Associate with people who will improve you
Wdoes that mean? As is so often the case, the statement has been shortened to fit within the confines of the structure allowed by Twitter. The longer version of the statement is:
“Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”
This statement is about self-improvement, and how one should best do so. It starts by pulling back from all the people who would fill your head with noise or un-useful information. It then says to seek out and spend time with those who can help you.
That might be your spiritual, physical, emotional, or intellectual side, but find them and spend time with them. The longer statement ends by reminding us that life is a two-way street.
As they teach you, teach them something in return. It could also be interpreted as saying that the act of teaching helps the teacher improve.
Why is
Answering a question with a question may be considered bad form, but… Who else can improve you, besides you? All improvement is self-improvement. Yes, there may be rewards or punishments as motivation, but you are the only one who can improve yourself. No one else can do it for you. Does that make sense? Think about it until it does, because until you understand
AHAT self-improvement
new supernova has appeared in one of the brightest galaxies we can see. Supernovas happen when stars reach the end of their lives, collapse on themselves, and then burst outwards from all the pressure.
The term ‘new’ is relative of course. The Pinwheel galaxy is 21 million light years away. The star that has exploded there did so at least 21 million years ago, but we’re only seeing the evidence of it now.
Because the galaxy in which the supernova happened is quite a popular target for amateur astrophotographers, there are lots of before-and-after pictures doing the rounds on social media.
The quality of the photos is excellent so don’t be put off by the word ‘amateur’.
TECHNIQUES important?
These ‘amateurs’ have access to equipment, software and techniques that far outstrips what professionals were doing even 15 years ago.
Astronomy and astrophotography really is a wonderful field to be an amateur in, because the playground you are in is so big-- it’s literally the universe— that, your life will be tougher than it has to be.
That doesn’t mean you are going to enjoy everything you have to do to improve yourself, but until you understand that you are the one who has to do it, it won’t be easy.
Do you recall ever seeing someone in a class who just sat there and dared the teacher to improve them, to make them learn? How well did that work out for the defiant learner?
Did they improve? But when you realise that you are the one who has to do the work, things change. And for the better.
As for the improve part of self-improvement, who wants to try to just stay the same? Today is the least informed I will be for the rest of my life. I hope it is also the least fit day of the rest of my life.
I plan to improve in any way I possibly can, until I am no longer here. How about you, are you pleased with the status-quo?
Where can I apply this in my life?
Personally, I apply this in as many areas as I can, as often as I can, and I recommend you do the same. If that sounds like too much, try to pick at least a few things which are really important to you, and focus on improving yourself in those areas of your life.
I have surrounded myself as a writer with some of the best in the business. I have taken several classes, and have read plenty of books.
I aim to improve myself by learning from the experiences of others, both their mistakes and their successes.
And I try to help others, when I can. In fact, this article is as much about me examining myself as it is for you to examine yourself. As you might guess, I do all these exercises, and think through each statement before I even put fingers to keyboard. $ PDVVLYH QHZ VXSHUQRYD GLVFRYHUHG LQ 3LQZKHHO *DOD[\ FORVH HQRXJK WR EH VHHQ WKURXJK DPDWHXU WHOHVFRSHV and the professionals cannot monitor all of it all the time.
Amateurs fill in the gaps, and are frequently looking where the pros are not. Opportunities to make real contributions come up regularly.
GLOWING
To add some food for thought about this supernova discovery in a galaxy far far away, consider that a hundred years ago we weren’t even sure that other galaxies even existed. It was one of the greatest scientific debates in history: the question of how big the universe is.
While astronomers could see other galaxies, it was thought that these were small nebulae, or clouds of glowing gas, inside the Milky Way.
I am working to improve myself through this column everyday, and by extension to help you as well. I try to avoid the people who would fill my head with unnecessary or otherwise unuseful information, and concentrate on what is important to me. I try to find mentors, or at least make friends with people who can help me improve myself. And, of course, I try to teach them something in return.
When someone is trying to teach you something, they are re-learning it for themselves, and applying the fundamentals over again.
By critiquing you and your methods, they examine their own, and make sure their examples are even better than their normal work. In that manner, even the teacher learns.
Take a moment and think of the areas in your life where you would most like to improve. Who are the people who could best help you become better at it? How do you reach out to them?
MENTOR
Can you find a mentor or make a friend who could help? Can you take a class or read a book? Perhaps there’s a website on the topic?
Whatever it might be, you will have to find time and energy to use it in improving yourself. You can find that by withdrawing from others, as the statement says.
This doesn’t mean abandon your friends, but it might be a good idea to limit your time gossiping or discussing things which don’t relate to the part of your life which you wish to improve.
There is no such thing as staying the same. We all change, even if it is usually rather slowly. The question is what will happen if you don’t work on improving yourself ?
You can learn by being taught, or you can learn by teaching. Choose one, and get busy. Take the first step right now.
It was Edwin Hubble who proved that these ‘nebulae’ were in fact entire other galaxies. Hubble did this in 1924, by using Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s work on Cepheid stars.
These stars change in luminosity, and the time they take to complete a cycle of brightening and dimming, called a period, is related to how bright they really are.
The longer they take, the brighter they actually are. If you know how bright one of these stars actually is, but it appears dimmer to us, then we can work out how far away it is by working out that difference.
This is what Hubble did in 1924, accurately measuring the distance to Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda galaxy.
His measurements showed us that these stars were not hundreds or thousands of light years away as was thought at the time, but millions.
GALAXY
The stars were much further away than the Milky Way, and therefore Andromeda must be another galaxy.
Fittingly, it is the Hubble telescope that has now proven the existence of about 100 billion galaxies. Another 100 billion galaxies are suspected to be proven to exist in the coming years as our telescope technology progresses.
While astronomers have not yet definitively solved the question of how big the universe is, given where we were a hundred years ago when we thought the Milky Way galaxy was the entire universe, we can say that we are a lot less wrong now than we used to be.
That’s probably the best way to think of what science does, it doesn’t make us right, just less wrong.