of 8 hours. Two is too much for you. So cut back a bit. What duration would allow you to successfully do 5 reps (i.e. a whole week)? Could you work with concentration for one hour a day, five days in a row? If you can’t do that, cut back to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If you succeed (or if you feel that would be too easy), then increase the challenge (i.e. the resistance).

Once you’ve mastered a week at one level, take it up a notch the next week. And continue with this progressive training until you’ve reached your goal.

While analogies like this are never perfect, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this one. By raising the bar just a little each week, you stay within your capabilities and grow stronger over time. But when doing weight training, the actual work you do doesn’t mean anything. There’s no intrinsic benefit in lifting a weight up and down — the benefit comes from the muscle growth. However, when building self-discipline, you also get the benefit of the work you’ve done along the way, so that’s even better. It’s great when your training produces something of value AND makes you stronger.

Throughout this week we’ll dive more deeply into the five pillars of self-discipline. If you have any questions on the subject of self-discipline (either specific or general) that you’d like to see addressed, feel free to post them as comments, and I do my best to incorporate them along the way.

Self-Discipline: Acceptance

June 6th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

The first of the five pillars of self-discipline is acceptance. Acceptance means that you perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what you perceive.

This may sound simple and obvious, but in practice it’s extremely difficult. If you experience chronic difficulties in a particular area of your life, there’s a strong chance that the root of the problem is a failure to accept reality as it is.

Why is acceptance a pillar of self-discipline? The most basic mistake people make with respect to self-discipline is a failure to accurately perceive and accept their present situation. Remember the analogy between self-discipline and weight training from yesterday’s post? If you’re going to succeed at weight training, the first step is to figure out what weights you can already lift. How strong are you right now? Until you figure out where you stand right now, you cannot adopt a sensible training program.

If you haven’t consciously acknowledged where you stand right now in terms of your level of self-discipline, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to improve at all in this area. Imagine a would-be bodybuilder who has no idea how much weight s/he can lift and arbitrarily adopts a training routine. It’s virtually certain that the chosen weights will be either too heavy or too light. If the weights are too heavy, the trainee won’t be able to lift them at all and thus will experience no muscle growth. And if the weights are too light, the trainee will lift them easily but won’t build any muscle in doing so.

Similarly, if you want to increase your self-discipline, you must know where you stand right now. How strong is your discipline at this moment? Which challenges are easy for you, and which are virtually impossible for you?

Here’s a list of challenges to get you thinking about where you stand right now (in no particular order):

• Do you shower/bathe every day?
• Do you get up at the same time every morning? Including weekends?
• Are you overweight?
• Do you have any addictions (caffeine, nicotine, sugar, etc.) you’d like to break but haven’t?
• Is your email inbox empty right now?
• Is your office neat and well organized?
• Is your home neat and well organized?
• How much time do you waste in a typical day? On a weekend?
• If you make a promise to someone, what’s the percentage chance you’ll keep it?
• If you make a promise to yourself, what’s the percentage chance you’ll keep it?
• Could you fast for one day?
• How well organized is your computer’s hard drive?
• How often do you exercise?
• What’s the greatest physical challenge you’ve ever faced, and how long ago was it?
• How many hours of focused work do you complete in a typical workday?
• How many items on your to do list are older than 90 days?
• Do you have clear, written goals? Do you have written plans to achieve them?
• If you lost your job, how much time would you spend each day looking for a new one, and how long would you maintain that level of effort?
• How much TV do you currently watch? Could you give up TV for 30 days?
• How do you look right now? What does your appearance say about your level of discipline (clothes, grooming, etc)?
• Do you primarily select foods to eat based on health considerations or on taste/satiety?
• When was the last time you consciously adopted a positive new habit? Discontinued a bad habit?
• Are you in debt? Do you consider this debt an investment or a mistake?
• Did you decide in advance to be reading this blog right now, or did it just happen?
• Can you tell me what you’ll be doing tomorrow? Next weekend?
• On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your overall level of self-discipline?
• What more could you accomplish if you could answer that last question with a 9 or 10?

Just as there are different muscle groups which you train with different exercises, there are different areas of self-discipline: disciplined sleep, disciplined diet, disciplined work habits, disciplined communication, etc. It takes different exercises to build discipline in each area.

My advice is to identify an area where your discipline is weakest, assess where you stand right now, acknowledge and accept your starting point, and design a training program for yourself to improve in this area. Start out with some easy exercises you know you can do, and gradually progress to greater challenges.

Progressive training works with self-discipline just as it does with building muscle. For example, if you can barely get out of bed at 10am, are you likely to succeed at waking up at 5am every morning? Probably not. But could you master getting up at 9:45am? Very likely. And once you’ve done that, could you progress to 9:30 or 9:15? Sure. When I started getting up at 5am consistently, I had already done it several times for a few days in a row, and my normal wake-up time was 6-6:30am, so that next step was challenging but achievable for me partly because I was already within range of it.

Without acceptance you get either ignorance or denial. With ignorance you simply don’t know how disciplined you are — you’ve probably never even thought about it. You don’t know that you don’t know. You’ll only have a fuzzy notion of what you can and can’t do. You’ll experience some easy successes and some dismal failures, but you’re more likely to blame the task or blame yourself instead of simply acknowledging that the “weight” was too heavy for you and that you need to become stronger.

When you’re in a state of denial about your level of discipline, you’re locked into a false view of reality. You’re either overly pessimistic or optimistic about your capabilities. And like the trainee who doesn’t know his/her own strength, you won’t get much better because it’s unlikely you’ll be able to hit the proper training zone by accident. On the pessimistic side, you’ll only pick up easy weights and avoid the heavy ones which you could actually lift and which would make you stronger. And on the optimistic side, you’ll keep trying to lift weights that are too heavy for you and failing, and afterwards you may either beat yourself up or resolve to try harder, neither of which will make you stronger.

I have personally reaped tremendous benefits from pursuing the path of self-discipline. When I was 20 years old, I lived in a small studio apartment, and my sleep hours were something like 4am to 1pm. My diet included lots of fast food and junk food. I didn’t exercise except for sometimes taking long walks. Getting the mail seemed like a significant accomplishment each day, and the highlight of my day was hanging out with friends. At the end of a month, I couldn’t really think of many salient events that occurred during the month. I had no job, no car, no income, no goals, no plans, and no real future. All I felt I had was a lot of problems that weren’t getting any better. I had no sense that I could control my path through life. I would simply wait for things to happen and then react to them.

