The problem with self-help is that you constantly feel like you need to improve yourself. Because you’re always focused on getting better, you miss what you’re already good at. Of course there are always ways to do things better.
But once you get caught in this whirlpool and it becomes habit to constantly want to improve, you’re never happy. You live under constant pressure to fix something, and each next step gets harder and more exhausting.
A Pact for Non-Self-Help
Sure, it might be easier to improve yourself at the beginning. I’m guessing you’re already pretty far along in your self-optimisation journey. Wouldn’t it be better to just use everything you already have, instead of adding more?
What if you made a contract with yourself for the next six months? A kind of non-self-help pact.
You’d go deeper into all your existing skills and virtues, getting better at what you already do. How would that play out? Would you be more satisfied and happy? Would the people around you notice? I reckon they would. That’s why I’m arguing for planned inaction. Because surviving is okay.
Dividends from Your Human Capital
Where’s all this supposed to lead anyway, in your life? Which investments in your human capital have actually produced a noticeable return? Which investment lets you pay yourself dividends? Could you have done something else instead, or should you have?
And what do the dividends from your human capital look like? Is it money for you, or friendships with fascinating people who give you warmth and accept you as you are?
In an age of artificial intelligence, human capital might change. “Human capital” might not mean “career” anymore, but “being a better person”. Though we’d first need to define what a better person is and who actually gets to judge that. But that’s a thought for another day.
First appeared in German on reinergaertner.de, my blog since 1997. AI-assisted translation — because life’s too short to translate 150 posts by hand, but too long to leave them in German.