A few years ago, before starting to make this site, I asked myself: "Can I give something new to people?" "Will I make another typical site, presenting information on it, which is so crowded with the Internet?"
And, to answer this question, I began to read resources on self-development, both English-speaking and Russian. Among them I found many wonderful resources, mostly English ones. But nevertheless, it seemed to me that many of them lack something, moreover something very important. And I didn’t like any tendencies in the ideology of these resources.
In this post I am going to reflect these trends and talk about them. The purpose of this article is not to praise your own work at the expense of criticizing other resources. Any criticism you see here is just an attempt to create an aid to illustrate important ideas and to form an understanding of the goals of self-development.
To understand where to go, sometimes you need to know where to go.
Success, career and efficiency
Sites that I watched were very different. Some of them reflected a personal, lively view of the problem of self-development, touching on both the moral and spiritual side of this issue. Others exploited the rhetoric of business training and life coaches. On such sites one could see photos of business people and motivating slogans. The concepts of "efficiency", "productivity", "leadership," winner "," success "are not only the cornerstones of the ideology of these sites, but also the measures of personal development in the understanding of many people: people have realized their potential, developed personally and fulfilled its purpose, the more it is "effective", "productive" and "successful."
Efficiency and success have become in many ways today's icons of self-development in society, fueled by the ideas of Western philosophy of opportunism and careerism. A smiling man in a jacket and tie on an expensive car has become the image that makes up the ideal of the aspirations of many people. And many resources, of course, exploit these ideas.
What is wrong with being effective, productive and successful? Nothing at all, as long as it does not turn into an end in itself, a point at which all dreams and thoughts of a person converge. The preachers of success speak of him as if every person a priori wants and should strive for this goal: to be better and richer than others, to be a leader and a winner. Indeed, now many people do not even think about why they set such goals. And if you ask them why you need to strive for success, it will cause them to be perplexed.
The basis of all desires
But really, why? If we try to discard the usual stereotypes that "success and money are needed for success and money" and think about it, we will inevitably come to one thing. "I need money and success in order to have the power, to have freedom, to buy things that I like, to live in comfort, to travel. (Underline). For this, you need to become successful, productive and efficient." This is how an ordinary person can reason. But why does he need to live in comfort and buy things? To this he answers: “I just enjoy it, it makes me feel good from shopping and from other ways to spend money!”
Stop! There is nowhere else to go. It turns out that success and money are necessary for a person to be good!
Man is a hedonically oriented organism. His behavior in nature is governed by the desire for pleasure or deliverance from displeasure. The nature with the help of such mechanisms directs us, higher primates, to the realization of their natural tasks: survival and procreation. We enjoy sex because this process is aimed at transferring genes to other generations, which is very important for nature. And situations that, from the point of view of natural selection, a person should avoid, cause him negative emotions and displeasure. Serotonin, endorphins and dopamine (neurotransmitters that are responsible for the feeling of pleasure, joy, happiness, or the formation of desires) are the strings for which our "creator" pulls us (whoever and whatever he is), directing him to the right one from view of the evolution path.
Of course, this is a very simplified model. “Pleasure” is too narrow a concept to describe the limit of a person’s aspirations. People also strive for stability, security, a sense of comfort, peace of mind, happiness.
This example simply illustrates one important principle that has become an axiom for me. A person always strives for the inner, not for the outer, even if he does not realize it himself! That is, he moves towards stability, security, comfort, peace and happiness, and not at all to money and success! And money and success are only things through which a person, as it seems to him, acquires peace of mind!
No one would be interested in either wealth, or women, or power, if they did not give certain pleasant feelings. And people who are deeply depressed cease to strive for anything, because they lose the ability to receive pleasure from these things. Which is another confirmation that almost everything in this world is done for the sake of emotions, certain pleasant states, and not for the sake of money, fame and success as such.
Tool instead of goal
If this is so, then before accepting any values as a personal guideline, we should not be afraid to ask ourselves how these values can lead us (and others) to harmony, spiritual comfort and happiness. This principle seems obvious at first glance. But today, the desire for success, to "personal effectiveness" has replaced for many people the desire for happiness.
This is the ideology of success as an end in itself, "success for success." And this ideology is preached by many books and websites on personal development. “You have to be successful, you have to be effective, you have to be the first, you have to be the leader,” they say. But can these values lead us to spiritual harmony and joy, namely, to those things for which all of humanity lives?