But eventually I faced the reality that trying to wait out my life wasn’t working. If I was going to get anywhere, I was going to have to do something about it. And initially this meant tackling a lot of difficult challenges, but I overcame them and grew a lot stronger in a short period of time.

Fast forward fourteen years, and it’s like night and day. I get up at 5am each morning. I exercise six days a week. I eat a purely vegan diet with lots of fresh vegetables. My home office is well organized. My physical inbox and my email inbox are both empty. I’m married with two kids and live in a nice house. A binder sits on my desk with my written goals and detailed plans to achieve them, and several of my 2005 goals have already been accomplished. I’ve never been more clear about what I wanted, and I’m doing what I love. I know I’m making a difference.

None of this just happened. It was intentional. And it certainly didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of years of hard work. It’s still hard work, but I’ve become a lot stronger such that things that would have been insurmountable for me at age 20 are easy today, which means I can tackle bigger challenges and therefore achieve even better results. If I had tried to do everything I’m doing now when I was 20, I would have failed utterly. 20-year old Steve wouldn’t have been able to handle it, not even for one day. But for 34-year old Steve, it’s easy. And what’s really exciting for me is to think of what 48-year old Steve will be able to accomplish… relative to my life path of course, not anyone else’s.

I AM telling you this to impress you, not with me but with yourself. I want you to be impressed by what you can accomplish over the next 5-10 years if you progressively build your self-discipline. It will not be easy, but it will be worth it. The first step is to openly accept where you are right now, whether you feel good about it or not. Surrender yourself to what you have to work with — maybe it isn’t fair, but it is what it is. And you won’t get any stronger until you accept where you are right now.

Self-Discipline: Willpower

June 7th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
- Vince Lombardi

Willpower — such a dirty word these days. How many commercials have you seen that attempt to position their products as a substitute for willpower? They begin by telling you that willpower doesn’t work and then attempt to sell you something “fast and easy” like a diet pill or some wacky exercise equipment. Often they’ll even guarantee impossible results in a dramatically short period of time — that’s a safe bet because people who lack willpower probably won’t take the time to return these useless products.

But guess what… willpower does work. But in order to take full advantage of it, you must learn what it can and cannot do. People who say willpower doesn’t work are trying to use it in a way that’s beyond its capabilities.

What Is Willpower?

Willpower is your ability to set a course of action and say, “Engage!”

Willpower provides an intensely powerful yet temporary boost. Think of it as a one-shot thruster. It burns out quickly, but if directed intelligently, it can provide the burst you need to overcome inertia and create momentum.

Willpower is the spearhead of self-discipline. To use a World War II analogy, willpower would be D-Day, the Normandy Invasion. It was the gigantic battle that turned the tide of the war and got things moving in a new direction, even though it took another year to reach VE Day (Victory in Europe). To make that kind of effort every day of the war would have been impossible.

Willpower is a concentration of force. You gather up all your energy and make a massive thrust forward. You attack your problems strategically at their weakest points until they crack, allowing you enough room to maneuver deeper into their territory and finish them off.

The application of willpower includes the following steps:

1. Choose your objective
2. Create a plan of attack
3. Execute the plan

With willpower you may take your time implementing steps 1 and 2, but when you get to step 3, you’ve got to hit it hard and fast.

Don’t try to tackle your problems and challenges in such a way that a high level of willpower is required every day. Willpower is unsustainable. If you attempt to use it for too long, you’ll burn out. It requires a level of energy that you can maintain only for a short period of time… in most cases the fuel is spent within a matter of days.

Use Willpower to Create Self-Sustaining Momentum

So if willpower can only be used in short, powerful bursts, then what’s the best way to apply it? How do you keep from slipping back into old patterns once the temporary willpower blast is over?

The best way to use willpower is to establish a beachhead, such that further progress can be made with far less effort than is required of the initial thrust. Remember D-Day — once the Allies had established a beachhead, the road ahead was much easier for them. It was still challenging to be sure, especially with the close quarters fighting among hedge rows in France before the Rhino Tanks began plowing through them, but it was a lot easier than trying to maintain the focus, energy, and coordination of a full scale beach invasion every single day for another year.

So the proper use of willpower is to establish that beachhead — to permanently change the territory itself such that it’s easier to continue moving on. Use willpower to reduce the ongoing need for such a high level of sustained force.

An Example

Let’s put all of the above together into a concrete example.

Suppose your objective is to lose 20 pounds. You attempt to go on a diet. It takes willpower, and you do OK with it the first week. But within a few weeks you’ve fallen back into old habits and gained all the weight back. You try again with different diets, but the result is still the same. You can’t sustain momentum for long enough to reach your goal weight.

That’s to be expected though because willpower is temporary. It’s for sprints, not marathons. Willpower requires conscious focus, and conscious focus is very draining — it cannot be maintained for long. Something will eventually distract you.

Here’s how to tackle that same goal with the proper application of willpower. You accept that you can only apply a short burst of willpower… maybe a few days at best. After that it’s gone. So you’d better use that willpower to alter the territory around you in such a way that maintaining momentum won’t be as hard as building it in the first place. You need to use your willpower to establish a beachhead on the shores of your goal.

So you sit down and make a plan. This doesn’t require much energy, and you can spread the work out over many days.

You identify all the various targets you’ll need to strike if you want to have a chance of success. First, all the junk food needs to leave your kitchen, including anything you have a tendency to overeat, and you need to replace it with foods that will help you lose weight, like fruits and veggies. Secondly, you know you’ll be tempted to get fast food if you come home hungry and don’t have anything ready to eat, so you decide to pre-cook a week’s worth of food in advance each weekend. That way you always have something in the refrigerator. You set aside a block of several hours each weekend to buy groceries and cook all your food for the week. Plus you get a decent cookbook of healthy recipes. You learn about Weight Watchers, and find out where the closest one is to you, so you can go to the first meeting and sign-up. Setup a weight chart and post it on your bathroom wall. Get a decent scale that can measure weight and body fat %. Make a list of sample meals (5 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 5 dinners), and post it on your refrigerator. And so on…. At this point all of this goes into the written plan.

Then you execute — hard and fast. You can probably implement the whole plan in one day. Attend your first Weight Watchers meeting and get all the materials. Purge the unhealthy food from the kitchen. Buy the new groceries, the new cookbook, and the new scale. Post the weight chart and the sample meals list. Select recipes and cook a batch of food for the week. Whew!

