by Richard L. Weaver IIWhen I first heard this phrase I doubted that one could actually help themselves with little or no outside assistance or influence. That is, I doubted that people could improve their situation by their own efforts. Oh, I knew that the idea of “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” had early American origins when people who had fallen down would literally grab a hold of their bootstraps—when the laces were made of leather—and use them to sit upright. I was aware that you could get out of difficult situations by your own efforts, but my doubts extended to any feats much greater than that. I was truly a skeptic.
Exactly when the realization occurred to me that indeed each of us has far greater control—power—over our lives than what we believe or imagine is unclear, but it happened while I was in college.
Until I went to college I followed the programming dictated by my genes and by my environment. I was truly unaware of the control—power—I had. I was like an animal that was locked in a cycle of instinct. When animals are hungry, they eat. When they hear a loud noise, they run. When they are attacked, they fight. When they come into season, they mate. Animals live the way their genes and their environment have programmed them to live. They lack the control—power—that humans have.
But to recognize the control—power—we have requires both awareness and experience. For me, it happened when I realized that I had control—power—over my destiny. If I took the right courses, made the right choices, and performed at my best, I could take advantage of the control—power—I had over my life. What an incredible realization!
It was as if I had to transcend my programming. It wasn’t that my parents or my teachers were giving me bad advice or the wrong advice, it was as if—suddenly—I was in charge of my own programming. I realized that what I did and did not do had very significant results which would directly affect my life. I now—suddenly—had the control. It wasn’t that the power was given to me; it was there all the time. It was simply that I not only became aware of it, but I realized I could use it to make decisions, solve problems, and choose how I wanted to respond to the things in my world. Suddenly, I was programming myself.
This realization changed my life. This realization determined my fate. This realization directed the courses I was to take and the profession I was to choose. How did this happen?
Until college, I had allowed my life to serve the ends that had been handed down to me. From kindergarten through two years of college, I was trying to make my parents happy. I knew that becoming a medical doctor would do it, and I had rationalized this lifetime outcome and accepted it as my own. But when I realized the control—power—I had (could wield), I realized at the same time that I could break the chain of events that had shaped who I was, and I could learn to shape myself. It was just the power I needed to participate in my own fate!
I wish I had written it down—when that moment occurred—because as I look back on it now, it was as if a lightning bolt had woken me up from a deep sleep. I needed that lightning bolt to wake me up to my own strength. I needed that lightning bolt to wake me up to the role I wanted to play in my own destiny. I needed that lightning bolt to shock me into the discovery that I had the control—the power—to choose what I thought, what I did, and what I said.
The difference between being asleep and being awake is the same difference between having a dream and making that dream come true.
The reason I wish I knew exactly when that moment occurred is because that was the very moment I understood that my life was going to be whatever I chose to make it. It was an astonishing new world for me. What is it that happens to you when you suddenly realize that you are in charge? What changes occur in your psyche when you realize that you are the master, leader, ruler, manager, supervisor, or commander, and the people in your charge must do exactly as you dictate? It’s a real “head-trip” isn’t it? It’s like a power surge with all the corresponding electrical sparks sending out shock waves in all directions.
Suddenly I became aware of the limitless possibilities that surrounded me. All at once I felt both a sense of humility and power. I felt humility because I realized that life is a gift—in humble, meek, and submissive honesty, I realized that I didn’t ask for life. It was simply given to me. But, too, I can’t deny it; thus, I accept the gift of human life with acknowledgment, appreciation, gratitude, and thanks. Animals weren’t so lucky; I was. And animals weren’t given the most potent gift of all—the power to choose. They don’t have the same control or power that I have.
That lightning bolt did not just wake me up, it thrust me out of bed and onto a life course of growth, development, and change like nothing I had previously experienced. As a child, I was, by nature, dependent. Often, for many people, that dependency continues into adulthood, and it could have for me as well—relying on others, or on circumstances, to give me what I wanted, instead of taking that responsibility upon myself.
When I woke up to the power of choice, I not only became aware of my own strength, I became forever independent. I realized that I could give myself what I wanted, and I was no longer content to rely on others to get it for me. I realized what I could give myself, and I was no longer willing to accept only what the world felt like giving me. In this way, I could now refuse to settle for less. What control—power—I had!
How important was this realization for me? It was like I had suddenly come to my senses. I now saw things more clearly than ever before. My limitations were no longer limitations. I saw them for what they really were—bad dreams. When viewed in this way, bad dreams quickly lost their power over me in the same way nightmares lose their edge the moment I wake up.
When the realization of my control, power, and choice over my life occurred, I felt a great sense of freedom and possibility. It was as if there was a freeing of the spirit, a release of my creative juices, a liberation of my inner being. I found myself free to imagine more useful thoughts, to dream more pleasant dreams, and to turn those dreams into reality—to pull myself up by my own bootstraps!
At Zen-Moments: Self-Help for Sensitive Souls, there is a terrific essay entitled, “Empowerment: The Courage to be Yourself,” that can be summed up in the author’s own words, “One small action on another, properly directed, will dramatically change your life if you just keep doing it. Action speaks loudest in this world. You will become whatever you do, and you can do it a bit at a time.”
At Tomorrow’s Edge, Skye Thomas has written a number of essays about personal development and self-empowerment. How we get along with others as well as ourselves and how we find passion are common themes. “Personal growth and self-help doesn’t have to mean that you’re messed up or that there’s anything wrong that needs ‘fixed,’” Thomas writes, “It just means that you are taking control of your approach to life, your habits, your choices, and the overall direction of your personal development and self-empowerment.”
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