“I was
walking home and asked myself a question.”
-Spencer
Hoole
Self Determined-Determination
During a conversation with my friend Spencer Hoole this week
I began to get and expended glimpse into the concept of
self-determination. Perhaps you’ve been
comfortable with the common definition of this term, to determine one’s own
fate. Of course, this definition is
still true, but Spencer taught me a more complete and compelling definition.
He was telling me of his school years and how he had been
coasting along until one particular event occurred that weighed heavily on his
mind. “I was walking home
and asked myself a question.
What am I going to do so I can live the kind of life my parents had
given me? “
He went on to tell me that he concluded that he was going to
need to have the determination to work hard in school and to do the things that
he felt he needed to do to get what he wanted in life.
That’s when I began to realize the connection between
self-determination and internal-resolve determination. One cannot live a self-determined life
without working with determination, the resolve to accomplish a desired
outcome.
As Spencer described his process he used example after
example of successful people, he has studied, who had faced some kind of personal
or social disadvantage. In every case,
these individuals knew they had some sort of weakness and they used their
resolve to work harder than others in order to overcome it.
“All of these people had something driving them inside. They had to prove that they had overcome
themselves.” Spencer told me.
Overcoming ones self is a life-long pursuit. It takes determination to know what your own
weaknesses are and to wake up each day saying, “I’m going to go to work and
show myself that nothing is going to stop me now or ever! I’m going to live life on my own terms and
determine my own future.” But, that’s
what Spencer has done.
I looked across the table and saw Spencer’s eyes as he spoke. I saw polish, knowledge, success and I also
saw something I hadn’t recognized before, self determined-determination.