Be Your ‘Okayest’ Self

Why striving for self-improvement is part of the problem.

Before I step on my soap box I want to go on the record here: I’m totally in support of self-betterment. I’ve devoted my career to it, and I’m pretty sure I single-handedly supported the self-help industry through my mid-twenties. I firmly believe the cultural surge in wokeness, mindfulness, meditation and healing is an unquestionably Good Thing. Now that that’s been established, allow me rant.

I’ve got some beef with all the self-improvement noise flying around these days. I don’t know about you, but I have about 14 Meditation podcasts stacked up in my library, and a disproportionate amount of guilt about the fact that I haven’t gotten around to listening to any of them. My instagram feed is perpetually reminding me to be grateful, mindful, present or brave at every possible opportunity.

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been pummeled with inspirational reminders of how we could take advantage of this downtime to learn a language, write a novel, pivot careers or take up the bassoon, but personal growth simply isn’t an authentic, realistic or even appropriate response to pandemic circumstances for everyone. We are positively saturated in content that gently reminds that we could be using this moment to grow — it’s a veritable swell of self-betterment! So…why…