What is the personal development or the meaning of life

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Designed for understanding the gist of man, the surrounding world, the process of personal development and meaning of life

Everyone tries to understand oneself and the surrounding world, sooner or later, and to find his place in it. A question arises, "Why was I born?", "What should I do in this world?", "What is the meaning of life?" etc. If you still have not understood this, then this method will help you.

The main thing to understand is that a person and everything around him is are systems. A man, car, house, shop, family, work, animals, birds, plants, bacteria, molecules, atoms, nature, planets, stars, galaxies – all of these are systems.

System is a set of interacting elements and subsystems, which has a specific destination, hierarchy, behavior, signs, state.

Element is an indivisible part of the system, which has given behavior, signs, state variables in the process of development of the element, and destination.

Destination is the ultimate goal of the system, upon achievement of which, it has optimal success and efficiency for performing creative activity in a certain subject area and creating a new unique element in the environment.

Systems have a hierarchical structure – apart from the elements, they may contain simpler systems - subsystems, and at the same time remain part of more complex systems - super-systems. System hierarchy

For example, a person is made up of subsystems - the parts of the body, nervous system, internal organs, tissues, cells, molecules, atoms etc., while remains the subsystem of a more complex super-system - family, work group, society, state, planet etc.

Each system has signs - features that identify the system and define its behavior and interaction with other systems.

For example, a person has the following signs - height, age, hair color, eyes, social status, income level etc. But a person does not have such a sign as - the length of the wings, since he does not have wings at all.

The characteristic value of a sign at a particular time is known as the property of the sign.

For example, the sign could be "growth" of a person, while the property of this sign could be "180 cm". However, it varies with age, i.e. after a year, the person would possess another property of "growth", for example, "190 cm".

The sum of properties of all signs is called as the state of the system.

In order to realize its destination, the system must continually develop.

Development is the process of transition of a system from its current state to a desired one due to changes in its structure and use of resources for interaction with other systems.

Personal development can be described in the following diagram:

That is, in the process of personal development, system continuously changes its own state - improves or deteriorates the properties, acquires new useful features or gets rid of the harmful ones.

Personal development is realized through the acquisition of new experience - a sum of the system’s knowledge and abilities, while the usage of resources - a set of methods and tools that are owned by the system or which are provided to the system by a super-system.

But in order to realize itself, the system needs not only personal development but also interaction with other systems.

Interaction is the process of sharing knowledge and resources between systems and exertion of influence on each other, depending upon the available abilities in order to change their states, achieve goals, develop and realize the destination.

The set of systems, which the system can interact with at any given time, is called its environment.

If the system uses a particular ability often, in the same environmental conditions, and with time begins to execute it subconsciously, automatically and with minimal expenditure of resources, then this ability turns into skill. And if it also starts using this skill subconsciously, automatically using it in newer, unknown conditions, it achieves competence.

If the system does not have any information about another system or cannot influence it, this particular system becomes a problem for it. Solving problem means getting information about the problem-system by using any given method (to acquire knowledge), or learning how to influence it by expanding its own capabilities (to acquire abilities), or by getting united with the other systems. Problems - are one of the obstacles in the path of development of the system and the capability of solving them is very essential.

When the system ceases to develop or other systems begin to influence it, deteriorating its state, and it cannot compensate their influence by its own reaction, the system degrades.

To ensure development and to prevent degradation of the system, the system needs organization - the creation of rules and processes, and management of their use by its elements and subsystems in order to achieve specific goals.

Rule is a strict sequence of execution of a particular action or process, which describes the desired behavior and interaction of systems, conditions for their execution, the necessary tools and resources required for the achievement a specific goal.

The rule itself is not binding, it is just a description. If the system decides to achieve the goal, then the rule corresponding to that goal will become the principle for it (by internal rule), which it will follow while carrying out actions in order to achieve the set goal.

But if the super-system demands the execution of a particular rule by the system in order to achieve its own goal, then this rule becomes the law (by external rule) for the system and will be compulsory for the system to perform, whether it wants to perform it or not.

Process is a specific sequence of actions and rules for their implementation upon interaction of systems in order to change their states and achieve a specific goal.

Super-system may demand the execution of a process by the system in accordance with the law. Then the process will become the charge of the system.

The system can perform some of the charges independently, without any demand from the super-system. This ability of the system is called responsibility. It allows the system to make decisions and get the resources it needs to achieve its goals, from the super-system, but increases the risk of deterioration of its own state because of the possibility of making the wrong decision.

Upon creation or degradation, the system remains in a state of chaos – random interaction of its elements takes place within itself. The probability of improvement or deterioration of the state of a system is the same, while it is in a state of chaos.

The rules and processes create an order in the system. By creating a ideal order, the system would provide itself a 100 percent chance of improving its own state and eliminating the likelihood of its deterioration.

Initially, the system does not know its destination. To determine the subject area in which it must develop and realize its destination, the system requires desire and goals.

Desire is a possible state of the system, which either it may achieve or may not, by taking an independent decision and having all the necessary resources and capabilities.

If the system decides to achieve the desire, then it gets an intention. After this, the system prepares a plan of actions, satisfies all the necessary needs of this plan and begins to take action to achieve the goal.

Goal is is the desired state of the system, for which it spends resources, performs the actions and upon successful achievement of the goal it receives a specific result.

