Sometimes I feel like I’m never getting anywhere in life. Like I keep trying the same old things, the same old ways, and in the end I’m left with nothing to show for it but debt and a headache. Maybe I try too hard to do things quickly. Life has always been a game of procrastinate, catch up, procrastinate, catch up. I’m usually able to “catch up”, but where does that lead me? To an average life, with an average future. An average income, an average family.

I’m not average. I know this. But then why does it always seem like I’m never able to get what I want?

I need to work harder.
I need to be more patient.

Does it seem weird that I think my laziness stems from a lack of patience? No, listen, really. I can’t work on something wholeheartedly if I can’t envision the end. If I can’t sit down and say “This can really happen, if I work at it, if I wait.” Patience is something I’ve never been good at. But with patience, we can make progress. Real progress. Goal-driven, not emotion-driven.

What do I want in life? Short(er) term, anyway?

• I want a well-paying job, intellectual stimuli and creative freedom.
• I want safety in relationships. Good friends, honest friends.
• I want to be constantly challenged in life, by life. I want to make good decisions.
• I want to learn more. I want to learn everything. But learning, especially on one’s own, takes so much effort and so much patience.

I honestly don’t know what life will grant me. Who’s to say? But I’m confident that I can have the life I want, in time. With effort. With patience.

• Learn to notice when your thinking and speculating takes you out of the immediacy of your experience. Your mental capacities can be an extraordinary gift, but only can also be a trap when you use them to retreat from contact with yourself and others. Stay connected with your physicality.

• You tend to be extremely intense and so high-strung that you find it difficult to relax and unwind. Make an effort to learn to calm down in a healthy way, without drugs or alcohol. Exercising or using biofeedback techniques will help channel some of your tremendous nervous energy. Meditation, jogging, yoga, and dancing are especially helpful for your type.

• You see many possibilities but often do not know how to choose among them or judge which is more or less important. When you are caught in your fixation, a sense of perspective can be missing, and with it the ability to make accurate assessments. At such time, it can be helpful to get the advice of someone whose judgment you trust while you are gaining perspective on your situation. Doing this can also help you trust someone else, a difficulty for your type.

• Notice when you are getting intensely involved in projects that do not necessarily support your self-esteem, confidence, or life situation. It is possible to follow many different fascinating subjects, games, and pastimes, but they can become huge distractions from what you know really need to do. Decisive action will bring more confidence than learning more facts or acquiring more unrelated skills.

• Fives tend to find it difficult to trust people, to open up to them emotionally, or to make themselves accessible in various ways. Their awareness of potential problems in relationships may tend to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is important to remember that having conflicts with others is not unusual and that the healthy thing is to work them out rather than reject attachments with people by withdrawing into isolation. Having one or two intimate friends whom you trust enough to have conflicts with will enrich your life greatly.

(from The Enneagram Institute website)

I envision a future in which man is judged by his peers and by society solely on his creation – on his music, on his art, on his invention. Where every human life is valued because every human life is the potential for creation. And where people understand the following: Respecting every individual’s ability to create is respecting society as a whole, for stability comes from diversity, and diversity comes from freedom.

There are those who say if everyone received everything they ever needed, then nobody would ever work. That may be true. I also, however,  believe that we need to create. It’s in our blood, it’s in our spirits. It’s human. I believe that if everyone received food and clothing and shelter, we wouldn’t actually cease to make progress — in fact, I believe we would make more progress. You may ask, what incentive is there? Why would anyone waste time creating? The answer is quite simple. It’s not respect from colleagues. It’s not the survival of the human race, even. It’s individual. It’s selfish. It’s the sheer feeling of accomplishment. The very pride in our individual selves that defines us as separate and distinct from others. It’s that happiness in becoming something tangible, something real and solid and definite, that one feeling that no amount of money could ever buy.

You don’t get that feeling? Well I do. But only when I separate myself from the expectations of others. Only when I separate myself from the constant pressure of retaining the ability to survive. But when those needs are met, when I feel completely safe — from financial collapse, from judgment — that’s when I look ahead. That’s when I strive forward. And I believe that every single human being in this world was born with that capacity. The desire to look forward, to create, to be.

Can every man be an artist? Perhaps not now, but I envision a future in which he can. In which manual labor can be done with our inventions alone and our minds are free to wander and wonder. To search the great vastness of this universe, but first, to understand our planet and ourselves. Every man was born an artist. And every man is capable of so much creative ambition, if only he didn’t have to worry about the little things. Those little things that are necessary for our survival, but by no means sufficient for our happiness. Once we can look past the little things, only then will we be able to truly come together and free our minds from the constraints of our bodies. Only then will the sheer brilliance of our ideas, in all their radiant, sparkling color, explode us into the darkness of the unknown. And the starlight emanated from each of us individually, together, will reach the deepest corners of our universe. The beginning, the end, and the spaces in between the lines. Truth will kneel before us, unreservedly, and offer us Perfection. And we will, without hesitation, accept.