By the end of the day, you’ve used your willpower not to diet directly but to establish the conditions that will make your diet easier to follow. When you wake up the next morning, you’ll find your environment dramatically changed in accordance with your plan. Your fridge will be stocked with plenty of pre-cooked healthy food for you to eat. There won’t be any junkie problem foods in your home. You’ll be a member of Weight Watchers and will have weekly meetings to attend. You’ll have a regular block of time set aside for grocery shopping and food prep. It will still require some discipline to follow your diet, but you’ve already changed things so much that it won’t be nearly as difficult as it would be without these changes.

Here are some previous blog entries that will give you even more ideas for modifying your environment:
Environmental Reinforce of Your Goals
Are Your Friends an Elevator or a Cage?
Your Personal Accountability System

Don’t use willpower to attack your biggest problem directly. Use willpower to attack the environmental and social obstacles that perpetuate the problem. Establish a beachhead first, and then fortify your position (i.e. turn it into a habit, such as by doing a 30-Day Challenge). Habit puts action on autopilot, such that very little willpower is required for ongoing progress, allowing you to practically coast towards your goal.

Self-Discipline: Hard Work

June 8th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.
- Oprah Winfrey

Hard work — yet another dirty word.

Hard Work Defined

My definition of hard work is that which challenges you.

And why is challenge important? Why not just do what’s easiest?

Most people will do what’s easiest and avoid hard work — and that’s precisely why you should do the opposite. The superficial opportunities of life will be attacked by hordes of people seeking what’s easy. The much tougher challenges will usually see a lot less competition and a lot more opportunity.

There’s an African gold mine two miles deep. It cost tens of millions of dollars to construct, but it’s one of the most lucrative gold mines ever. These miners tackled a very challenging problem with a lot of hard work, but ultimately it’s paying off.

I remember when I was developing the PC game Dweep in 1999, I spent four months full-time working to create a design doc that was only five pages long. It was a logic puzzle game, and I found it extremely challenging to get the design just right. After the design was done, everything else took only two more months — programming, artwork, music, sound effects, writing the installer, and launching the game.

I spent all this time intentionally working on design because at the time, I believed this was where I could get the competitive edge I needed. I knew I couldn’t compete on the basis of the game’s technical attributes. Before I started on the game, I surveyed the competition and found a lot of games that I considered “low hanging fruit.” Most of the market was flooded with clones of older games, the kind of stuff that’s easiest to make. And most of my early games were short on design as well, mostly aim-and-shoot arcade games.

It was much, much harder to design an original game with unique gameplay. But it paid off handsomely. Dweep won the Shareware Industry Award in 2000, and an improved version of the game (Dweep Gold) won that same award the following year. As a result of the success of that game, I was interviewed by a reporter for the New York Times, and my interview along with a nice photo appeared in the June 13, 2001 edition (business section). First released on June 1, 1999, Dweep is now beginning its 7th year of sales. It can’t compete with today’s technology. It couldn’t compete on technology when it was first released. But it still competes well on design with the best of the other competitors in its field. I discovered there are a lot of players who prefer a well-designed game with dated graphics than a shallow light show with the latest technology. The long-term success of this game brought home the lesson that hard work does pay.

There’s no way Dweep would have been able to hold out this long if I had taken the easy way out during the design phase. I dug for gold two miles deep, so it was much harder for anyone else to unseat the game from its position in the market. In order to do that, they’d have to outdig me, and very few people are willing to do that because creative game design is excruciatingly difficult. Everyone says they have a cool game idea, but to actually turn it into something workable, fun, and innovative is very hard work. When I look at other games that are successful over a period of 5+ years, I consistently see a willingness to take on hard work that others aren’t willing to tackle. And yet today the market is even more overcrowded with cloned drivel than when I started.

Strong challenge is commonly connected with strong results. Sure you can get lucky every once in a while and find an easy path to success. But will you be able to maintain that success, or is it just a fluke? Will you be able to repeat it? Once other people learn how you did it, will you find yourself overloaded with competition?

When you discipline yourself to do what is hard, you gain access to a realm of results that are denied everyone else. The willingness to do what is difficult is like having a key to a special private treasure room.

The nice thing about hard work is that it’s universal. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in — hard work can be used to achieve positive long-term results regardless of the specifics.

I’m using this same philosophy in building this personal development business. I do a lot of things that are hard. I try to address topics that other people don’t and bypass the low hanging fruit. I strive to explore topics deeply and search for the gold. I do lots of reading and research. I write lengthy articles and give my best ideas away for free, so I’m constantly forced to better my best. I launched this business in October of last year and have been working on it full time for essentially no pay.

Meanwhile I’m working hard in Toastmasters to build my speaking skills (my one-year anniversary was June 2nd). I belong to two different clubs and attend 6-7 meetings per month. I became a club officer about a month after joining, and I was just elected to a second officer position. I’ve given many speeches, all of them for free. I’ve competed in every speech contest since I’ve joined. If I had put all this time into my games business, I’d have a lot more money right now. It’s a lot of hard work, and I’ve probably got at least another year of training before I’m ready to go pro. But I’m willing to pay the price whatever it takes. I’m not going to take the easy path to a shallow position where I will only come crashing back down again. I won’t get up on a stage and spout a bunch of fluffy self-help sound bites that still garner applause and a paycheck but which don’t ultimately help anyone. If it takes years, it takes years.

I’m taking the same approach to writing my book. It’s a lot of hard work. But I want this to be the kind of book that people will still be reading 10 years from now. Writing a book like this is at least 10x harder than the kinds of books I see dominating the psychology section of bookstores today. But most of those books will be off the shelves in a year, and few people will even remember them.

Hard work pays off. When someone tells you otherwise, beware the sales pitch for something “fast and easy” that’s about to come next. The greater your capacity for hard work, the more rewards fall within your grasp. The deeper you can dig, the more treasure you can potentially find.

Being healthy is hard work. Finding and maintaining a successful relationship is hard work. Raising kids is hard work. Getting organized is hard work. Setting goals, making plans to achieve them, and staying on track is hard work. Even being happy is hard work (true happiness that comes from high self-esteem, not the fake kind that comes from denial and escapism).

Hard work goes hand-in-hand with acceptance. One of the things you must accept are those areas of your life that won’t succumb to anything less than hard work. Perhaps you’ve had no luck finding a fulfilling relationship. Maybe the only way it’s going to happen is if you accept you’re going to have to do what you’ve been avoiding. Perhaps you want to lose weight. Maybe it’s time to accept that the path to your goal requires disciplined diet and exercise (both hard work). Perhaps you want to increase your income. Maybe you should accept that the only way it will happen is with a lot of hard work.

