It's fine to be content with who you are: flawed and imperfect

There's nothing wrong with self-improvement. Unless you don't feel like improving your self.

As this letter to the editor in the March 23, 2023 issue of New Scientist says, there's good reason to simply accept yourself as the imperfect person that you are (nobody's perfect, for sure), whose life is marked by some stupid decisions and screwups.

Fed up with the desire to spin our lives in this way
7 January, p 33
From Caroline Deforche,
Lichterveide, Belgium

According to your guide to being your own hero, psychologists say we should spin our memories "into a well-told life narrative" to "help us achieve our aspirations for self-improvement."

Why always this pressure to perform better, because that is what it comes down to (which isn't the same as saying that unhealthy behaviour shouldn't be changed)?

Why don't psychologists give a message about being content with who we are and accepting what we have done so far? Control over everything is an illusion.

What I found most useful were psychologist Kate McLean's reflections.

Indeed, we don't have to look for silver linings everywhere. Some events just suck and some choices we made were just stupid, or we simply had bad luck. Why not admit this and live with it? Why should we have to sugarcoat our story?

No one is completely the author of their own destiny and no one can mould themselves into the perfect shape.

I like these sentiments.

For most of my life I thought that I was supposed to work on making myself a better person. However, that attitude puts us on a hamster-wheel sort of path where we continually put in effort to arrive at a desired place, yet never arrive there, since it's always possible to be an even better person. 

At some point I believe we have to reach a state of mind of This is as good as it gets.

In my experience, that requires a wisdom that comes with aging. Not just growing older -- everybody does that from the moment of their birth -- but reaching an age, for me it's 74, where you recognize that as the letter-writer said, no one can control life or form themselves into a perfect shape.

The best we can do is be as kind as possible to ourselves and others; try to make the world a bit better than it already is, or at least not worse; laugh when we're happy and cry when we're sad; accept that, as my 4th grade teacher liked to say, Do your best; angels can do no better; and flow with the unpredictable currents of life (not that we have any choice in this).

Comments

[um]

>> Why don't psychologists give a message about being content with who we are and accepting what we have done so far? Control over everything is an illusion.English
https://www.rinogroep.nl/interview/370/dirk-de-wachter-wij-psychotherapeuten-zijn-doetjes.html

[um]

P.S.

What is missing in the previous message:

Being from Belgium the lady must be an "adept" of the Begian charismatic, well known and much loved [media] Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. D. de Wachter, rhe appostle of "The art of being miserable"

[um]

and ... use translate Dutch=> English to read this one article from him ... there are many!

It is great fun to hear him express and expand his ideas on life.

[Spence Tepper]

What you really are may be a person who likes to grow.

And the first step to sustainable growth is acceptance and forgiveness, of ourselves and everyone around us.

Without distractions of negative emotions, all that is left is the ideal, and our natural pull towards it.

And that all comes from within, from inner discovery, inner direction.

When we give up inner negative feelings, when we acknowledge them for what they are, see them openly, unafraid, as part of our inner make up, then we don't need them and can let them go. We release them and take up other objects of affection and inspiration that come forth within.

These are inner treasures hidden in a dark cave, invisible to us, just as our negative emotions are often invisible. We think the world is wrong, but once we put aside resentment and accept conditions as they are, and forgive, then we see that the negative emotions came from us. We were wrong. But when we release that, underneath, we see the higher good that is also us. And from that comes gratitude for all that is just as it is, including our duty to move forward. But now we have direction. Now we see our own progress. The hamster is off the wheel and free. And what do they do? They run forward in joy.

Movement is natural for all of us. But peaceful progress, so gradual others may never see it, but now we see it, is a source of joy.

[um]

@ Spence

Somewhere in a book adressed living creatures as "food bodies".

If I go out for a walk whatever I see, trees, animals and humans alike are indeed jus footbodies.

The stones etc iare kept alive and protected from inside of disintegration.
All the others have to feed themselves.
They grow but do not change from what they are supposed to be.

Crows are born, live and die as crows ... humans too.

What humans thinks that can be changed is imagination a mind game., an illusion

The do not have the power of creation, so they cannot change what is created.

[um]

@ Spence

And walking in the forest when nobody is around sometimes I hear somebody say

That man, that SAID, he was a king.....

Then I laugh, ... how wonderful was that intonation, explaining everything I wrote in the previous message. ... hahaha

We SAY we are this or that but we are just human beings.

God knows what they are doing ...the are born, they feed themselves, they die

I have always been unable to find any explanation for it ... it is just there as it is.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote:
"I have always been unable to find any explanation for it ... it is just there as it is."

Me too on that front. I don't try to explain it. And by not trying to explain it, I discover that it was a bit different than I had originally thought.

Even our understanding changes all the time, relative to our attention, and level of consciousness. When we learn more, things look differently.

So, things are constantly changing, if we pay a little attention. Even that tree out there, a lot more going on than our initial impression.

Nothing is static here. When we don't pay attention, it all seems the same. When we pay close attention, we see movement, and indeed, part of that movement is the change in our own attention.