The result of achieving the goal can be useful – it may improve the state of the system, or harmful – it may deteriorate the state of the system.

Each goal has a priority - an indicator which measures the relative importance and utility of the goal. Higher the priority of the goal, more beneficial shall its achievement be to the system. Therefore, the system must first reach the goals with the highest priority and not waste resources on goals with low priority.

The speed at which the system achieves its goals depends upon its personal efficiency.

Personal efficiency is the speed at which the system achieves the goals under specified conditions, with a certain quality and optimal cost of resources.

To improve its efficiency, the system may use a variety of methods, for example, to delegate the achievement of its goals to other systems in order to automate their operations.

Delegation is the process of transferring part of its authority, responsibility and resources by a system to other systems in order to achieve the goals.

The delegation is performed by systems that are more competent in solving problems, which impede the achieving of goals, and are more effective in a given subject area. It allows the temporary release of system resources for achievement of other goals, which improves efficiency, but at a cost of other resources.

A system makes its activity automatic by using self-organized responsible subsystems, in front of which it sets goals and identifies the necessary resources required for them. The system has to only wait for the subsystem to achieve the goals and bring the useful result to the system, which will improve its state and help to realize its destination. And while waiting for the result, the system can automate the process of achieving other goals or achieve a goal by itself.

If the goal is achieved efficiently (with high quality and low costs) and the result obtained is expected and useful - it is a success. And if the goal is not achieved, or not achieved efficiently (with low quality or high cost) or the result was unexpected or harmful - it is a failure.

The success of the system is determined by the number of goals that it has achieved with success.

Ideal success - is the ability to successfully achieve all the goals in absolutely any subject area.

To improve the success, the system must train its self-discipline - the ability to achieve goals with a guarantee regardless of emerging obstacles (problems, emerging dangers, laziness, lack of motivation, bad mood etc.).

In some periods of development, the system must maintain the specified values of some of its properties - to control itself.

If another system influences it and changes its state is a way that is not desired by the system, it must carry out regulation - to return the value of the properties to the specified ones.

However, strong influences can change the values of properties significantly and to achieve the same goal directly would become impossible. In this case, the system must perform management - to appoint an interim goal, upon achievement of which, it will be possible to start up again with the initial goal.

For example, the system "rocket-target": after the launch of a rocket, it may be exposed to the influence of wind form the sides and the rocket will deviate from the course. In this case, the missile itself can execute regulation and return to the desired course. But if an obstacle arises in the path of the rocket, it will have to perform management – to choose a new course to circumvent this obstacle and hit the target.

If the system knows its destination and it realizes that it is not threatened by other systems, it is in a state of harmony.

When the system achieves a state of harmony or successfully achieves the interim goal, which makes it that much closer to self-realization, it feels happy.

Although the process of achieving the goal can be extremely unpleasant and very difficult, the eventual successful achievement of the goal will bring happiness. If in case some goal is achieved not for the result, but for the sake of self-satisfaction - it's selfishness, and in most such cases the goal is not achieved and the resources are spent in vain.

It is very difficult for man to determine his destination, since only the super-system knows it at first. But, by experiencing happiness, a person can determine the direction in which he needs to develop himself in order to define his destination and fulfill his potential. That is, the moment when one feels happy, he must analyze – which subject area did he achieve the goal in, so that it brought him happiness, and to find common things with other such moments. By finding a "common denominator" for the goals, one may understand his own destination.

The Meaning of Life

Some people believe in destiny while others argue that everything depends on the person. In fact, both are right.

Destiny is a set of natural laws that determine the development of a system and the realization of its destination.

Natural laws are laws that are created by the super-system, not by the system itself.

Laws that are created by the system itself are known as artificial laws.

Destiny can be associated with the roads connecting the city (goals): if one moves on the same road (to follow one and the same law), then from city A (current state), one would surely reach city B (goal).

But some systems (for example, people) have the power of will.

Will is a feature of the system, which allows it to consciously manage its own actions and organize them for setting and achieving goals and realizing the destination.

The will allows the system to "roll" from one road to the other - to begin to obey another law, and then it achieves another goal. That is, by using the power of will, the system can choose its own destiny.

Any system has one unique feature - it has the signs that are lacking in its elements and subsystems. This is a consequence of the principle of emergency of systems. That is, by combining several elements into the system, it will have new signs, and hence a new behavior, which would make it more complex than all its elements taken together. Such a complication of the system during the process of evolution of our planet led to the emergence of life.

Life is the active form of the existence of a system characterized by the presence of the will, the conscious development and interaction with other systems, the ability to organize itself, to respond and defend itself from external influences to achieve these goals, the determination and realization of personal destination.

The meaning of life lies in continuous development for the realization of personal destination in accordance with an individual's own talent

To sum up

Development is the process in which the system improves its own state by obtaining a new experience, organizing the rules and processes and managing personal resources to achieve goals and self-realization.

Every man has his own destination - some people need to become outstanding scientists, others - doctors, third - teachers, the fourth - athletes etc.

In order to determine his own destination, one must try to achieve goals in various subject areas and even in areas where goals have been successful and brought happiness, he must develop more and by doing so understand and realize his destination.

The meaning of all these processes is to create a perfect society, just like heaven as it is described in different religions.

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