Although it is often necessary to talk about specific ideas and procedures, self improvement must be approached as a whole; ideas, procedures, intellectual processes and concepts are all interrelated.
More generally, although in your quest for improvement you will stumble upon many independent content areas, you must come to see that all those topics are interwoven. In a very real sense, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
One of the most important aspects of self improvement is the effort to connect ideas and procedures from different topics to your life.
The essential question
One essential thing that everyone wants to learn these days is this: how to find peace and be happy. The essential answer to that question: start from where you are.
The shifting of focus
The 1960s were the “Swinging Sixties”, a period of social activism, cultural revolution, irresponsible excess, a period of optimism and hedonism. Rampant drug use has become a synecdoche for the counter-culture of the era, as exemplified by Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner: “If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren’t really there.”
Then the 1970s came. In the Western world, the focus shifted from social activism to social activities for one’s own pleasure (eg sex, cocaine, hedonistic all-night parties at discotheques and swinging parties). That is why the seventies were considered by Tom Wolfe as the “Me Decade.”
The following decade, the 1980s, is often referred to as “the Greed Decade,” reflecting the economic and social climate of the period. During this time the word “yuppie” entered the lexicon in the United States and UK to refer to the well-publicized rise of a new middle class. College graduates in their late 20s, early 30s were entering the workplace in prestigious office professions, holding more purchasing power with which they purchased trendy, luxurious goods. The decade witnessed a religious revival and the rise of conservatism, which began with a backlash against disco music late in 1979.
Today, we look back on a century of growing self-preoccupation. Freud published his first major work, “The Interpretation of Dreams”, right at the birth of the twentieth century. And from that point on, we have been increasingly fascinated with ourselves and our world.
Peace and happiness: still unavailable…
Even if our efforts in finding happiness and peace have been stronger than ever before, not only that we haven’t found any consistent happiness or peace, but our anxieties have only increased. For these efforts have made us more estranged from both ourselves and our world. The reasons for that are doubtless complex.
However, part of the solution is simple: we have been looking in the wrong place and we’ve failed to build the necessary connections. In examining this, it is useful to recall the tale of the drunk looking for his car keys under a streetlight. The drunk is asked why he’s looking under the streetlight when he lost the keys over in the parking lot. He replies: “But this is where I can see.”
Spirituality can help, science can help, psychology can help, philosophy can help, but as long as our searching is rooted in self-distrust, we will always be trying on someone else’s answer. Workshops, seminars, blogs, books, retreats and other tools can only be helpful if we use them to help us connect with where we are.
Connect with where you are | DIY
Right now: Where are you? Come back from your worries and plans to where you are now as you read. How are you breathing? How are you sitting? How do you feel? Where are your thoughts at this moment? Don’t criticize or change any of this. Just spend a few minutes being quietly aware, without judgment.
This is it. This is your life. Move forward from this point. Start by finding connections between where you are and the knowledge that is available to you.
All the the knowledge you need to improve your life is already here. You just have to find a way to connect it to where you are. It is the only way to make self improvement work.
