Your Relationship With History: Role Models and Personal Transformation
Role models are important and there are only 2 types of role models we can ever have; those who are alive and those who are dead. Our relationship with history does not have to be a dry recounting of facts without any meaning or life behind them. We can develop a relationship with the inspiring figures who have come before us in a way that facilitates personal transformation in ourselves.
I can think back to how boring my history classes were in middle school, high school, and even college. How odd and unimportant it seemed that I needed to know these minute details, events that didn’t seem to effect me at all, and tales from hundreds of years ago. This never inspired any sort of admiration or motivation in me at all and I’ve quickly forgotten everything I learned in those dreadfully stale classrooms.
I may have forgotten all of the facts I learned in class, but what I do have now is a relationship with history that is inspiring and motivating to me in a different way. A relationship with certain key figures who stand out to me and a way of learning from them. Yet before I was able to establish this relationship with history there were some things I had to sort out first.
Firstly, what are my values? What character traits do I admire and which ones do I want to exemplify in my own life? How do I want to be perceived and why? What type of reputation do I want to inspire others with and what personality traits do I want to avoid?
What type of person do I want to be during my time on earth? How do I want to be remembered and why? What beliefs and opinions and I willing to stand for and how do I want to stand for them? What do I want my actions to say about me that precede my words?
In essence a period of deep personal reflection must come before our journey of personal transformation is possible. A ship with no destination has no favorable wind, and a man with no purpose has no way of bringing himself closer to that ultimate goal. Likewise a man who has never established his vision for character cannot examine his current state on a way that measures up to anything.
After my period of reflection I arrived at some conclusions about who I wanted to be and why. After I discovered some of those things I was then able to seek mentorship from the greatest people to ever walk the face of the earth by finding those who exemplified the character traits I seeked for myself, and learning as much as I could about them.
I wanted to be philosophical yet practical so I studied Benjamin Franklin, I wanted to become a voracious reader so I studied Thomas Jefferson, I wanted to be a master of the wilderness so I studied Meriwether Lewis. These are just a few examples of my own personal preferences and your desires and vision may differ quite greatly from mine.
Although these men were long dead, I was able to consult them through their writings and stories in a way that gave me insight into who they were and what aspects of their character and personalities made them such incredible men. After identifying who I wanted to become, I found men who inspired me throughout history and started to take notes!
In this same method you can find mentorship in the past and consult the greatest minds of the generations before us, those who you never had the opportunity to meet for yourself! Give it a shot, think about someone throughout history who you would like to emulate in some way and approach their writing not in the recreational passing of a casual reader, but in a deeply intimate manner. Read in a way where you are constantly trying to get into the mind and heart of that person who inspired you so much, and see what changes happen in your own life through the process.
By Warren Steury
