Complacency is the enemy of progress. Nations stagnate when they become too comfortable; organizations decline when they assume past success guarantees future success. Progress requires enough dissatisfaction to create energy for change, but enough confidence to believe change is possible.
Yet there is a balance to be maintained: not all dissatisfaction is created equal. Toxic dissatisfaction fixates on deficiencies and deficits, wallows in the wrong; it stops being fuel and morphs into energy-draining mind poison. Productive dissatisfaction, grateful dissatisfaction, is different. It acknowledges present realities while believing improvement is possible. One creates energy. The other drains it.
Growth and advancement require that we see a better, brighter future and are willing to put forth the effort and energy to create it. Without dissatisfaction with the gap between what is and what could be, there is no motivation. The challenge is maintaining the quality of appreciation for what is linked tightly with aspiration for what might be. We must be thankful for what is while being restless for what might be; with every accomplishment creating a new, challenging horizon.
Closing Quotes:
“We grow through discomfort, not comfort.” – John C. Maxwell, b. 1947
“To be fully alive, the soul needs a constant sense of the discrepancy between what it is and what it ought to be.” – Evelyn Underhill, 1875-1941
“If you are completely content with yourself, you are a finished product. And a finished product is a dead thing.” – Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1884-1937, ‘We’
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
