Will I Self Improve Myself Out Of Existence?

Last updated on: October 1, 2015 at 6:52 am by Ambaa Choate

Will I Self Improve Myself Out Of Existence? 2015-09-30T12:07:42-04:00 Ambaa Choate

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I’m a big fan of self-improvement. If I notice a problem with my life, I immediately go about trying to fix it. No time to waste!

I’ve changed a lot of things about myself over the years. I was withdrawn and quiet as a teenager. I didn’t like that about myself. So I changed it. Now I’m very social and have a lot of close friends. I was frustrated by my inability to be spontaneous. I changed that. Now I’m extremely spontaneous and happy to make last minute plans or take off for an adventure. I was narrow-minded and judgmental when I was younger. I didn’t like that about myself. I changed so much that now people complain I have way too much moral relativity.

Which leads me to a new realization that it’s not always clear what things need “fixing.”

I’ve changed things about myself that I didn’t like but from someone else’s perspective I may have made myself a worse person rather than a better one. It all depends what your perspective and your values are.

I also wonder how much of myself can and should be changed. Is there a core of me and my personality that will not ever change? Of course there is The Self, which is all expansive. And I think I am only that. So any other behaviors or personalities are not-Self and can be shifted. But is anything really not-Self? Self encompasses everything, doesn’t it? Have I changed so much about who I used to be that I’m literally not the same person anymore? It’s possible. Or maybe the thing that most makes me me is the asking of these very questions.

I am wondering about this because of an emotional struggle I’m facing. Pregnancy is bringing up a lot of insecurities and fears that I thought were behind me. I recognize that part of my personality is racing through ideas and plans without a lot of thinking things through. I decide I want to do something and I go and do it immediately. I haven’t seen that as a problem. But while that behavior often allows me to do good things for others it can also cause harm and hurt to friends without me realizing.

Is that a thing about myself that I can or should change? I don’t know. Is my intense drive for self-improvement something that I could or should change? If I did I would stop growing. It’s a bit of a catch-22.

I think that this way of attacking problems is a core part of what makes me who I am.

I hope that deciding that is not avoiding further progress of working on myself. I hope that it is not an excuse to continue behavior that is not beneficial. I hope that it is not placing limits on the Self. I hate to see people stagnate in their personal development. You see it all the time where someone is unable to move on from something that happened to them in the past and they decide that the world has to accommodate their quirks rather than them trying to get over the hurts that caused the quirks. I don’t want to be that person.

But sometimes the path to further self-improvement and development is not very clear.

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