Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 99 posts

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

#71

Post by FledNanders »

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…

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - Allen Saunders

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

#72

Post by throwaway013921 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #64
toshk wrote: post #43

It ends with a zen quote. The point of zen, and other form of buddhism is often misunderstood. A simple way of describing one of the core teaching of buddhism is one of the main reason we suffer is: We are constantly neurotically pulling for what we want, and pushing away what we don't want. It means as a juggles we are constantly trying to juggle our live into a state from where we think will be fullfilled. For exam…

I don't know, the biggest flaw I've always seen in the quasi-buddhist approach is that some types of suffering - such as intense physical pain, or grief - simply aren't possible to be ignored or meditated or 'enlightened' out of. As long as you're feeling that pain, you're going to be uncomfortable. There is no way out of it. The way I see it, life vacillates between peaks, plateaus and valleys. I assure you I and mo…

> some types of suffering - such as intense physical pain, or grief - simply aren't possible to be ignored or meditated or 'enlightened' out of. As long as you're feeling that pain, you're going to be uncomfortable.

On the contrary, one of the points of Buddhism is exactly that pain and suffering are not the same thing (and this agrees very much with modern neurology and psychology).

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

#73

Post by kayodelycaon »

A corollary to this is advice my boss gave me, “while you’re trying to get to tomorrow, remember to live today.”

It’s easy to get into a cycle of constantly pushing things off in the hopes of a future where everything is fixed.

If you take time to take care of yourself now, you’ll be much more efficient in the long run.

In my own life, I’ve had to accept there are things I can’t control and I have very real limits on what I can do. I want to be better than I am now, but the pace will always be slower than I want. If I remember where I was before, and see where I am now, I know change and progress looks different up close and it does in hindsight.

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

#74

Post by thenerdhead »

goodpoint wrote: post #67
thenerdhead wrote: post #54

I love self-improvement. There’s many in this camp of “you’re perfect the way you are”. I don’t agree at all. I believe more in Kaizen, the idea of changing for the better. It’s similar to the ship of Theseus paradox where you slowly replace each plank on the boat, is it the same boat? Knowing about your short comings is the key. Knowing you are lazy will help you be more productive. Knowing you’re depressed will hel…

"you’re perfect the way you are" and "acceptance" are poorly phrased and easily misunderstood. As the article tried to explain, this is about making peace with ourselves and handle feelings of self-rejection, guilt, shame and so no. Then the healing begins.

Agreed. Unless you have the context of the authors journey from their book or other works, it can read both ways. Usually it’s the whole “I embraced my mess when I became aware enough”. How do you become aware enough without first trying to change? Catch-22 in my opinion. That’s why I think changing for the better sometimes starts with no awareness, but rather a feeling inside saying you need to make a change (Japanese concept of Yugen)

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

#75

Post by ajuc »

smokel wrote: post #49
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #40

Honestly, if I learned one thing about self-transformation it is that it's quite personal, so I don't want to call the author wrong per se, but the article does not reflect my experience at all. The times when I experienced the most drastically successful change when I realized that there really is nothing stopping me from entirely changing my identity and self if I so desired. Obviously, this only works for things a…

Firstly, I love your approach and if it works I am happy for you! However, how can we be sure that a person can actually change even some parts of ones identity? It seems to me that most people assume that our brains can be molded at will, simply by repeating some intended behavior. I'm not saying that this is impossible, but I highly doubt the extents to which this works. There are so many variables at play, that it…

In my experience identity (how you think about yourself) is the easiest thing to change. I did it several times in my 38-year-long life, mostly accidentally. Habits are much harder because by default you do them automatically, without thinking. I'm not even sure identity is an independent "thing". IMHO it's an emergent property based on things you do and think and it changes from one moment to another. Habits on the other hand are definitely real and persistent.

> Being able to change wants and desires at will however seems almost unattainable.

I don't think you need to change them. If I'm addicted to video games and wasting my life my root want and desire usually isn't "I want to play more games". It's "I want to feel I'm good at something" or "I don't want to think about myself as a failure anymore" or "I don't want to think about my life falling apart". These are all good things. You don't need to change the desires, just the way in which you achieve them.

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

#76

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

noduerme wrote: post #60
ibn-python wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Don't be like this person. Literally, throw away all the video game machines you own and take an extremely long walk in Tibet if needed. This is a cautionary signal. If you relate to this, you're going to throw your life away. I was responding to a sub-thread but it got deleted before I could finish. This is what I think about this: Someone said: >> it could be hurtful to people to attempt to archive by getting sucke…

> by coming to terms with it in some crystalline fashion

I’m not sure I get you. There are certainly ingenious speeches but there are genuine ones, too (probably not speeches but genuine acceptance). See “Radical Acceptu” by Tara Brach.

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

#77

Post by Kye »

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…

Realizing I'd sat there doing essentially nothing for years out of fear of making the wrong choices was a huge wakeup call. It turns out most choices don't generate much inertia: you can always change course.

You only get so much time. Inertia from decision paralysis grows exponentially the longer it goes on. But you get a lot of time. The brain struggles to grasp it. If you're 55, you could have as many years left as I've had in total, and I figured out in my 30s what most people only figure out on their deathbed.

The best time to make a call is now. My call was to focus on music around 2017, and the last 5 years have seen more progress than the 15 before it. I was doing CI/CD on my life without even realizing it with similar results. As with software development, there are mistakes, but I'm practiced at and confident with fixing them and getting on with it.

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

#79

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

smokel wrote: post #49
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #40

Honestly, if I learned one thing about self-transformation it is that it's quite personal, so I don't want to call the author wrong per se, but the article does not reflect my experience at all. The times when I experienced the most drastically successful change when I realized that there really is nothing stopping me from entirely changing my identity and self if I so desired. Obviously, this only works for things a…

Firstly, I love your approach and if it works I am happy for you! However, how can we be sure that a person can actually change even some parts of ones identity? It seems to me that most people assume that our brains can be molded at will, simply by repeating some intended behavior. I'm not saying that this is impossible, but I highly doubt the extents to which this works. There are so many variables at play, that it…

Desires and wants change all the time for you already. Try this: The next time you desire something, focus on that desire. Stop talking or doing anything else that might distract you from this focus.

The desire will rise and fall away as you focus on it. Your mind will move on to other things.

You may come back to the same desire in an hour or the next day, but my point is that you can see this desire leave you as you focus on it.

You can’t get rid of desire permanently, but you can recognize that you are not the one in control of your desires. They rise and fall on their own. This is liberating because, with practice, you can lose attachment to these desires when you feel them.

This is one of the goals of certain types of meditation.

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

#80

Post by WA »

toshk wrote: post #43

It ends with a zen quote. The point of zen, and other form of buddhism is often misunderstood. A simple way of describing one of the core teaching of buddhism is one of the main reason we suffer is: We are constantly neurotically pulling for what we want, and pushing away what we don't want. It means as a juggles we are constantly trying to juggle our live into a state from where we think will be fullfilled. For exam…

The general question is: do you adjust to your environment or do you try to reshape your environment? There is no right or wrong. Some things, you can’t change, some you can. And it can be difficult to know when to adjust and when to reshape. At least it is for me.
Post reply on HN