In my early 20’s I was one of those people that would always lean towards hardship, someone who would always take the route to self-improvement rather than comfort, I believed that the more difficult path is always the right way and that it should be better for one’s growth. Seems aggro for some people, that’s because I always believed that potential should be explored, everything can be learned and with hard work one can succeed. In retrospect was it all worth it?
During these years I explored and dove deep into the genre of self-improvement, the books, articles and studies that I have read, lead me to believe that the more information I have with regards to self-improvement the better I will be, and boy did I pursue it. I read a lot and most of it I put into practice. It changed my life to be honest, but that’s another story.
Years later I realized that self- improvement for the sake of self-improvement is not all that good. The downward spiral into the rabbit hole of constant self-improvement that I experienced is sometimes just to keep myself occupied and entertained. It might have been a form of unintentional narcissism too.
It took me a long time to accept this fact about self-improvement, just because something can be improved does not mean it should be improved. What should really matter is the reason behind the pursuit of improving.
When there is no reason for improving something then I guess you are just blindly running in place, what’s more important is to improve an aspect that is helpful and necessary in accomplishing far greater goals.
Self-improvement for the sake of being busy is not productive at all, it is a waste of your finite time, unless you don’t have any other goals in life than just to narcissistically over develop and focus on yourself. Ironically, this will probably make life worse. We should be careful adopting new dreams and goals that could harm the success and happiness we have already built for ourselves.
Discovering and knowing one’s limitations
Face it, you are just going to be bad at some things, this is reality. Not everyone will be born with the athletic genes and abilities of Lebron James and ironically Lebron James will never be as good as Michael Phelps because of said genetics.
Knowing limitations are important because all life on earth will and must come to an end. Ones you realize this, eternal self-improvement will sound like a total waste of time and therefore you should spend it on things that matter the most.
People get fixated on improving themselves because they feel the guilt of not maximizing existence and that’s because they don’t know real purpose. They feel as though they should be doing and improving more, which then creates a vicious cycle of constant attempt to improve at something thinking it will take them places but in reality they are just running in place.
“Peter Pan Syndrome“—the eternal adolescents, always discovering themselves but finding nothing.
There are lots of opportunities in life but that does not mean we should take it all, a lot of girls and guys in the world but that does not mean we should sleep with them all. You get the point.
Failing to realize limitations and the constant belief that self-improvement should be life’s conquest will hinder our life’s real purpose, to help others, to contribute to humanity’s evolution and to make the world better than what it is the last time we found it.
XERGIUS 