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Mindfulness is the Opposite of Self-Improvement

Though it may be tough to accept...

By ReiderPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Mindfulness is the Opposite of Self-Improvement
Photo by Reymark Franke on Unsplash

For those of us struggling with stress, anxiety, or depression, things tend to feel harder than they need to be. These struggles are so intense and so personal that we rarely show them to the outside world. Unfortunately, when everyone is hiding their struggles, it makes it feel like you're the only one dealing with them. This, in turn, produces plenty of doubt and insecurity: Could I be the only one?

Of course, you're not. Come on.

Yet, even knowing intuitively that countless people share these same struggles doesn't make it any easier for us to handle them. We may fantasize about all the ways in which our lives could be different, but when it comes to taking action, it can be difficult to know where to start.

A wealth of books, podcasts, and articles on self-improvement have sprung up to help address this problem. No matter what their particular issue may be, there's an abundance of advice out there for those who have finally grown tired of the state of their lives and want to make big changes.

Within the world of self-improvement, there exists one path, in particular, that promises seemingly miraculous results with nearly no downsides. This path is "mindfulness."

Mindfulness reduces stress.

Mindfulness reduces anxiety.

Mindfulness even boosts our immune system.

And yet, it requires nothing but time and a little patience.

For those of us searching for a way towards a new-and-improved version of ourselves, nothing is more enticing and accessible than mindfulness meditation.

However, for those who want to improve themselves, it can be shocking to discover that mindfulness is really the opposite of what they are searching for.

Self-Improvement

James Clear, a famous writer on the subject, defines self-improvement as, "the improvement of one's knowledge, status, or character by one's own efforts. It's the quest to make ourselves better in any and every facet of life."

By his definition, to make ourselves better we first have to identify which facet of our life is in need of improvement. Luckily, this doesn't take a lot of imagination. Like fixing a car or a computer, we don't usually go about trying to fix something unless things have gone so awry that it requires fixing.

It's kind of like how, instead of managing the data on my phone, I used to wait until a notification would pop up telling me that I had too little storage to take a single photo before I would finally go through and clear up some space.

It could be that in your life you're already seeing some of those signals pop up, and it's likely that you have a long list of areas you think could use some improvement. This list may include: your health, your career, and your relationships.

Whatever facet of your life it may be, you can find plenty of advice on how to improve it, and most of the time the biggest question one will ask themselves is: where to start?

I think that there's a question that's even more important that we should be asking ourselves. That is: Once we've started to improve an area of our lives, how do we know when we're done?

When we fix something, we are trying to return it to an original state, but with self-improvement we are sometimes comparing ourselves to an imagined ideal state that we've never actually been in before.

A Sisyphean Task

This means that there is no finish line in the race to improve ourselves. Once we reach one milestone, we see that the road goes on even further. This is how, when we start on the path of self-improvement, we run the risk of trying to go too far.

When do you finally say that you've improved enough?

When you've got a bank account bigger than Bezos?

When your figure is so sculpted it could be found in the Uffizi?

When you reach enlightenment?

If you set your ideals too high, then you are priming yourself for disappointment, and every setback will feel like you're sisyphus, sent back to the base of the mountain.

What's worse is that by focusing on improving yourself, you get into the habit of looking at yourself as "not good enough." Once this happens, self-improvement is impossible because even if you reach your desired goals, you will feel like you've only created an ideal version of yourself that, without regular maintenance, will revert back to your true, imperfect self.

Alan Watts described this process as being as if, "you are trying to smooth the waters with an iron, and it will never work."

Mindfulness

Mindfulness, on the other hand, is about accepting who you are at this very moment. Instead of looking at ourselves and seeing all the ways we come up short, mindfulness asks us to look at ourselves and see all that is already there.

Mindfulness is the opposite of self-improvement.

The reason that mindfulness meditation holds such a place of high regard within the world of self-improvement is because it is really effective.

The reason it is so effective, however, is because a lot of stress and anxiety in our lives comes from our inability to accept ourselves as we are. In this way our desire for self-improvement can actually have the opposite effect and contribute to difficulties in our lives.

For those looking to improve themselves, mindfulness meditation is a great place to start, not because it is guaranteed to make you a better person, but as Jon Kabat-Zinn describes it:

"Any superficial or romantic notions we might harbor of becoming a better person—more calm, or more clear or more compassionate— don't endure for long when we face the turbulence of our lives, our minds and bodies, or even the prospect of getting up early in the morning when it is cold and dark to sit by yourself and be in the present moment."

Meditation it is not as easy or serene as it appears to be. Our minds are sometimes tempests of activity and mindfulness meditation can be frustrating enough for us to give up on the idea of trying to improve ourselves in the first place.

The Freedom to Be as We Are

It's when we no longer feel pressured to achieve a certain mental state that we can use our time meditating to become more familiar with the quality of our awareness and the patterns of our minds. By finally dispelling our fantasies, desires, and "romantic notions" of becoming better people, meditation gives us the chance to get to better understand ourselves as we are right now.

Through this kind of acceptance, we may actually find the resolve that we needed to improve things in our lives. More likely though, we may find the peace we had been searching for by allowing ourselves to accept things as they are.

The world of self-improvement is there to promote all of the fantastic things that we could do if we put in the effort. It's exciting and glamorous, and it's easy for us to be caught up in picturing who we could be given the chance.

But if we become too fixated on self-improvement, it can spoil our feelings towards ourselves and cause us to resent how far we are away from our goals. By understanding mindfulness as a necessary contrast to self-improvement, we can incorporate mindfulness into our lives in order to help achieve a more sustainable balance.

Mindfulness reminds us that, although it is incredible to be able to push ourselves to become the person we imagine we could be, sometimes it is even more profound and important to be able to accept ourselves as we are.

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About the Creator

Reider

Thinking about writing about thinking.

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