Self-Improvement and the Search for the "Improved Self"
"Self-improvement" is a popular Buzz phrase in this day and age. That said, it's not exactly a new thing... I first got on board the self-improvement train when I was in my mid-20s.
Something is not QUITE Right...
But what is this thing, really? And what is it we're really trying to improve? Or is it not actually about something we want to improve but just something we want to change? Or are we actually out there, looking for something that is missing?
When I first started dabbling in it, there were a couple of reasons for it. For one, I was kind of unhappy with my life and the direction everything seemed to be taking and I kept thinking to myself that there had to be something better and more meaningful to my existence than a potential long career in technology, a wishy-washy marriage and a house in the burbs. Part the second, a lot of my friends were into various forms of self-improvement at the time and perhaps I had a little bit of a case of FOMO.
What was really going on with me at the time was that I was coming face-to-face with the fact that the version of "life" society and family and friends had laid out in front of me as the ostensible way to live life really didn't match up to my own inner imagination and expectations that I had formed and held since I was quite young... as to what life, love and work was going to look like.
You might say that there was a cognitive disconnect of some sort. If I had allegedly done everything right (as I was supposed to) how come none of it felt like it was a particularly good fit?
Sure, I'd gotten a fine education from a major university, and I'd even graduated with "high honors," but I wasn't doing anything I was sincerely interested in and it didn't feel like it had any particular meaning. It had been the sensible thing, though.
Sure, I had decent work and it was even paying relatively well and was certainly capable of supporting me, but it didn't in any way feel fulfilling or like I was contributing anything worthwhile, and I couldn't even honestly say that the work I was doing was making anybody else happy either. I was just another number in the machinery.
Sure, I was married but it certainly wasn't to the girl of my dreams, and the whole concept of being married and allegedly in love didn't feel like much of anything and on many days I would wake up and wonder what the heck I was even doing there.
Surely there had to be more to it all than this because it didn't really feel much more than a couple of notches above watching paint dry.
Expectations... and Reality
Did I just have hopelessly unrealistic expectations when I set forth in life, or did I simply not have a clue as to how I was to make the best choices for myself? That was pretty much my starting point for the quest for "self-improvement" or what I ended up calling "my journey to find myself."
I can't say that I had much support in my decisions to start gaining a better understanding of myself. My family thought it was "absolute nonsense," and that applied particularly to the older members of the family who had grown up in an era where you just "grinned and bore it" and such things as "happiness" were completely accidental not something you deliberately strove for. My ostensible friends at the time we're a little worried that I'd sort of left the planet to join a weird cult or something!
I spent many years doing the so-called rounds of self development workshops and spiritual retreats and read many many books. Did I become a better self as a result of it?
I'm not even sure that's a good question to ask; maybe I became a more authentic self; someone more in touch with bringing what my core sense of being wanted into alignment with my outward expression and walk through life. And that's possibly a good thing.
On the other hand, those choices seemed to fly in the face of most of what the Greater World expects of people and in some ways I suppose you could argue that I signed myself up for a lifetime of living below the average "standard" of living. The world does not reward non-conformists...
One of the things I did learn, though, was said in so many cases our Eternal Quest for "more" is not something that comes from inside our true sense of self, but more likely something that is the product of external conditioning.
Perhaps this applies more to values in some parts of the world than in others. Here in the USA, for example, "success" is valued very highly but in my own way of looking at the world my yardstick for Success is Not one that necessarily matches greater societies.
So, was my "improved" self really improved?
Well I would say my improved self is perhaps more honest, and more at peace with being just who I was, independently of external pressures.
Occasionally, I might still experience moments of regret over the fact that I never pursued such things as "a career" or conventional "success" because I never got to experience certain material trappings of such success but those thoughts tend to be very short lived. I realize increasingly that even if I had unlimited means I'm completely unable to visualize myself — for example — living on a yacht in the Mediterranean or having a 14-bedroom mansion. What the hell for?
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
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Created at 2023-05-30 23:58 PST
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