Your life will reach a whole new level when you stop avoiding and fearing hard work and simply surrender to it. Make it your ally instead of your enemy. It’s a potent tool to have on your side.

If you want to read another perspective on hard work, here’s an older post about it:
Hard Work

Self-Discipline: Industry

June 9th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

Industry is working hard. In contrast to hard work, being industrious doesn’t necessarily mean doing work that’s challenging or difficult. It simply means putting in the time. You can be industrious doing easy work or hard work.

Imagine you have a baby. You’ll spend a lot of time changing diapers. But that isn’t really hard work — it’s just a matter of doing it over and over many times each day.

In life there are many tasks that aren’t necessarily difficult, but they collectively require a significant time investment. If you don’t discipline yourself to stay on top of them, they can make a big mess of your life. Just think of all the little things you need to do: shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taxes, paying bills, home maintenance, childcare, etc. And this is just for home — if you include work the list grows even longer. These things may not reach your A-list for importance, but they still need to be done.

Self-discipline requires that you develop the capacity to put in the time where it’s needed. A lot of messes are created when we refuse to put in the time to do what needs to be done — and to do it correctly. Such messes range from a messy desk or cluttered email inbox all the way down to an Enron or Worldcom. Big mess or small mess — take your pick. Either way a significant contributing factor is the refusal to do what needs to be done.

Sometimes it’s clear what needs to be done. Sometimes it isn’t clear at all. But ignoring the mess won’t help no matter what. If you don’t know what needs to be done, the first step is to figure it out. This may require you to seek out information and educate yourself. In order to launch this blog last year, I had to figure out how to do it. I took time to educate myself by reading other blogs and evaluating various blogging tools. It wasn’t difficult for me, but it required a significant time investment.

Sometimes we allow little annoyances to linger a bit too long. In January my wife and I bought a new house. But it was only last weekend we finally unpacked the last box. We did most of the unpacking in the first few weeks after the move, but a couple boxes were shoved into a corner, and neither one of us wanted to unpack them. Why? We didn’t know where to put the stuff they contained. It seemed simplest to just ignore the problem and hope the boxes would magically unpack themselves. Finally we got them unpacked last weekend and took care of a few other home repairs that had been on the back burner as well.

It wasn’t difficult or costly to do these things. It was simply a matter of time to get them done. It didn’t require much skill or brainpower. All we had to do was just accept that they needed to be done, take a few minutes to figure out how to do them, and then do them.

Put in the Time

There are many problems in life where the solution is largely a brainless time investment. If your email inbox is overloaded, this is not a challenging problem. Believe me — there are bigger challenges in life than handling old correspondence. I guarantee you have the brainpower to handle it. Getting your email inbox to empty is purely a matter of time. Maybe it will take you several hours to do it. If it’s worth several hours to get it done, then put in the time. Maybe enjoy some relaxing music as you do. Otherwise just hit Ctrl-A followed by Delete, and be done with it.

How many problems do you have on your to do list right now that can be solved with the simple application of industry? Sometimes you don’t need to be particularly creative or clever about it — a brute force solution will do. But it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of wishing that a brute force solution wasn’t necessary. It’s tedious. It’s boring. It’s not that important anyway. And yet it still needs to be done.

By all means if you can find a way to avoid a time-consuming solution and find a faster or better way to bypass or eliminate the problem, take advantage of it. Delegate it, delete it — do whatever you can to remove the time burden. But if you know it’s something that won’t get done except via your personal time investment, like the ornery boxes in my home that refused to self-unpack, then just accept it and get it off your plate. Don’t complain. Don’t whine. Just do it.

Develop Your Personal Productivity

Disciplining yourself to be industrious allows you to squeeze more value out of your time. Time is a constant, but your personal productivity is not. Some people will use the hours of their day far more efficiently than others. It’s amazing that people will spend extra money to buy a faster computer or a fuel efficient car, but they’ll barely pay any attention to their personal capacity. Your personal productivity will do a lot more for you than a computer or a car in the long run. Give an industrious programmer a 10-year old computer, and s/he’ll get much more done with it over the course of a year than a lazy programmer with state of the art technology.

Despite all the technology and gadgets we have available that can potentially make us more efficient, your personal productivity is still your greatest bottleneck. Don’t look to technology to make you more productive. If you don’t consider yourself productive without technology, you won’t be productive with it — it will only serve to mask your bad habits. But if you’re already industrious without technology, it can help you become even more so. Think of technology as a force multiplier — it multiplies what you already are.

If you want to make better use of your time, I recommend you begin with the approach in this article:
Triple Your Personal Productivity

The basic idea behind the article is to first measure your current level of productivity (the article explains how to do this via time logging), measure your current “efficiency ratio,” and then gradually ramp it up.

I first wrote that article in 2000, and I’ve continually come back to this method again and again, at least once every six months. It makes me consciously aware of exactly how I use my time. I last applied it a few months ago, tracking my time usage over a period of several days, and I was surprised to find that there was little room for improvement. It took me five years since writing that article to reach this point, but I finally feel I’m using my time efficiently. I still have unproductive days now and then, but they’re the exception. Most of the time I look back on my days and think, “I really got a lot done today. It would be hard to have done it any better.”

Five years ago I knew what I needed to do. It took me that long to build the strength and discipline to be able to do it on a consistent basis. THIS WAS NOT EASY!

When you pursue the path of developing your personal productivity, it may cause you some days of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing, but it does eventually pay off. I think many people are attracted to the idea of becoming more productive out of basic common sense. It doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out that if you use your time more efficiently, you’ll complete more tasks, and therefore you’ll accumulate results faster. Personal productivity allows you to create enough space in your life to do all the things you feel you should be doing: eat healthy, exercise, work hard, deepen relationships, have a wonderful social life, and make a difference. Otherwise, something has to give. Without a high level of personal productivity, you’ll likely have to give up something that’s important to you. You have conflicts between health and work, work and family, family and friends. Industry can give you the ability to enjoy all of these things, so you don’t have to choose work over family or vice versa. You can have both.

Of course industry is only one tool among many. It will allow you to complete your work efficiently, but it won’t tell you what work to do in the first place. Industry is a low level tool. Working hard doesn’t necessarily mean working smart. But this weakness of industry doesn’t remove its powerful place in your personal development toolbox. Once you’ve decided on a course of action and see your plans laid out in front of you, nothing can do the job as well as industry. In the long run your results will come from your actions, and industry is all about action.

Self-Discipline: Persistence

June 10th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
- Calvin Coolidge

Persistence is the fifth and final pillar of self-discipline.

