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How Can You Finally Just Start Improving Your Life?

I bet sometimes you wonder if self-improvement is worth listening to at all, don’t you?

I make no bones about the fact that the vast majority of people will never escape societal prison, even though the prison is almost entirely psychological.

You get hit on two fronts.

First, you have to deal with what society expects from you — the institutions, the media, employers, your family, friends, everything.

Alain De Botton described the way the ethos of society permeates in the most perfect way possible. He calls it a “colorless, odorless gas.”

Then, you have to deal with what you expect from you. In many ways, you’re your own worst enemy. The tension between who you currently are and who you know you should be drives you nuts, so you find different ways to deal with this. You can cope and distract or you can try to alleviate that tension with self-improvement. Both involve pain, but one leads to the outcome you want.

So what the hell do you have to do to just do it?

That’s what all self-help boils down to anyway. I’ve said everything there is to say about the subject several dozen times simply because the punchline is most difficult to pull-off.