How do people get from A to B in life?

by phil on Wednesday Oct 1, 2003 2:03 PM
Living

Ask any smart person a tough quetsion, sure they got the answer. But then ask them, how did they become a smart person in the first place? Maybe the answer is, "academics" or "I studied hard"...

... ah okay, fair enough. But what if you ask them, how did you become a person that pursued academics that sought studying hard in order to become smart? How did you become the person that you are now? Did you actively control your development, or did you just follow the path that was already laid before you?

Well, you can always argue, "personal responsibility" but my response is then how did you become a person that cared so much about "personal responsibility."

It's so politically/intellectually incorrect to say that we don't have free will or that we are not responsible, but the more I look at life and people, the more I see pigeonholes and clear-cut paths.

Proof? Because people will be most likely doing tomorrow what they're doing now.

Take Bill Gates for example, he has jillions of cash, so he's not constrained by much except himself, yet regularity will follow him for the next 10-20 years. If he truly had free will, wouldn't the probability of him stumbling upon new information and then subsequently deciding to be a different person be pretty high?

Okay, maybe that's just one example. But if we are so free to craft our own paths in lives, then why across the board, after the age of 26, people pretty much do the same thing. Okay sure, careers change you say, not for everybody though,.... and that's nothing anyways. The real thing would be to see if personalities change, or if habits change... in other words, can people fundamentally change? I know ppl change, but can they change themselves? For as much as people complain about human faults, I'm surprised by how little ppl then go from their desire to change to actual change.

THAT has always scared me. Maybe this book, will give me the answers I seek.