From that perspective, we can raise our consciousness.
But as they say in coding, garbage in garbage out. If we want to find the treasures hidden we must feed our mind on solid, good food, and choose to attend to that.

[um]

@ Spence

When I listen to the voices outside myself, the experts, the scientists, the pundits, the scribes, the priests etc etc. ..what went on in my mind was always changing, with each of one having a stage in my mind.

Those days have gone and little by little it becomes more silent ...less en less voices that shout aloud .. hear upon me, listen to what I have to say, you are warned if you do not listen, when you listen you will get this and that.

In that silence I just became aware of what and what I was as far as I remember and that nothing had changed ... like the crow ... I am still the same..

There is nothing to raise, the one that experiences all the things remains who and what he is.

We are just leaves on the waves of life ... forced forwards by forces inside and outside ... forces that are all unknown, they are just there like the wind,. The wind just blows and nobody knows from where it comes and where it goes.

I know the world you speak from and I realize that what I write can not find understanding there ..it is too boring, etc

[SantMat64]

Dylan has a pecker; therefore he's a man
Biology is science, It's not hard to understand
We are born with gender, it's very black and white
It doesn't make you a woman if your face is on Bud Light.
Oh, they do not like this, but it's because they do not like themselves
So they want to make the world in their image? Well they can go to hell
What they preach about their own true selves is not exactly true
If they left it at that there would be little cry and hue
But they are determined that our children become little poly prisses
Delay their puberty with harmful drugs and have surgeons cut em up like fishes
They want to ruin women's sports with unfair competition
And make it illegal for anyone to state their unbalanced mental condition
This is what comes of giving in to every human whim
This is why religion is right to label some things sin
When we've reached the point where our kids are sacrificed to Frankensteinian oblations
And "woman" has become a term of disapprobation
And procreation has become passe, replaced by chemical castration
And even the POTUS for the sake of votes has endorsed all this damnation
Then it's time to take a stand against this evil desecration

[um]

@ Sant Mat 64

Before a tree bears fruit, it has to be born from another fruit, grow and develop into a tree.

What you point at, started long ago.

You cannot prevent the tree to bear this fruit but you need not to eat it or plant such a tree in your own garden.

[SantMat64]

Unfortunately, the ability to be fine with "who you are" is decreasing rapidly. According to the CDC, the share of high school students who experienced what is known as “suicidality”—which includes suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts—increased from 2011 to 2021. There's an ongoing mental health and suicide crisis among adolescents and young adults.

Overall, 22% of high school students in the recent survey said that they had seriously considered suicide within the past year, up from 16% in 2011. And gay youth are triple that rate (how can this be, when public support for various forms of castration are at an all time high?)

What might be the cause of this horrifying decline in our youth's mental health?

Well, we told the kids there was no God and life had no meaning. Sure looks like they embraced the message.

[umami]

https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-rate-is-on-the-rise#:~:text=The%20five%20highest%2Dranking%20states,39.8%20deaths%20per%20100%2C000%20youths.

"From 2015 to 2019, urban suburbs and big cities had the lowest youth suicide rates. The community types with the most youth suicides tended to be more geographically scattered, relatively isolated groups, such as Native Americans, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, strongholds of evangelical Christian practice, and farmlands in the Great Plains.

"In these groups, teenagers may face more pressure to conform to traditional religious and gender roles. This fact, coupled with difficulty finding others to socialize with and increased access to firearms or living in a place where gun culture is deeply entrenched, boosts the risk levels for taking one's own life."

[um]

@ SantMat 64

As said before:
Cut the GAUSS-curve in two along the median.
Turn the out sides in.
Paste the figure together and you have a cup or bowl

There is everything to be found what you want to know.

The silent majority is no longer a whole and normative for society.
They are pushed into two camps far away from each other.
In the center the extremes stand in front of one another while in the past they would hardly ever meet one another.
They occupy the media and fight there their war.and want to impose their minority views on the silent majority

As you can see that is very disturbing for each and everyone.

If you do not publicly adjust to one of these extremes of yore, you will put to shame publicly as retarded. etc etc

[Spence Tepper]

Dear Um and SantMat64:
Is it possible, as Brian Ji's post suggests, that all is actually fine just as it is?
Fine or not fine is really our own internal reaction, our own judgement, after we have drawn a picture filtered by our own internal conditioning, intelligence and capacity.

Is it only that we are fine as we are, and others are not fine?

Or is it possible that they, different as they are, are fine also?

Or that both we and they are not fine, or all is good?

Is it possible, that, taking a new look at our own view, things are actually fine just as they are for others too?

Or is this limited human condition not fine for anyone?

I suggest that while we may wish to feel "fine" it is always against some criteria, and that is all a product of our own thinking. And while we may believe others are not fine, that is also simply a product of our own thinking.

What if, just as a thought experiment, we started from the conclusion and reached backwards. What about the conclusion that we are all fine, ourselves and each other? What would need to change in our judgements of others and ourselves to logically reach that conclusion?

And what about the other possibilities? That we are not fine and they are?
Or that they are not fine and we are?
Or that both others and ourselves are not fine?

I suggest these are just reflections of our individual limited thinking.

