Mental Aspects

     “Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.”

—William James,The Principles of Psychology (1890)

What exactly are mental aspects?

The best way to think of the mental aspects of your life is as the training, knowledge, or resources that you need to achieve your objectives. The specific intellectual elements required by you depend upon your situation. For instance, you may want to gain education or instruction to succeed in your job, career, or calling. Alternatively, you may feel compelled to explore deeper into your religious philosophy or may require additional information to help improve your emotional or bodily health. Thus, the precise intellectual ingredients you need will depend entirely upon your distinct purpose.

In your life now, you have a certain assortment of skills and expertise. This mixture includes various things you learned in school, from your parents, with your peers, and from your own experiences. If you are happy and content with your life you have just the right combination of traits for your situation. However, if you find that you are stuck in a job that you hate, can't get a promotion at work, feel that your life is in a rut, or just want to make changes in your academic level, then you may need to modify or change your current situation to better suit your needs. Simply put, you have to exercise these skills to create healthier ones to suit your life and your aspirations.

It is important to note that education does not necessarily have to come from formal learning situations, from a professor, or from reading books. Training may take both formal and informal forms. Knowledge may be gained from a master, from a peer, or even from a child. Data may be gained from a book, heard from another, learned through your own personal experiences, or be acquired while watching someone else. In this way, the specific type and method of your mental aspect exercise is not as important as how that individualized mix of know-how relates directly to your distinctive needs and desires. In other words, you need to find the right tool for the right job.

How do mental aspects affect daily life?

For much of human history, people have lived in small communities in which one single culture and way of thinking prevailed. Although this condition continues even to modern day, mostly in rural towns and villages, it is probably best illustrated to you as the life your parents or grandparents might have led. Had you been born into this type of life, most of the knowledge you would have needed would have been learned directly from your parents.

In the not-so-distant past, sons were trained to undertake the work of their fathers. Thus, if you were male and your father was a farmer, he would have taught you to be a farmer. If your father was a shopkeeper, he would have trained you to run the family business. Similarly, in the past, daughters were normally trained by their mothers. Thus, if you were a girl, you would have learned to assist the male household head, manage the household chores, and take care of the family's childcare needs. Included within these lessons, for both sexes, would have been embedded information about proper behaviour, ideal lifestyles, and correct viewpoints. These ideas would have been further reinforced by the like actions of other members within your immediate peer group who would have lived nearly identical lifestyles to your parents.

In this way, had you been born in such a traditional culture, almost all of the intellectual characteristics you would have gained would have c