Who Is Self Improvement For?

Self-Improvement, Self-Help, Personal Development, Personal Growth… To me these are all phrases that mean the same thing:  The actions and beliefs we embody in order to move ourselves in an overall direction that we believe is personally beneficial.  The key words here are ‘self’ and ‘personal’.  I write and make videos about Self-Improvement because I find the process fascinating and I think my words can encourage others on their own journey while also holding me accountable to my own.  But I’m realizing that there are still places in my life where I believe I can impose my ideas on others and it’s been a source of recent frustration but illuminating nonetheless.  

Ryan Holiday (DailyStoic.com) has written about this in his newsletter.  He writes that part of what Stoic Philosophy recommends is that we understand that our standards are just that, our standards.  They aren’t meant to be extended to our family members and friends.  I’ve written recently about my parent’s health problems and their lack of effort in taking better care of their bodies has been a huge source of frustration for many years.  However, I must be careful not to project my standards and expectations onto them in the same way I have asked them not to project their standards and expectations onto my life at various times (choice of work having been a major source of conflict in times past).

The really insightful point in Ryan Holiday’s recent writing on this topic is the idea that disillusionment, frustration, and disappointment with other people may be accompanied by expecting others to adopt the standards that we set for ourselves.  I’ll add that maybe when we’re expecting people to problem solve and approach life in a similar manner to our own, and we don’t realize we’ve got that expectation, it is a recipe for being upset by the actions of others.

I don’t think this means that we shouldn’t have standards for other people at all.  After all, just like functioning societies have laws and people live very different lives within those societies, I think social connections probably have at least some unwritten rules but people should have the latitude to be themselves within those connections.  I do think it means that we have to recognize that our own goals and weaknesses take us on an individual journey even in the midst of strong healthy marriages and long lasting friendships.  That individual journey has enough challenges of its own without believing we can force someone else down the same path.