Tales of Willpower
Picture by Bob Oh
Find more details on Willpower here
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You Are the One
You may tend to believe that, because you are just one person among the billions of individuals that make up humankind, you don’t matter much. Perspective is important! On the scale of the universe, we are just tiny living organisms on a rocky spaceship we call Earth. On the scale of time, we live only
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The First Step
Faya was explaining in her lesson about Willpower how the First Step was one of the most important keys to developing it. Some younger Espers had trouble understanding, so she used her own element, Fire, as an example. “In order to create a beautiful and heartwarming, cozy fire, what do we need first?” The young
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Inner Fire
In order to maintain their StarDust, it was essential that any Esper kept their inner fire under control. Every Esper was born with their own fire burning inside them, and its intensity and color could take many forms! Faya always reminded the young Espers that working on one’s inner fire was a task only they
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To act or not to act
That is the question. Or more precisely, why should we act—or not? I understand you may be skeptical about trying to do things for other adults, who themselves have the choice to act or not. But children don’t, and it becomes a responsibility—whether we like it or not. We are all born in different places,
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Out of Your Comfort Zone
Our brain needs challenges and must be placed in unfamiliar situations in order to grow. This is why stepping out of one’s comfort zone is one of the keys to making progress. It means trying things we’re not used to, learning new ideas or concepts we aren’t familiar with, or pushing our body to exercise
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Us (and Them)
Just as the brain needs failure to grow, it also needs to overcome adversity in order to learn. If there is no obstacle, why progress? The twist is that throughout history, this need for obstacles has sometimes taken the form of creating enemies. In many languages, this took the name of “barbarians.” In ancient times,
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Failures
There is a certain irony in how the human brain works: for us to learn and grow, we also need to fail personally. Babies do it naturally when trying to grab objects, sit up, or learn how to walk: they try, fail, try again, fail again… When this was understood by the Espers on Esperia,
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Responsibility
In Esperia, because the 7 Shapes were at the center of how the land had developed, every single Esper was taught the importance of responsibility, and how to contribute to Esperia as a whole when trying new things. This became especially true as the Espers grew their magical powers—the wiser they had to become, and
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Frustration is Good!?
Ever wonder why it feels so frustrating when you’re trying to learn new things? You feel like you’re not making progress, or you’re already forgetting what you just learned? This is exactly what learning looks like! Without this kind of friction when we do new things, our brain would have no reason to change, adapt,
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Challenge Accepted
One Daily Tale was a special book. It was written with magic, and the 7 Shapes themselves spent their time reflecting on how to write and present the important—yet simple—points of the concept, which was linked to harmony with nature and peace for the living creatures of Esperia. This was when Faya stood up a