Sense of Self – Why some people are successful and some are not?

Before getting start, let me clarify this myself that I am not the person who is going to judge and decide other's destinies by saying that "Why some people are successful and some are not?" Actually, I notice it by myself and this is just only my idea (subjective). As I remembered, last week, I was in one training about "Effective Time Management." OK, during that training, the trainer asked each and every single trainee to read one paragraph in the textbook. However, after the training started for a while, the trainer was busy and he needed to go out from some important appointment or meeting. He asked the facilitator to help in continuing this training. Mister facilitator was continuing the training by letting one person to read one paragraph out loud as the trainer did. And at that time, the person who was going to read was me. I started reading and finished it after a minute. The facilitator applied different approach from the trainer. He asked me to explain something that I read. I felt panic and embarrassed because after the reading everything seemed to be gone. "That was impossible," I said.

But of course, it is true and obvious that sometimes or even most of the times, after we read something loud to others, we do not know what it is about. Each and every person has something called "Peripheral Vision" and "Focusing Vision." What are the differences? Why is it related with our "sense of self"? And why is it affect to our future achievement?

Before going into detail or answering above 3 important questions, I would like to have take one more example which is opposite with my example above. I love my grandma so much! She is definitely the same as my mother. I love her so much and I cannot even express it here. Even now she is not with me, but her kindness, goodness, forgiveness, and everything are always with me in my entire life. My grandma always said and read something to me such as book, the traditional tales and story. But what I noticed is when she read a book to me; she can always read it again next night without book. You got me at this point? Of course, this is called "Focusing Vision." You know, at night when my grandma read the book for me, she always focused only on the story inside the book. So, after finish reading it, it was always inside her memory. The sense of self is a conscious awareness of every person. It is the most critical point that we can control it by ourselves. If you want your sense of self to be more general or "Peripheral Vision," then you will never remember anything after the reading (my first example). In the first case, I was not focusing the paragraph. My mind was thinking about how the others heard my voice, how others heard my voice, and how my intonation and pronunciation were. And in the end, I was out of control and couldn't remember what I was reading about.

Being more focus on what you want to do is very important. Learn from it, practice it, and apply it into your real professional and personal life, you will be the successful people. But if you cannot do it now, you may be able to succeed too but this successfulness may take sometimes, not straightforward like the people who are focusing on what he is doing.

Hey, correct me if I am wrong na… :)

By Sochheka Ong

Phnom Penh, December 03, 2009