What Is Persistence?

Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting.

When you work on any big goal, your motivation will wax and wane like waves hitting the shore. Sometimes you’ll feel motivated; sometimes you won’t. But it’s not your motivation that will produce results — it’s your action. Persistence allows you to keep taking action even when you don’t feel motivated to do so, and therefore you keep accumulating results.

Persistence will ultimately provide its own motivation. If you simply keep taking action, you’ll eventually get results, and results can be very motivating. For example, you may become a lot more enthusiastic about dieting and exercising once you’ve lost those first 10 pounds and feel your clothes fitting more loosely.

When to Give Up

Should you always persist and never give up? Certainly not. Sometimes giving up is clearly the best option.

Have you ever heard of a company called Traf-O-Data? What about Microsoft? Both companies were started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Traf-O-Data was the first company they started, back in 1972. You can read the story of Traf-O-Data here. Gates and Allen ran it for several years before throwing in the towel. They gave up. Of course they did a little better with Microsoft.

If they hadn’t given up on Traf-O-Data, then we wouldn’t have such rich collections of Microsoft and Bill Gates jokes today.

So how do you know when to press on vs. when to give up?

Is your plan still correct? If not, update the plan. Is your goal still correct? If not, update or abandon your goal. There’s no honor in clinging to a goal that no longer inspires you. Persistence is not stubbornness.

This was a particularly difficult lesson for me to learn. I had always believed one should never give up, that once you set a goal, you should hang on to the bitter end. The captain goes down with the ship and all that. If I ever failed to finish a project I started, I’d feel very guilty about it.

Eventually I figured out that this is just nonsense.

If you’re growing at all as a human being, then you’re going to be a different person each year than you were the previous year. And if you consciously pursue personal development, then the changes will often be dramatic and rapid. You can’t guarantee that the goals you set today will still be ones you’ll want to achieve a year from now.

My first business was Dexterity Software. I started it in 1994, fresh out of college. But after running it for more than a decade, I was ready for something new. I still run Dexterity on the side, but it’s not my full-time focus anymore. It takes me only about an hour or two a week to maintain it, partly because I designed it to be as automated as possible and to provide me with a passive income. It was successful to the extent I wanted it to be. I could have continued to grow it much larger, but I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life making computer games. Creating my own game company was my dream at age 22, and after publishing a couple dozen games, I feel I accomplished that goal. 22-year old Steve is very satisfied. But today I have different dreams.

Did I give up on Dexterity? You could say that, but it would be more accurate to say that I was infected by a new vision of something that was far more important to me. Had I stubbornly persisted with Dexterity, this site would never have existed. I’d be working on a new game instead of my first book.

In order to make room for new goals, we have to delete or complete old ones. And sometimes new goals are so compelling and inspiring that there’s no time to complete old ones — they have to be abandoned half-finished. I’ve always found it uncomfortable to do this, but I know it’s necessary. The hard part is consciously deciding to delete an old project, knowing it will never be finished. I have a file full of game ideas and some prototypes for new games that will never see the light of day. Consciously deciding that those projects have to be abandoned was really hard for me. It took me a long time to come to grips with it. But it was necessary for my own growth to be able to do this.

I still had to solve the problem of setting goals that might become obsolete in a year due to my own personal growth. How did I solve this problem? I cheated. I figured out the only way I could set long-term goals that would stick would be if they were aligned with my own process of growth. The pursuit of personal growth has long been a stable constant for me, even though it’s paradoxically in flux at the same time. So instead of trying to set fixed goals as I did with my games business, I began setting broader more dynamic goals that were aligned with my own growth. This new business allows me to pursue my personal growth full-out and to share what I learn with others. So growth itself is the goal, both for myself and others. This creates a symbiotic relationship, whereby helping others feeds back into my own growth, which in turn generates new ideas for helping others. Anyone who’s been reading this site since last year has probably seen that effect in action.

The direct and conscious pursuit of personal growth is the only type of mission that would work for me. If I made it my mission to master real estate investing, for example, I’d probably become bored with it after a few years. Since I want to keep growing indefinitely, I have to maintain a certain level of challenge and keep raising the bar ever higher. I can’t let things get too dull and risk falling into a pattern of complacency.

The value of persistence comes not from stubbornly clinging to the past. It comes from a vision of the future that’s so compelling you would give almost anything to make it real. The vision I have of my future now is far greater than the one I had for Dexterity. To be able to help people grow and to solve their most difficult problems is far more inspiring to me than entertaining people. These values started oozing out of me as I ran Dexterity because I favored logic puzzle games that challenged people to think, often passing up the opportunity to publish games I felt would make money but which wouldn’t provide much real value to people.

Persistence of action comes from persistence of vision. When you’re super-clear about what you want in such a way that your vision doesn’t change much, you’ll be consistent in your actions. And that consistency of action will produce consistency of results.

Can you identify a part of your life where you’ve demonstrated a pattern of long-term persistence? I think if you can identify such an area, it may provide a clue to your mission — something you can work towards where passion and self-discipline function synergistically.

Tâm vũ trụ : Chương1- Vũ trụ và Tâm Vũ Trụ

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TÂM

VŨ TRỤ

TẬP MỘT

LỜI NÓI ĐẦU

Triết học với tư cách là một khoa học nghiên cứu những quy luật chung nhất của tự nhiên, xã hội và tư duy do đó đối với mỗi cá nhân, triết học là triết lý sống, là khởi nguồn của đạo đức, là khởi nguồn của niềm tin và là khởi nguồn của ý chí.

Một dòng họ được xem như có “đạo hàm dương" về sự phát triển là gia phong của dòng họ đó có “đạo hàm dương" hay không. Mà gia phong lại được xây dựng từ triết học mà dòng họ đó tin tưởng.

Đối với một dân tộc, triết học sinh ra các phương thức để xây dựng nhà nước, quân đội, pháp luật v.v... Một dân tộc mạnh hay yếu trước hết phải đánh giá bằng thứ triết học của chính dân tộc mình.

Ngay cả khi phải tiếp thu một triết học từ bên ngoài để làm triết học thống trị cả dân tộc thì bản thân dân tộc đó cũng phải có một triết học của riêng mình để với tư thế của người có chính kiến mời khách vào đàm đạo.

Triết học của một dân tộc đẻ ra bản sắc của dân tộc đó. Triết học của một dòng họ sinh ra gia phong, nề nếp của dòng họ đó. Triết học của một cá nhân sinh ra niềm tin, tình yêu, đạo đức và ý chí của cá nhân đó.

