Bettering Myself
I was writing to someone today who wrote explaining that they were trying to better themselves. I can understand the sentiment behind what they meant. I worked out fairly young that you can solve problems before they happen if you work on ‘bettering yourself’. And so I read a lot.
But today after many years and much observation and contemplation I see a mistake in it that stops people from getting much ‘better’. It’s this…
The idea of self improvement is based on an idea that you are incomplete and ‘not good enough’. It’s a striving to become worthy.
The truth is that you have always been fully formed and perfect. In other words you have the choice of a full range of behavior and emotion. You can be evil or Saintly. You can be as suicidally miserable or ecstatic.
What determines which we access?
The story we tell ourselves, or the picture we paint for ourselves, of our life. Life is a blank canvas. It really is. We are bombarded by sensory data. Off the top of my head I think it is something like 3 million or 3 billion discrete pieces a second. Either way that’s a lot of raw material that gives an almost infinite choice in how you interpret what is happening to you.
Your senses decide which to make available to you based on what seems most relevant to you. So what does it choose? The most powerful vote is cast by your emotional location.
So if you are happy you access the perceptions that are congruent with being happy. I’m good enough, the world is good, good things are happening.
And if you are miserable, your perceptions will fit in with that. I’m bad, I’m not worthy, the world is bad, bad things are happening.
It’s not about getting better. It’s about accessing the best of yourself.
Being happy in other words. Then you’ll treat others with kindness, generosity and compassion. You’ll act in ways that make you feel proud and so on.
If you beat yourself up about not being good enough, you won’t access the higher emotional states and so you won’t display the best of yourself.
And that is why I write about finding happiness. Because it is the only solution to every problem.
So, if ‘bettering ourselves’ means that we first need to look at ourselves and be happy about what we already have, then there would be no need to better ourselves! How then do we determine a reality (I’m trying to avoid the word ‘weakness’ or ’shortcoming’) in ourselves and what is the best way to change this part of ourselves?
Maybe it all depends on the standards you set for yourself? i mean, compared to “here”, you’re fine…but to “there”, you’re not good enough (yet)..that kind of thing?
then you could like, look at your perceived shortcomings when you need to motivate yourself, but to stay balanced remind yourself of your strengths?
[...] the last post I was asked a couple of questions. I love these questions because they force me to explain more [...]
[...] This post is a follow up to Jenny’s comments [...]
Maybe it’s not about bettering oneself as this does imply that we below some kind of measurement. Maybe it’s more like changing into another dress. I like all of my dresses but for today I think I’ll wear this one. Not that the one I took off wasn’t good but rather I think I’ll try this one for a change.
So if I want to get good at playing the piano, I need to practice, and “better myself” (in terms of piano skill).
You can be happy before you learn to play piano, while learning, and after you are an amazing piano player.
You can be obese, and happy, or strive to get in good shape to satisfy your standards of how people ought to be, and be happy while and after doing so.
Happy is irrelevant to ’self improvement’, you can be one and not be doing the other, you can do both, or you can do neither.
I say, both is good for me.
I think your problem may be with those who need the self improvement to be happy. Sound good or am I confusing your ideas here?
Hi Tom,
Your comment is one that inspired me to write the post on self improvement vs self expression
[...] This post is a follow up to Jenny’s comments about bettering myself. [...]
Maybe it was a lingual slip… maybe they were not striving on "bettering" themselves, but on being the best they can be. This is what i strive for in my life. I have no self-esteem or self-perception issues, in fact i am perfectly 'happy' with who i am. However, i am inspired by my potential, and it is this reason that i strive to be the best i can be.