Achraf Kadem, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer
To begin making healthy improvements in our lives without feeling bad about ourselves, we must ask ourselves, “What is motivating me to make a change?” We often don’t stop to examine what this urgency is or what is causing it. All we know is that it is powerful enough to temporarily fuel initial, reactive attempts at “improving” ourselves. To do that, it is necessary to separate the contents of our actions, appearances and perceptions from what we are.
These contents are determinations that can be pointed to and described, such as physical states (energy, tension, posture, appetite, appearance, fatigue) and mental states (thoughts, emotions, impulses, beliefs, self-images), along with the repeated ways these appear in daily life. Some take the form of habits, repeated patterns that become second-nature and run automatically, often because they reliably deliver relief, comfort, control or approval. Other contents are broader and more stable, or what people call traits, our usual way of reacting and carrying ourselves across situations, even though these shift over time with sustained practice and habits.
However, the self is not identical to any of these contents; the self is the standpoint in us that can notice them, evaluate them and decide to reshape them, what psychology calls reflective self-awareness or metacognition. The proof is simple: the moment we can say, “This is harming us,” we have already stepped back from it, relating to it rather than being swallowed by it. If we were not capable of this separation, reflection would be impossible and so would change.
If we begin investigating the common motivator behind self-improvement, we will often find shame: the idea that our being is not satisfactory or whole as is. In other words, we perceive a lack within our being, the idea that we are not validated, complete or enough without possessing or ridding ourselves of a certain determination, causing this deep sense of urgency within us to develop it.
Shame rarely remains a judgment about a single determination. It expands into a judgment about our whole being. Psychology often frames this difference as the difference between shame and guilt: guilt is more likely to stay focused on an action and pull us toward repair, while shame more readily becomes global, turns into withdrawal and makes us want to disappear rather than improve. When shame is the motivator, self-improvement becomes, in truth, self-hatred. Shame is almost analogous to a wild wind empowering a flame. It can generate a surge of discipline, a sudden seriousness, a dramatic vow. But just like fire, shame burns our being indiscriminately. It not only attacks a single determination. It scorches the whole person. We must then identify a healthy reason for change, because without a healthy reason, the wind decides where the fire goes.
This is where we get trapped, because a great deal of colloquial “self-improvement” is not oriented to the good, but to recognition. We seek to be recognized as worthy, as valuable, as whole, as someone who counts. Desire often takes what feels missing in us and projects it outward, convincing us that some object, achievement or recognition will finally make us whole. However, the truth of the matter is, we need not the erasure or creation of content to be worthy, valuable and whole. We already are, as we are.
That realization inevitably raises the question: if we are already whole, why should we make any change? The answer is because it is good for our being. “Good” here does not mean impressive, enviable or socially rewarding. It refers to that which makes our life more coherent, more stable, freer. Freedom here does not mean doing whatever we feel like. It means being able to guide ourselves from the inside, so our choices come from reasons we can stand behind, rather than from compulsions, shame or the pressure to be seen a certain way. In that sense, the good is freedom made real in our lives, not just an idea we admire. Psychology describes a similar difference by saying that more autonomous actions are those we rationalize and value, rather than actions driven by an external or fragile inner pressure.
It is entirely possible that what we are ashamed of is something that we should change, but we ought not make a change exclusively because we are ashamed of it, but rather because we can determine whether or not that thing is good. Even when shame creates a burst of effort, it is a fragile kind of effort, because it is fueled by fear and contingent self-worth, so the moment we slip, the same force that pushed us forward now pushes us into withdrawal and avoidance; and even when we “succeed,” we often stop the moment the shame has been quieted, because the real aim was not the good, but the relief of no longer feeling ashamed.
So the question is never whether we should change, but why. When the good guides us, change becomes an act of self-government, fostering freedom through the development of stable habits and clearer judgment. Autonomous, self-endorsed motives persist. When shame guides us, effort spikes and then collapses into hiding once we slip, or stops once the shame quiets. So if we now understand worth is unconditional, treat failure as information and take the next step.
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