Dân tộc Việt Nam suốt 4000 năm lịch sử vẫn chưa có một triết học được viết thành văn mặc dù triết học của người Việt đã có từ thời các vua Hùng. Điều này khiến tác giả, một người con của đất Việt, quyết tâm xây dựng một triết học cho chính dòng họ mình, cho chính dân tộc mình.

Sau 10 năm nghiền ngẫm tác giả đã xây dựng xong triết học Tâm Vũ trụ. Trong thời gian đó tác giả ngắt hết thông tin về triết học để không bị chi phối bởi bất kỳ tư tưởng nào.

Tác giả quyết định hiến dâng cho dòng họ Đỗ, dòng họ Phạm và dân tộc Việt Nam triết học Tâm Vũ trụ của mình. Mong rằng các cụ, các ông, các bà, các bác, các chú, anh, em, con, cháu bổ sung vào cho đầy đủ và hoàn chỉnh để cho dân tộc ta có một triết học của riêng mình.

Trong quyển sách mỏng này, công cụ mà tác giả dùng để diễn đạt là Toán học và Triết học. Xin nhấn mạnh là tác giả chỉ mượn phương pháp tiên đề và lý thuyết tập hợp của toán học như một xúc tác, như một sự gợi mở cho những ý tưởng sâu xa về triết học của bạn đọc chứ không dùng nó một cách khiên cưỡng, máy móc. Để đọc quyển sách này, bạn đọc không cần phải chuẩn bị bất kỳ kiến thức nào khác ngoài một tư duy vững vàng về toán học và một chút hiểu biết về lý thuyết tập hợp.

Hà Nội, 24-7-2000

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CHƯƠNG 1

VŨ TRỤ VÀ TÂM VŨ TRỤ

Trong Thời đại hiện nay, sự đan xen giữa các khoa học là một hiện tượng phổ biến. Chúng ta đã chứng kiến sự ra đời của nhiều ngành khoa học và các công trình khoa học mới mà chỉ cái tên của nó cũng đủ nói lên điều đó. Ví dụ: Lý-Sinh, Hoá Sinh, Cơ - Tin, Triết học của Toán học, Đạo của Vật lý v.v... Chính tại những miền giao khác trống của những ngành khoa học đó đã nẩy sinh những vấn đề mới, những ý tưởng mới.

Triết học và Toán học cũng không nằm ngoài trào lưu đó. Trong chương này và các chương sau chúng tôi trình bầy khái niệm Vũ trụ và Tâm Vũ trụ bằng Toán học và Triết học.

Chương 1 là chương rất quan trọng vì nó là cơ sở cho những chương sau. Chương 1 gồm ba phần: Vũ trụ, Tâm Vũ trụ và Kết luận. Chương này đã được công bố trên tạp chí Triết học tháng 1 năm 2003. Phần Tâm Vũ trụ là phần trọng tâm của chương 1.

1. VŨ TRỤ

Trước khi đưa ra những tiên đề, định lý, và hệ quả về Vũ trụ chúng ta phải xây dựng được các khái niệm cơ bản. Các khái niệm này như là vật mang tin. Nó giống như chữ viết và ký hiệu để diễn đạt một ngôn ngữ. Tuy nhiên, nội dung thông tin chứa trong chúng là vô hạn, đến mức mà cùng với sự phát triển của lý thuyết chính những khái niệm cơ bản này cũng thay đổi. Mặc dù vậy, vận tốc của sự thay đổi này là nhỏ hơn nhiều lần sự thay đổi của các tiên đề, các định lý. Nói một cách khác, chúng “ổn định” hơn các tiên đề, định lý và chúng ta có thể "cứng hoá" các khái niệm đó.

Ta sẽ bắt đầu bằng khái niệm Đối tượng. Đối tượng dùng để chỉ mọi thứ: bát cơm, manh áo, con người, trái đất, hệ mặt trời, thiên hà, ý nghĩ, học thuyết, xã hội, một chính thể, v.v... Khái niệm Đối tượng có tác dụng tạo ra một sự khu biệt trong tư duy khi ta xét đến một vật, một thực thể, một khái niệm, một hệ thống, v.v... nào đó.

Tiếp theo là khái niệm Tập hợp. Đầu tiên ta tạm hiểu nó như khái niệm tập hợp của Toán học nhưng luôn nhớ rằng ý nghĩa của nó sâu sắc hơn nhiều. Tập hợp các học sinh trong lớp 9A, tập hợp các nhà triết học trên Trái đất, v.v... là các ví dụ về tập hợp. Các thuật ngữ thuộc, các toán tử giao, hợp, phần bù v.v... trước hết hãy tạm hiểu như trong lý thuyết tập hợp và luôn nhớ nó có ý nghĩa sâu sắc hơn.

Khái niệm Vô cùng dùng để chỉ sự vô biên, vô tận, không bờ bến, không bị hạn chế v.v...

Duy nhất là khái niệm chỉ sự: chỉ có một không có hai.

Tiếp theo là khái niệm Vận động. Vận động có thể hiểu như sự đổi chỗ trong không gian và thời gian, sự thay đổi trong các phản ứng hoá học, sự phát triển hoặc suy thoái của một quốc gia, một học thuyết hoặc một chính thể. Nó chỉ sự sinh trưởng hoặc chết đi của một sinh vật, sự thay đổi trong tư duy của một con người, v.v...

Cùng với sự vận động còn có khái niệm Vận tốc, Gia tốc, v.v…

Vận tốc trước hết hãy hiểu như là đạo hàm bậc nhất và Gia tốc như đạo hàm bậc hai của "quãng đường” theo “thời gian”. Ở đây “quãng đường” và "thời gian" không nên hiểu đơn thuần là độ dài và thời gian vật lý mà nó có ý nghĩa sâu sắc hơn nhiều.

Mối liên hệ dùng để chỉ sự ràng buộc, liên hệ, hàm, ánh xạ, toán tử, quan hệ, v.v…

Như vậy ta đã trình bầy một số khái niệm cơ bản. Nội dung thông tin chứa trong các khái niệm cơ bản là vô hạn, bởi thế không nên hy vọng có thể hiểu được ngay tức thì. Ý nghĩa của chúng sẽ hiện dần ra cùng lý thuyết.

Ta sẽ bắt đầu bằng việc đưa ra một định nghĩa khẳng định quan niệm của chúng ta về Vũ trụ.

Định nghĩa 1.1:

Vũ trụ là hợp của mọi đối tượng.

