Self-Development and Self-Acceptance

personal and political

Feb 20, 2026

1. Changing Stripes

“You have a gift. But what is the cost?” —The Queen’s Gambit

A friend asked me an interesting question: What would you be if you could be anything you desired, in terms of vocation?

It took some thought, but I instinctively resisted the lure of the genie in the bottle, knowing there are drawbacks and tradeoffs to any such deal with the devil.

Big rock star? Then you have to deal with the stresses and demands of a heavy touring schedule, contract obligations, too many groupies…

Big-time pro athlete? Then you have the constant performance pressure of competition, along with injuries and decline with aging. The ego built up from all the success takes a big hit when success turns to inevitable failure. You have to reinvent yourself then…

So I come back to where I am, who I am, the choices I have made. Yes, given a certain set of talents and skills and attributes, I did make the choices, all along the way, that best suited my temperament, aspirations and limitations. With moments glimpsed of that transcendent freedom of the star athlete or musician, playing in magical flow of the moment, in mastery of the instrument or transported by inspiration and power. Moments and stretches of time in career success and relationship bliss, to overshadow the blunders and disappointments.

To wish for more is human; and so is settling for less. There is only one Gretzky or Miles Davis, Tom Brady or Ohtani or Jimi Hendrix. In the end the comet flames out, or fades into velvet black. So in the meantime…

Pecking away at keys like a bird with breadcrumbs, chewing on these conjectures. Do I wish to be other? Then I could be other, wishing to be other still. Or wanting the contract back, signed in blood, to tear it up and return to where I began.

Life is a lottery. You can trade your ticket in if you wish, given sufficient freedom and funds, but the destination is still unknown. Voyaging to distant ports, subject to perils of the sea. Or staying at home, playing it safe, living vicariously: wishing to be more than you are, but all the time glad for what got you here.

If the wish is still alive, there is always more to do in that direction: daily practice, persistent effort, visualization for manifestation. Rewiring the psychic circuits, getting off the chair and out the door to where you want to go.

Nothing is written in stone, that cannot be revised with a fresh manuscript, donning a different cap, repainting one’s stripes to be a different cat, singing a new tune.

2. The Art of Retirement

It goes with the territory: nonattachment.

The been-there-done-that syndrome.

Also, perspective of seeing what happens with the best. All that striving, that we all do, to improve, get better, be the best.

Bill Walsh, head coach of the San Francisco 49ers during their dynasty of the 1980s, felt unsatisfied even after winning the Super Bowl, because he could have made better calls on two plays. Proving that “best in the world” is still not good enough, if it’s not perfect, according to one’s own impossible standard.

That example is a good object lesson for all these pursuits that a mortal such as I have strived to improve over years, decades, the course of a lifetime. Chasing excellence in sports, music, literature, or even a pastime like chess. Finding one’s limits, and going beyond, through effort and hard work and practice. Still, reaching a plateau, or a peak, and that’s that.

Then what? Back down to earth. Whether it’s beginner’s luck, a hat trick, a hole in one, a no-hitter, a kickoff return for a touchdown, a first-prize medal, or merely a bronze, or more pedestrian yet, a participation certificate, signifying: I was here. I tried. I lived and did my best.

All that competition aside, after failure or aging or the replacement by newer talents, the lesson emerges, which could have been applied all along: Why is it worth it, if only one can win and the rest fall short?

Yes, to try to be the best. But in the meantime, or after reaching or failing to reach that pinnacle… continuing to engage, for the enjoyment of it, for the process.

Who will hear the lonely flute in the forest, or read the tender insightful journal of the sensitive soul? When will the Emily Dickenson or Herman Melville be celebrated, how many years after their death, and so what? Did they enjoy the work?

Do I enjoy the rank of the middling chess player, winning a few and losing a few when matched with those of similar rank?

Do you enjoy sketching scenes of your rose garden in watercolor? Do you enjoy merely sitting in that garden listening to the birds? Perhaps snapping a photograph, to admire later, before filing in the archive, never to be seen again?

It’s life in a nutshell, even for the high and mighty. Only those who write the histories or lead the notable expeditions get remembered—but for what, for how many eons of geologic time?

We wink in and out of existence, and the universe winks back.

3. Personal and Political

The same duality—self-development and self-acceptance—applies when the personal expands to the political. When the self becomes the world.

Wanting to change the stripes of the world-tiger. Wanting perfection in the ideal system of governance (or nonsystem, of absolute freedom). Having to settle for what is, in the here and now. What is given, with present and future limitations.

It’s an uneasy balance, a dynamic tension. Like the AA creed, change what you can change, and accept what you cannot. Simple to state, not so easy to achieve.

The ideal self and the ideal world. The self as it is, the world as it is. In between, we make choices, plans, compromises. We adapt, reboot, reinvent ourselves and our world. It is the same as before… only different.

Like children, in each successive generation. Carrying on the heritage, the gifts and limitations, of their parents; but with potentials and innovations never tried before, with their own unique personalities and talents.

It seems so self-evident, almost trite to conceive like this. Yet such are the battles we fight with each other and in ourselves every day, every generation. The optimists versus the pessimists versus the so-called realists.

In the moment, all is still. Yet, still enough to notice the wind.

At the end of all our striving, a pause to reconsider, and appreciate how far we’ve come—or how not so far at all—from our origins. The verities remain: food and shelter, sex and love, war and peace.