But what if we steer that by a different conclusion?
What facts can we collect, in our limited way, to defend a different conclusion?

Let's pretend we are attorneys hired to defend, or prosecute things differently.
What information would we obtain?
What would we seek out to bolster our new, paid, position?

If you can assume that role, and find the information to defend each position, I suggest the final judgement will be based upon a broader, and richer, and therefore more objective base of information.

And judgements are only as good as the information upon which they are based.

Often, adding new information to already sound information can still change the entire context, and therefore, the conclusion.

What information do we NOT have yet, that seeking, we can obtain?

[Spence Tepper]

And finally, I would like to add, what information do we readily dismiss that contradicts the conclusion we hold dear?

Can we take another look at that information again?

Or even, as frightening as it sounds, seek out new information that might change our conclusion?

All who wander are not lost.

And many who don't wander at all may be entirely lost.

[um]

@ Spence

What information do I need on seeing trees and crows in the tree?

I have seen them my whole life, and they are still the same as when I saw them for the first time.

And my thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with these trees and crows.. They too are just things I am aware of ... they come and go as the clouds in the sky.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You ask
"What information do I need on seeing trees and crows in the tree?"

The information you did not see, the things you did not see.

What is unknown to you today.

[um]

@ Spence

Why would a member of an indigence tribe need to know, what we are keeping ourselves busy with?

Why would I ask myself whether there is more that what I perceive, can feel and can think of?

That would be imagination, illusion.

We can only deal with what is present to us.

[um]

@ Spence

And ... why would I speak to the youngster in the family about adulthood and senior age.

It would make no sense to them

And when the reach adulthoud etc they will know themselves what it is all about

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You asked
"Why would I ask myself whether there is more that what I perceive, can feel and can think of?

" That would be imagination, illusion."

Is all the unknown merely illusion and imagination to you?

How about the world of every other human being?

Is that all illusion?

Or the world beyond your view?

Is the entire creation you don't see merely illusion?
The myriad and greater truth we don't see, that every scientist and every explorer strives for? Just illusion and imagination to you? Explorers and scientists have a rich history of evidence to the contrary. Such explorers and their records are living proof that illusion is what they thought they knew. And discovery and exploration the source of truth they could not have known otherwise.

[um]

@ Spence

What I know is what I experience .. the rest is imagination.

By looking at an painting I can have all sorts of thoughts and feelings but they are not related to the feelings and thoughts of the artist when he produced the painting. People can make themselves believe but that is an illusion.

If an person has the inner drive to explore, he will explore, he has to but that impulse is not with everybody.

It brings in mind an documentary about an old lady that had spend her whole life on her property. She was healthy and happy with her life.

Others run around, seeking under this stone and that stone without ever finding what they are after .. because? ... because they do not know what they are after.

People keep themselves alive and busy. What they do is all just variation of the same. Some work in the factory and others in a laboratory, it seems different but it is not

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
Understanding that there is more to this world than we can possibly understand is the basis for humility and an open mind.

It is an interesting observation that the more one sees, the more confused one gets, the more conservative we become with casting judgement upon other people.

If someone is happy to know what they know, and understand how small that is, they don't make sweeping judgments about the world. They know that they don't know enough to be accurate.

But lacking that awareness of our own ignorance, people cast judgment on others all the time. They have their tiny curated library of"facts" that neatly for their own conclusions.

And often it is these folks who have no interest in learning more about those they judge. They don't want to learn, especially not from those they have judged. They would rather opine. Maybe because they fear deep down inside that they will be proven wrong with any shred of additional information.

"Every mind must make it's choice between Truth and repose. It can't have both."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

[um]

@ Spence

One can only know what one is aware of,and attribute value and meaning to it in one way or another.

The rest is imagination.
Humility has nothing to do with imagination.

When Christ spoke to the people there was no scribe, high priest theologian around to explain what he said ... he spoke to each and every one .. and all understood him in their own way.

That is how is with all consumption ...art, science you name it

Only later there are the pundits, the scholars that want others ti believe that their is just one interpretation of what is said correct and that is of course theirs.

They are called by Christ ... THIEVES
Be cause they own themselves what was and is not theirs.

Christ let the understand over to the listeners. It was up to them how to deal with his words.

The priests, the pundits want to iIMPOSE their view under this or that emotional, intelectual threat and now and then even physical.

They preach about humility and try to make others feel miserable if they do not heet their words.

That is a strange combination imposing meaning and value upon others and humility.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um:
You wrote
"One can only know what one is aware of, and attribute value and meaning to it in one way or another."

"The rest is imagination."

Really? So all the things in this creation you haven't learned yet, like how to fly a plane, or climb a mountain, or the details of DNA, all that is just imagination?

What about the contents of today's newspaper? All just imagination?

Hm...maybe you want to rethink that one.

[um]

@ Spence

What is there so complicated?

Those that climb the mountain have an experience, for all others everything related to the same is imagination, hearsay.

There is no end to what can be experienced, both outside as inside.
The toytallity of what can be experienced is out of reach.

The one that experience remains who and what he is.

The old ones state ..Know thyself
They did not say know all that can be known and experience.

Maybe they said so with one voice for a good reason.