Life's Primary Colors
“You can lose what you have and still be what you are.”
Like many of my twenty-something friends, my thoughts frequently consist of careers, goals, and life. It's as if I'm some kind of forecaster, projecting my future-self out many years in an attempt to gain even the slightest peek at what that person might look like.
Then it struck me. There's an underlying pattern to it all. Life's primary colors. Every color on your screen right now is some combination of red, blue, and green. That's it. Amazing right? But what about in life? What are life's primary colors?
Every occupation I can think of can be derived from these three categories:
1 - Expression
2 - Curiosity (critical thinking)
3 - Physicality
If you can think of a job that can't be described using some combination of the above, please let me know. That said, the way our society has evolved is such that depending on where you're weighted in the above determines your "color" ultimately influencing your occupation and your life. This is strangely reminiscent of the social structure of ants, but with obviously more complexity.
Think about the way we describe people. Take Michael Jordan for example. "He's so athletic," we say. Michael not only competed in the NBA where he's regarded "the greatest player to have played the game" but also played professional baseball before returning to basketball for more domination. For most people, playing one sport professionally is a dream. For Michael, it wasn't enough.
"Genius" is another word we like to throw around. Just look at Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, etc. None of those things defined who he was as a person. He was human like everybody else, who just so happened to have ridiculously high capacities for critical thinking and artistic expression.
This is why great athletes excel at multiple sports, why brilliant musicians can pick up instruments and "just play" as Matt Damon says in Good Will Hunting. It's why if you're regarded as "smart" it doesn't matter the subject, you can understand the lesson and complete the assignments with relative ease.
These "primary colors" are how we as humans communicate with people--we're social animals after all. Whether you're an artist, athlete, academic, or all three, we use our physical, mental, and spiritual capabilities to share our lives with others. This post for example is me expressing my thoughts.
Now I'm left with more questions. What color am I? What color do I want to be? How can I leverage my skills to be as vibrant as possible?
The human eye can see 7,000,000 different colors (within the visible spectrum). Our interests and occupations don't define us, rather they provide a reflection of our primary colors. Every person who's ever lived has a story to tell, a picture to paint, a problem to solve, or a mountain to climb. So whatever you are, be a good one.