Self Discovery or Self Improvement?
It’s been quite a while now that we’ve been pumping out these Make it Happen Monday posts over here at Loving the Bike…..and what I’ve always thought I was doing was sending out positive, inspiring pieces of writing mixed in with my own thoughts of the world. Basically I’ve been pushing self-improvement messages just like many of today’s best seller authors and motivational speakers do.
But I’ve come to the realization that the term self-Improvement is nonsense. The word suggests that people are broken and need to be fixed. What I’ve also learned is that nothing could be further from the truth…..each one of us is perfect at our core.
What I’ve always thought and tried to impress upon each and every one of you is that certain changes must be made within ourselves in order to live the lives we wish to live and go on the rides we wish to ride. But that is wrong. Those of us who seek to find our best life and live out the desires of our heart…..must be dedicated to inner discovery, not outer change.
Sometimes telling people how they should live, or suggesting ways to help make their lives better and more meaningful just provides them with guilt and shame. If any of my writings have ever created these feelings….I apologize. But I do stick to the fact that we are all in need of development…..improving upon what we already are.
We actually start our lives with all it takes to live our best life. As a child we were innocent and pure, creative, passionate, imaginative……we expressed our truest essence as a person and we totally lived in the moment and savored every simple gift we received. We saw nothing but abundance and we saw the world as a place of enormous possibilities…..but then something happened. We betrayed ourselves.
In order to “fit in” we began to rationalize, judge, and worry in order to become a “pleaser”. The process of socialization kicked in as we did what we were told and acted so that we conformed to the world around us.
Without getting into too much detail……what we as Adults are striving for in our lives is to get back to where we started. We don’t need any freaking Self-Improvement….we have it. We just have to look inside to find where we hid it all those years ago. From now on I hope to make these Make it Happen Monday posts based on self-discovery rather than self-improvement…..and help us all get back to the natural greatness and perfection we had when we were born.
Hey Darryl
I enjoyed reading this blog, I can connect with your observation about our current human condition, we are being bombarded with self improvement and progress, no wonder guilt and negative self attitudes arise. As you know this is not healthy mentally as well as physically. I am with you on inner discovery, from my own experience it takes time and conviction, things that aren’t very trendy in our current culture. Keep writing man, great to read and listen to you. Best wishes. Guido
Thank you, Guido. Yeah, I really don’t want to come off sounding negative on many of the things I write about…..but our society concerns me and honestly makes me feel sad in many ways. I really appreciate your words.
Ditto, Eric.
That’s what is so great about riding bikes – it’s like being a kid again whether you’re bombing down the hill on your road bike or zipping through the trees on a mountain bike. So, for at least that brief time, we can shed our adult shells and be “our true self”. Now to translate that into the rest of our lives. Great piece.
Yes, it is an escape…..for a little while anyway. Like I’ve said before, all the world’s problems would be solved if everyone rode a bike.
We don’t need any freaking Self-Improvement….we have it. We just have to look inside to find where we hid it all those years ago.
Quite possibly the best line you have ever written (and you have written a lot that I have liked).
The best possible person that we can be is when we are our true self. Trying to be something else is when we fail.
Take Care my friend.
Eric
Awe, glad you like it Eric. You’re so right once again……we must be our true self. Sometimes its difficult to know exactly who our true self is, but we need to do reality checks once in a while to make sure.