Improving is an addiction that we all have.

TaylorRuth
3 min readSep 21, 2022

Stop reading listicles. Stop searching pinterest. Find something new.

Photo by Sam Moghadam Khamseh on Unsplash

Let’s stop trying to find ways to improve. Let’s stop reading listicles to find a quick win on becoming a “better” version of ourselves. Let’s stop searching on Pinterest to identify that one tweak that will make us that much closer to perfect. It doesn’t work.

It’s not that wanting to grow or evolve as a person isn’t something we shouldn’t aspire for. It’s a natural result of experiencing life.

But improving isn’t found in a how-to guide. At least, not the type of that matters.

Becoming better comes from learning. Those really incredible “ah ha” moments that Opera talks about. Those moments are incremental pivots in thinking that contribute to the gradual evolution that is you. You find yourself changing habits, being inspired to actually act on an ambition, speaking out — doing. Those moments lead to pivots that lead to doing. And that doing is long term and sustainable.

What listicles and Pinterest and the guides allude to is the world rocking shift. The kind where we here people say, “I finally woke up.” Those alleged resources are not going to be what wakes us up. Trauma wakes us up. Fear. Loss. Pain. Circumstances that make us feel so terribly and unbearably uncomfortable are the ways we wake…

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