Our world is always imploring us to improve. You need to have a better physique, create some new skills so that you don’t get left behind, improve your relationships, your spirituality, learn a new language, or manage your money better. Here is the thing; the list is endless and 90% of the investment you make reading or taking classes in self improvement is pretty much worthless. Why do we get on the self improvement treadmill and never get off? Sometimes we are told we aren’t good enough, or if not that directly maybe it is something you could improve in a particular area. I fucking hate feedback! Often it’s not what other people are telling you, but what you are telling yourself. Now you know perfectly well what you might want to work on to get a little better, or maybe a lot better, but before I take any actual action, I think it would be nice to read another self improvement book to find the secret to life and then everything gets better.
My advice to you and to myself: Stop all this fucking self improvement bullshit, including planning out every little detail of your future, hoping that someday all this shit will lead to some version of your life where you will be happy, thus the Lao Tzu quote above.
You already have everything you need to be happy. Do you ever wonder why those monetary goals for a bigger house and more stuff doesn’t inspire you? In fact the things you think you need to acquire to be happy you probably already have. Stop selling yourself short because you haven’t spent 10 years mastering a skill before you can call yourself a teacher, a writer, an investor, a painter (pictures or rooms), or whatever you want to be. You already are the person you want to be, but you think I need more skills, more experience, always trying to get better. You would be better off just diving into whatever it is you want to do and learn through experience. It might not be pretty, but reading 50 books on the subject and taking countless classes won’t really get you closer to your goal.
The key difference in someone that accomplishes a lot and feels happy is that they don’t waste their time creating endless plans, reading self improvement books like The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, and on an on, which I myself am guilty of. The folks that get things done for the most part are those that spend their time doing or being. As an example they don’t dream about being a writer, instead they work from the premise that they are a writer and start writing.
While introspection can be a good thing, there is a fine line between being introspective and being totally self absorbed. When you are self absorbed you make yourself, your career, the way you feel, what’s wrong with you, and everything else a walking talking reflection of yourself. So instead of just living and enjoying each day you analyze the living hell out of yourself and others with some desire to make things better. Better for what? Well so that you can do it over and over again. You run as fast as you can chasing the shiny object which might be an idea or some material thing, just to get it and then start chasing the next thing.
The whole self improvement rabbit hole is perpetuated by a feeling that you are not good enough and need to improve. You spend a lot of your time trying to change who you are, to become smarter, more valuable, richer, and whatever else your trying to improve. Not only do you feel compelled to improve yourself, but you want other people to perceive you in a certain way, and for what?
Ultimately all this self improvement shit just leaves you exhausted and bored to death, living the same day over and over. Often we work our whole lives doing something we really don’t want to do so that you don’t have to do it in the future.
It would be better to have some belief in yourself and stop looking at yourself as some kind of self improvement project. Listen, I’m not against improving your skills, relationships, or spirituality, but these broad stroke approaches advocated by the self improvement books and courses will not get it done. Have you ever noticed that even authors you like will write one book on self improvement using a particular philosophy and when the royalties slow down, they create a new or enhanced philosophy to life that you should adopt. Aside from the obvious monetary reasons, they realize you are just a self improvement junkie, looking for another quick fix to your problems.
I like this quote by Alan Watts.
This is the real secret of life – Be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
Alan Watts
It would be too simple to advocate for living in the present and viewing work as play as Alan Watts said. A simple truth that may be difficult to actually do, probably doesn’t resonate with most people. I mean when you could look to Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, Mark Manson, James Clear, Dale Carnegie, Mel Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Stephen Covey, or Jim Kwik for wisdom instead of Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Jesus, or Muhammad then by all means do so. We as humans seek the more complex answers to our questions instead of the time tested philosophy from Buddhism, Stoicism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Take it from one of the all time self improvement junkies, don’t waste your life looking to self professed gurus for wisdom. I’ve spent thousands of hours reading some of the folks I mentioned above and many more not mentioned, and for what I really learned from it all, I would have been better off sticking to the classics or spent more time meditating.
Now with that said I do include the Bible, Quran, Pali Canon, Meditations, and Letters from a Stoic as a form of self improvement. I just think this multi-billion dollar self improvement industry preys upon our feeling of not being enough or having enough. Realize you are unique in your own right and perfectly equipped to follow your own path on this thing we call life.
Namaste
Please check out my companion blog “inspirationalbookreviews.com“
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