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Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

theguardian.com

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Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#11

Post by yesenadam »

tomcooks wrote: post #2

I wholeheartedly disagree with this defeatist attitude, which is supposed to magically lead to change more than actually planning and actioning chance itself. Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. Get good at trauma and you'll get good at life. I suggest to learn one's own limits through suffering and systematically repeated failure. It's the only way to build not only a map of current yourself, but also a t…

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma.

I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someone else is defeatist! is hard to swallow. That sounds a cold, hard world that you live in. Good luck. I don't think it's the only world, by any stretch, though. Although I'm sure I misunderstand you - that's a very foreign language to me, everything about it is strange. Beatings, suffering, trauma.. :-(

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#12

Post by ibn-python »

dasil003 wrote: post #9

This article resonates with me, but I don't think it would have when I was in my twenties. It's the kind of thing you come to realize after longer years as an adult and you see patterns play out in radically different life contexts, and then you start to grok who you really are in ways that aren't available when you've been an adult for less time then you were a child. What I've learned about procrastination and esca…

Wow you described exactly what I'm starting to feel in my late 20s. Especially the point about neurotic feedback loops.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#13

Post by GavinMcG »

throwawaysea wrote: post #8
GavinMcG wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...that quote doesn't say "never change." It says that "look[ing] at what we need to thrive" is a "more likely" way to change, rather than trying to "look at what we need to...change."

It says “rather than change”. Doesn’t that preclude change? I interpreted it as accepting flaws and looking to “thrive” in other means that don’t involve fixing those flaws.

Grammatically, "rather than" opposes "change" to "thrive", but entirely within the context of "look at what we need." It doesn't preclude change itself--just the focus on change.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#14

Post by 9dev »

yesenadam wrote: post #11
tomcooks wrote: post #2

I wholeheartedly disagree with this defeatist attitude, which is supposed to magically lead to change more than actually planning and actioning chance itself. Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. Get good at trauma and you'll get good at life. I suggest to learn one's own limits through suffering and systematically repeated failure. It's the only way to build not only a map of current yourself, but also a t…

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someon…

You both seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum. I agree with OP in that living implies a certain amount of suffering… at some point, life stops giving you things and starts taking things away. That is an inevitable consequence of being alive, and it fucking hurts to loose your best friends, or your parents. But you still can choose for yourself what you make of that.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#15

Post by 127 »

yesenadam wrote: post #11
tomcooks wrote: post #2

I wholeheartedly disagree with this defeatist attitude, which is supposed to magically lead to change more than actually planning and actioning chance itself. Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. Get good at trauma and you'll get good at life. I suggest to learn one's own limits through suffering and systematically repeated failure. It's the only way to build not only a map of current yourself, but also a t…

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someon…

It depends on how lucky you are. Some people just have to work hard to get where they want to go. Some are just handed everything they need.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#16

Post by intull »

9dev wrote: post #14
yesenadam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someon…

You both seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum. I agree with OP in that living implies a certain amount of suffering… at some point, life stops giving you things and starts taking things away. That is an inevitable consequence of being alive, and it fucking hurts to loose your best friends, or your parents. But you still can choose for yourself what you make of that.

OP and commenter have experienced opposite ends. Commenter wants to make sure that one’s life experience isn’t extrapolated to everyone else’s and generalized. You can relate more with OP than commenter but they are your individual experiences. Doesn’t mean they’re uncommon. It could be that commenter’s experiences are rarer. Commenter’s ask is to not treat OP’s, yours or even their own life experiences as inevitable facts of life.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#17

Post by afarrell »

127 wrote: post #15
yesenadam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someon…

It depends on how lucky you are. Some people just have to work hard to get where they want to go. Some are just handed everything they need.

Hard work and trauma are not the same. A good days work should leave you feeling tired, not beaten down & broken.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#18

Post by 127 »

afarrell wrote: post #17
127 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how lucky you are. Some people just have to work hard to get where they want to go. Some are just handed everything they need.

Hard work and trauma are not the same. A good days work should leave you feeling tired, not beaten down & broken.

Pushing into the danger zone leaves you open to getting hurt. Enough doing that, and eventually you will. Avoiding pain and avoiding risk is avoiding life.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#19

Post by praptak »

9dev wrote: post #14
yesenadam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowhere in life change happens without trauma. I found that shocking to read. It's a million miles from my experience of life. That sounds horrible. Perhaps you've found it true, but please stop saying it like it's true for everyone, a fact of life. I can't even imagine how you could believe such a thing, well, it works for you or something, I guess. Also, saying that then complaining in the same breath that someon…

You both seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum. I agree with OP in that living implies a certain amount of suffering… at some point, life stops giving you things and starts taking things away. That is an inevitable consequence of being alive, and it fucking hurts to loose your best friends, or your parents. But you still can choose for yourself what you make of that.

It's the pain that is inevitable, the suffering is your reaction which you can control.

Re: Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

#20

Post by yesenadam »

intull wrote: post #16
9dev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You both seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum. I agree with OP in that living implies a certain amount of suffering… at some point, life stops giving you things and starts taking things away. That is an inevitable consequence of being alive, and it fucking hurts to loose your best friends, or your parents. But you still can choose for yourself what you make of that.

OP and commenter have experienced opposite ends. Commenter wants to make sure that one’s life experience isn’t extrapolated to everyone else’s and generalized. You can relate more with OP than commenter but they are your individual experiences. Doesn’t mean they’re uncommon. It could be that commenter’s experiences are rarer. Commenter’s ask is to not treat OP’s, yours or even their own life experiences as inevitable…

Thank you, yep. Also, I've had many awful things happen to me in life, don't get me wrong! (e.g. years of bullying at home and school, years of schizophrenia, homelessness/losing everything etc) My point was just that a lot of the changes I've made, in myself, my beliefs, self-beliefs, my actions etc happened absolutely "without trauma". In my 20s mostly I read a lot of self-help, psychology, spirituality etc books and put a lot of it into practice, which was work, but it wasn't traumatic at all. It was wonderful. I just know that "Nowhere in life change happens without trauma" is very far from true. (But possibly I totally misunderstand what they meant by that)
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