Self Improvement?
Why?
Seriously, why should we bother with self-improvement? It's out there, everywhere, and it has been for a some time now. What has it done for us?
And let's say you don't even care about it, which, then, would beg the question Why are you even here?
But, ok, let's say you don't really care, or let's assume that you might be curious as to why you should care. Good. Let's get going, then.
This self-improvement estate (SIE for short), is centered around people who aim at several different, and relatively abstract targets. Broadly speaking, SIE involves:
- The Productivity, or how well and how much you can do.
- The Happiness, or how well what you do makes you feel.
- The Meaning, or how well is what do you aligned with your personal narrative.
Ok, so that might already be too much. It's like, now you're in this strange place, in the dark, wondering why you should be here in the first place. So, let's take a step back, and just focus on this vital question: why should you care about this?
Just so you know, this question is not meant to benefit me. For me, personally, your answer doesn't really matter. I frankly don't care whether or not you have a reason for trying to better yourself, let alone if you have a good reason. But the thing is, you are here.
You see, what makes motivation so interesting to me is the fact that it is less about you, and more about the totality of you. The who you were, who you are, and who you're meant to be. And the fact of the matter is, unless you're dead, you're at least one step into the self-improvement estate already.
And in the uncanny, yet popular-by-default land of self-improvement, in which you, as suggested, might not even be consciously, or deliberately involved, you basically have three collective topics of discussion:
- The habits,
- The mindset,
- The goals.
What does that mean? Well, we have habits, we have a mindset, and we also have goals. And... so, why should you care? Well, you tell me, since you're the one who displays them.
Why do you care? Why do you get bored when you don't have something to care about? Why?
Well, that's also a piece of this puzzle. We often use our whys when it's better to use how comes instead. We ask "Why haven't you done this?" instead of "How come you haven't done this?". The difference? One expresses deliberation, whereas the other one doesn't. And then we get surprised that the person, whom we're outright accusing of refusing to do something, gets defensive. It's not like they thought it through and decided not to do it. It's, instead, that they didn't think it through enough, or at all. And sometimes, ignorance is a reason to blame someone (see the Nuremberg trials), but most of the times, it's simply not the case.
Because, let's be honest, how many things do we think through in our day-to-day lives, and how much of what we do is to a large degree simply automated? Watching YouTube, Netflix, getting our regular meals down, our social meetings, our validation...
Simply put, our brain loves patterns, and it won't stop until it finds one that'll solve all of our problems.
It's why the Pill is such an iconic symbol. Have you thought of that? The Pill - the modern symbol. The latest religion and the latest divine icon, even.
Does that mean that The Pill ideology needs to be avoided? Not necessarily. It's just that we have to keep in mind this crucial idea:
Pursuing the solution doesn't stop, even when having the solution.
If you're in a world where all of your needs can be sufficed through the use of this all-in-one kind of tool, that perhaps may be calling for a bit of gratitude, but what it does not call for is settledness.
To illustrate this, think of your life as a bike ride. You want to be moving, because otherwise you'll fall, but the thing is, the faster you're moving, the harder it is for you to avoid crashing.
And if you think that just because you're riding down this hill (the pill that makes things easy), where you don't have to pedal your bike at all because of the gravity pulling your forward, then by all means close your eyes and wait to find yourself breaking your leg in a ditch. But, of course, you don't do that. You keep your eyes open when that happens. You don't settle, and you keep focused, if not even more focused than before, especially if you're on a public road, where you might crash into someone.
So, the SIE.
Is it meant to be an all-in-one pill? Partly yes, depending on which corner of it you bump into when browsing the internet. But in truth, this self-improvement thing isn't a pill. It's a pathway, and it's rough around the edges, and by all means, it is necessary. It's what helps you keep your eyes open and your bike steady when riding down this evermore steep and towering hill that we build for ourselves.
I'll be ending this with one last question.
How come we can't just stay put, though?
What do you think about that? What answers come to mind when thinking about this?
How come we... do stuff?
And maybe more importantly, what stuff would be the most beneficial to us?
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