Định nghĩa này hết sức cơ bản. Rõ ràng ở đây, khái niệm Vũ trụ của chúng ta rộng lớn hơn nhiều khái niệm Vũ trụ của Thiên văn học, Vật lý học. Như sau này chúng ta sẽ thấy, các đối tượng trong Vũ trụ không phải chỉ là những đối tượng rời rạc nằm cạnh nhau mà giữa chúng có những mối liên hệ chằng chịt và chính những mối liên hệ này đã liên kết các đối tượng khác nhau, thậm chí tưởng chừng đối nghịch nhau trong Vũ trụ để tạo nên một Vũ trụ hiện tồn.

Tiếp theo ta sẽ thừa nhận hai tiên đề mà hầu như mọi triết học đều công nhận.

Tiên đề 1.1

Vũ trụ là vô cùng.

Tiên đề này khẳng định Vũ trụ là vô cùng vô tận, không có biên giới. Đi theo bất cứ chiều nào, xét bất cứ lát cắt nào của Vũ trụ cũng đều vô cùng vô tận. Vũ trụ không có điểm khởi đầu và không có điểm kết thúc.

Tiên đề 1.2

Mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ đều luôn luôn vận động.

Tiên đề này cho ta thấy vận động là thuộc tính của mọi đối tượng. Mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ đều vận động theo vô vàn các phương thức khác nhau.

Đến đây ta đưa ra một định lý rất quan trọng.

Định lý 1.1

Vũ trụ là duy nhất

Chứng minh: Giả sử A và B là hai Vũ trụ khác nhau. Khi đó ta chọn V = A È B thì V là Vũ trụ. Nếu chỉ ra một Vũ trụ C nào đó khác V thì ta lại lấy hợp của chúng:

V’ = V È C ... Cứ làm như vậy cuối cùng được một Vũ trụ duy nhất. (Điều phải chứng minh (đ.p.c.m)).

Theo cách chứng minh này, ta có thể hình dung ra một sự tiếp cận rất phù hợp với định nghĩa Vũ trụ và các phương pháp của nhận thức luận. Đầu tiên khi còn nằm trong bụng mẹ, Vũ trụ của chúng ta là hợp của những cơ quan nội tạng chứa dòng máu của mẹ, những sóng ý thức mà mẹ truyền đến chúng ta, v.v... Khi cất tiếng khóc chào đời, một sự nhẩy vọt, chúng ta lại dùng phép hợp một lần nữa để tạo nên một Vũ trụ mới bởi bây giờ đã có thêm những đối tượng mới: ông, bà, bố, anh, em, mái nhà, vành nôi, những lời ru vời vợi, bầu trời, các vì sao, v.v... Cứ như thế, nếu thấy bất kỳ một đối tượng nào nằm ngoài Vũ trụ của chúng ta thì ta lại dùng phép hợp để có một Vũ trụ duy nhất.

Định lý 1.2

Giữa hai đối tượng bất kỳ trong Vũ trụ bao giờ cũng tồn tại ít nhất một mối liên hệ.

Chứng minh: Giả sử A và B là hai đối tượng bất kỳ trong Vũ trụ. Khi đó mối liên hệ "A và B cùng vận động" hiển nhiên là một trong các mối liên hệ giữa A và B => đ.p.c.m.

Định lý này thật ra là nguyên lý về mối liên hệ phổ biến mà Hêghen đã đề cập nhưng chưa được chứng minh chặt chẽ. Nó được Hêghen xem như một tiên đề.

Từ nay, khi nói đến một đối tượng ta phải hiểu nó cùng với tập hợp các mối liên hệ của nó với các đối tượng khác. Đôi khi để nhấn mạnh ta sẽ gọi là đối tượng đầy đủ.

Như đã nói ở trên, các đối tượng trong Vũ trụ liên kết với nhau vô cùng chặt chẽ bởi các mối liên hệ. Các mối liên hệ này có được là nhờ các đối tượng trong Vũ trụ nhưng chính chúng lại làm cho Vũ trụ này là duy nhất. Hơn thế nữa chính chúng lại là các Đối tượng và bởi thế nó luôn luôn vận động và phát triển.

Vũ trụ của chúng ta thật vô cùng vô tân mà sống động. Đó là Vũ trụ duy nhất, không có Vũ trụ thứ hai.

2. TÂM VŨ TRỤ

Đến đây ta sẽ đưa vào một khái niệm mới – Tâm Vũ trụ. Khái niệm này được trình bầy một cách ngắn gọn nhất nên nó là một khái niệm hết sức trừu tượng nhưng lại là khái niệm trung tâm của chương này. Chúng ta sẽ bắt đầu bằng một định nghĩa ngắn gọn.

Định nghĩa 1.2

Tâm Vũ trụ là miền giao của mọi đối tượng

Định nghĩa này cho ta thấy Tâm Vũ trụ là cái chung nhất của tất cả các đối tượng trong Vũ trụ. Nó là "Thuộc tính" có trong mọi đối tượng.

Ngay sau đây ta sẽ chứng minh hai định lý mang tính nhận thức luận.

Định lý 1.3

Tâm Vũ trụ là tồn tại

Chứng minh: Ta phải chứng minh miền giao của mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ là khác trống. Thật vậy vì tính vận động là có trong mọi đối tượng như tiên đề 2 đã khẳng định mà tính vận động đến lượt nó lại là một đối tượng trong Vũ trụ nên giao của mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ là khác trống => đ.p.c.m.

Để ý rằng vận động chỉ là một trong các thành tố tạo nên Tâm Vũ trụ. Vận động chỉ là một biểu hiên của Tâm Vũ trụ. Hay nói cách khác, chính vì các đối tượng luôn vận động mà chúng ta cảm nhận thấy sự tồn tại của Tâm Vũ trụ. Ngoài vận động, Tâm Vũ trụ có thể còn những thành tố khác.

Định lý 1.4

Tâm Vũ trụ là duy nhất

Chứng minh: Giả sử v1 và v2 đều là tâm Vũ trụ. Ta phải chứng minh v1 trùng với v2. Thật vậy vì v1 là Tâm Vũ trụ và v2 là một đối tương nên v1 Ì v2 (v1 được chứa trong v2) (1). Vì v2 là Tâm Vũ trụ và v1 là một đối tượng nên v2 Ì v1 (v2 được chứa trong v1) (2).

Từ (1) và (2) suy ra v1 º v2 => đ.p.c.m.

