Improving Ourselves to Death
Improving yourself is only painful if you lack humility. If you have an honest and realistic idea of how ordinary you currently are, and honest and realistic idea of what you can actually achieve in 5 years, then the gradual self-improvement process is pretty damn satisfying.<p>The problem isn&#x27;t self-improvement. The problem is typically you get deluded about your own magnificence, and you refuse to pop this delusion.<p>Rip the band-aid off, once and for all. Here and now.<p>Recognize you are not the special person you thought you were. Really see how incredible all the people around you are. And I mean locally. I don&#x27;t mean people on the internet. I just mean the ordinary people around you scratching themselves out lives that seem to satisfy them.  Become one of them.<p>If you have it, keep all the ambition you have. But become satisfied with the process of becoming what you want to be. Find someone, or something to pay you to become who you want to be. This will not be easy, and the work will not be easy, but the pain will be growing pain, and not decaying pain. Decaying pain is what kills you.<p>Most of the work will be unpaid, this is okay. A happy little flow of money is enough, because some money is really damn useful. Some food, some shelter, some freedom. But there is much less in life that money will buy you than people think there is. And there is much more in life that money robs you of than people realize.<p>Again, rip the band-aid off. Right here and now. If you do it slowly like most people do, you&#x27;ll mistake the slow process of becoming wise to your own ordinariness for decay. Rip it off, and then you can improve yourself without pain.