Looking back on my life it seems that my mind has been forever preoccupied with getting one over on itself. It usually begins with me with wanting in some way or another to improve myself. It could be anything really, yet once I’ve done the so called improving I begin to question the very validity of the improvement! Am I really a better person for giving to charity? What does being a better person even mean?
Frustrated, I try to throw the concept away – no more improvement for me! I will begin to live with myself from now on, embracing the good, the bad and the ugly! But even in this proclamation there is the sly sense that by doing this very ‘throwing away’ and ’embracing’ I will become a better person!
There are two types of people for whom the concept of self-improvement was not built, and for all intended purposes will probably not work, 1) those who can’t believe in it, and 2) those who can’t achieve it. I personally regard myself as both people yet, no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to stop trying.
And for those who circle this continual loop, there’s no shortage of guidance on the matter. The personal development industry is worth billions, and out of it the information seems endless.
One viral video that particularly struck me was Simon Sinek’s interview on Inside Quest where he talks about the millennial generation and the sense of entitlement, inflated expectation and shallow ideals that characterise it.
Slotting comfortably into the millennial category, needless to say I could relate. I have been told that I can achieve anything. I did believe I was supposed to have an established career by 25. And as much as I can pretend to resent the value, success to me does ultimately equate to money, power and reputation.
Whilst I haven’t grown up directly in the social media generation that Sinek goes on to critique, I do feel marked by its influence. It has not only worked to inflate my expectations, but even more concerning, it has etched away the skills it would even take for me to achieve them.
It was David Foster Wallace who I’d first heard talk about the generation (he was talking about his) becoming more hostile (read: challenged) towards being asked to read, sit in quiet, or look at a piece of art for even 15 minutes.
And so I think to myself, when was I able to concentrate on a thing for more than 15 minutes? When did reading become only a feature of my commute? When did I lose the ability to ‘effectively’ communicate?
For those who care to retrieve what they’ve lost, we are now in a position where an active effort is required to conduct the things that previous generations possessed by virtue.
Think about the things that personal development books promise to endow us with… Focus, time management, communication. These are things that Tolstoy didn’t have to worry about between pages of War and Peace because he didn’t have Instagram updates to scroll through.
I wonder whether Paul Robeson would have been the insurmountable polymath he was if his time were spent uploading to Facebook? How focused on the daffodils would Wordsworth have been if he had Netflix episodes to get through?
The effort expended on improving our most inherently human behaviours can feel at times oddly inhumane. But however maligned personal development can seem, it is ultimately what’s necessary to combat the sense of being a productive-consumption drone, here to just work, shop and scroll.
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