Như vậy chúng ta đã định nghĩa Tâm Vũ trụ và chứng minh hai định lý hết sức quan trọng khẳng định Tâm Vũ trụ là tồn tại và duy nhất. Tuy nhiên, cách chứng minh của hai định lý trên mới chỉ chỉ ra một cách định tính sự tồn tại và duy nhất cuả Tâm Vũ trụ.

Ngay tại đây chúng ta sẽ đưa ra một hệ quả trực tiếp từ định nghĩa Tâm Vũ trụ:

Hệ quả 1.1

Tâm Vũ trụ có trong mọi đối tượng

Chứng minh: Tâm Vũ trụ là miền giao của mọi đối tượng và Tâm Vũ trụ tồn tại duy nhất. Theo định nghĩa phép giao trong lý thuyết Tập hợp suy ra nó có trong mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ (đ.p.c.m.).

Thực ra, đã từ lâu loài người đã cảm nhận được sự tồn tại của Tâm Vũ trụ và gọi nó với các cái tên khác nhau như: Thuộc tính, Bản chất, Tạo hoá, Chân lý Tối thượng, Tự nhiên, Trời, Phật, v.v... Nhưng có thể nói khái niệm Tâm Vũ trụ ở đây rành mạch, sâu sắc và tổng quát hơn nhiều những khái niệm kể trên.

Tâm Vũ trụ huyền ảo vô cùng. Nó có trong mội đối tượng nhưng hiểu được nó là vô cùng khó khăn, Nó là thuộc tính, nó là bản chất chung nhất của mọi đối tượng. Nó chứa các quy luật tự nhiên phổ quát nhất. Nó là chân lý Tối thượng của mọi chân lý Tối thượng. Nó là siêu hạt cơ bản của mọi hạt cơ bản tạo nên mọi vật.

Định lý 1.5

Mọi đối tượng trong Vũ trụ không tự nhiên mất đi một cách vĩnh viễn mà chỉ biến đổi từ dạng này sang dạng khác.

Chứng minh:

Giả sử rằng A là một đối tượng bất kỳ trong Vũ trụ. Khi đó theo định nghĩa Tâm Vũ trụ suy ra A chứa Tâm Vũ trụ. Nếu A bị mất đi vĩnh viễn suy ra Tâm Vũ trụ sẽ bị mất đi vĩnh viễn. Điều này trái với hai định lý về sự tồn tại và duy nhất của Tâm Vũ trụ. Suy ra đ.p.c.m.

Đối với những đối tượng hữu hình thì định lý trên là một điều dễ hiểu. Nhưng đối với những đối tượng vô hình như truyền thống dân tộc, một nền văn hoá, một học thuyết, v.v… thì việc nhận thức được như vậy không phải luôn luôn dễ dàng.

Nếu ta xem các hệ thống triết học hoặc các tôn giáo chỉ là những đối tượng thì một hệ quả nữa có thể được rút ngay ra từ định lý Tâm vũ trụ là duy nhất là:

Hệ quả 1.2

Đối với mọi triết học chỉ có một chân lý tối thượng.

Đối với mọi tôn giáo chỉ có một Chúa trời.

Các khuynh hướng tư tưởng có thể khác nhau, thậm chí tưởng chừng đối lập nhau một mất một còn nhưng chúng vẫn có một miền giao khác trống (ví dụ Tâm Vũ trụ), bởi vậy xu thế đối thoại thay thế cho sự đối đầu, loại trừ nhau đang trở thành xu thế của thời đại.

Ta có thể hình dung ra một sự hợp nhất vĩ đại trong tương lai - Sự thống nhất các triết học và sự hợp nhất các tôn giáo trên phạm vi toàn cầu và toàn Vũ trụ.

3. KẾT LUẬN

Vũ trụ là vô cùng vô tận nhưng duy nhất, không có Vũ trụ thứ hai. Các đối tượng trong Vũ trụ không ngừng vận động. Tâm vũ trụ là miền giao của mọi đối tượng nên nó có trong mọi đối tượng. Nó tồn tại và duy nhất. Tâm Vũ trụ là khái niệm mạnh hơn khái niệm chân lý tuyệt đối, siêu hạt cơ bản, v.v... Nó huyền ảo, lung linh. Nó có mặt ở khắp nơi nhưng không thể thấy được và không thể nắm bắt được. Nó là chân lý Tuyệt đối của mọi chân lý tuyệt đối. Nó là Siêu hạt cơ bản có trong mọi hạt cơ bản để tạo nên mọi vật. Tâm Vũ trụ chứa toàn bộ sức mạnh của Vũ trụ.

Những cái đầu mạnh nhất của loài người chỉ có thể hiểu được những vùng lân cận của Tâm Vũ trụ, Hiểu được Tâm vũ trụ là hiểu được cả Vũ trụ.

Nếu xem mỗi con người, mỗi vật là các đối tượng thì Tâm vũ trụ không ở đâu xa mà ở trong chính lòng ta, ở chính trong tâm trí ta, ở chính trong các vật giản dị nhất.

Không có đối tượng nào mất đi một cách vĩnh viễn mà nó chỉ biến đổi từ dạng này sang dạng khác, kể cả những đối tượng hữu hình hoặc vô hình.

Tâm vũ trụ tồn tại và duy nhất càng khẳng định Vũ trụ này là thống nhất mặc dù các đối tượng thuộc Vũ trụ là cực kỳ phong phú muôn hình vạn trạng. Trước khi hiểu được Tâm Vũ trụ, những khuynh hướng tư tưởng của loài người nằm ở lân cận Tâm Vũ trụ bởi thế chúng là những cánh hoa cùng chung một nhụy và vô cùng đa dạng.

Vũ trụ của chúng ta đa dạng mà thống nhất, thống nhất trong sự đa dạng.

Cuối cùng chúng tôi xin có một vài lời trước khi kết thúc chương 1.

Thực ra có một sự tiếp cận khác đối với Vũ trụ và Tâm Vũ trụ. Cách tiếp cận đó là đầu tiên ta xây dựng các Vũ trụ sau đó hợp chúng lại để có Vũ trụ duy nhất. Tương tự, ta cũng xây dựng các Tâm Vũ trụ sau đó dùng phép giao để có một Tâm Vũ trụ duy nhất.

Cách tiếp cận này dễ được chấp nhận vì nó đi theo một mạch tư duy thông thường của loài người nhưng tiếc thay số trang viết sẽ lên đến hàng trăm trang.

Cách tiếp cận như vừa trình bầy là một cách tiếp cận cô đọng và có tính khái quát cao tuy nhiên mới đọc ta cảm thấy hơi khiên cưỡng. Rất mong bạn đọc thông cảm.