Yes and no. Among successful people, the most efficient leaders have many unhappy personalities to whom their lives seem empty, who are immersed in working with their heads in order not to see this emptiness. And why did they need success? To make your life a little less unbearable? This is not a good excuse for this purpose.
There is nothing wrong with financial success itself, as long as it does not turn into a single and primary life goal. In this case, it begins to resemble the situation of a person who has a hobby to go to doctors. At first, he went to the examinations for the care of his own health. But then it turned into obsession, mania. He forgot about what he attended for doctors: now he is undergoing examinations every week, trying to consult all specialists, to get all possible types of certificates that he simply collects in a special folder. He is less and less interested in his own health, he only thinks about getting as many references and test results as possible.
This example seems fantastic and comic: after all, all of us care about our health and don’t go to doctors for nothing. But at the same time, the examples of many people who donate strength, health, family for their careers do not seem strange to us! What for? Is it for the sake of happiness? I do not think it has already been replaced by some other goal. Or means.
Does his success and brilliant career bring such people happiness? Not always. As well as the endless trips to doctors instead of sports, proper nutrition and rest worsen (at least do not improve) the health of a person from our fantastic example, also a career cannot be the sole determining factor of happiness and comfort. And many people in order to feel happy, may have to regain strength, family and health, which they once sacrificed careers.
I already wrote that when I saw numerous websites about personal development, I thought that they lack something very important. And then I realized what it was. They motivate people to strive for anything: for money, for career, for beauty and attractiveness, for popularity with the opposite sex, but not for the most important thing, fortunately and for harmony!
There was a feeling that many ideologues of personal development go around and around, but do not fall into the main goal of human existence: to be happy and to give their happiness and care to others. And it seems even stranger, given the fact that everything that a person does, he does in anticipation of happiness. It turns out that the tool replaces the goal!
But such a replacement does not just happen. Many people really do not know what happiness is, and they associate it only with a short pleasure from money, entertainment, sex and victories on the love and career front. They just have no other way to enjoy life. But is it not time to expand your own horizons and go beyond the usual desires and illusions that bring pain and dissatisfaction? Should we continue to flirt with the weaknesses of the person, leaving him as he is or offer him something new, connected with harmonious and balanced personality development and the desire for harmony of all people?
Exploiting the dark side of man
The very concept of "effectiveness" does not have independence. Efficient machine that does not consume a lot of fuel, saving the owner money. Effective employees of the corporation, which bring profit to their investors. You can be effective for someone else, but not for yourself!
Moreover, the question of how success is a means to achieving happiness can also be left open instead of taking popular opinion in society. Of course, money gives a lot. But often wealth and fame do not bring people ultimate satisfaction, but make them want more and more, forgetting about everything.
No, I never thought that evil is in money. In fact, it is initially in people and simply translates itself through money, finds in them a means of realization.
Money itself is neither good nor bad. But in fixation on success and in attachment to those pleasures that glory and wealth give us, there is nothing good. Not only because these pleasures are fleeting, short-lived and not capable of saturating a person’s passion, leaving him unsatisfied, but because the ideology of success is often based on greed, pride, selfishness, vanity, opportunism, that is, those qualities that make a person suffer making him addicted!
That is, the modern radical philosophy of careerism also exists at the expense of these things. And of course, she finds a response in human hearts. Not all people are ready to get rid of their illusions and continue to think that only money, success, popularity will make them happy. Of course, for this reason, the logic, based on the fact that in order to find happiness and harmony, you also need to develop creatively, spiritually and morally, does not find such popularity. Many people are extremely reluctant to get rid of their illusions, even if these illusions make them suffer. They are much "more comfortable" to remain in their existing ideological paradigm than to become happier. And they are looking for an ideology that will support these illusions.
Such an ideology does not offer a person to improve, to become better. She does not want to change it radically, she wants to take what is and exploit it! She says: use your darkest sides as fuel, in which all the good in your life burns, giving birth ... giving birth to what? Bearing success, efficiency and a brilliant career!
To base a life purpose on something that may bring suffering is somehow not very rational. But to become happy, a person must change himself, get rid of fear, selfishness. He needs to become more open, compassionate, kind, loving, calm, accepting, rational than a super effective alpha male!
Of course, I do not preach the rejection of material goods. Also, I do not want to say that sites or books that offer to become successful are bad. They may even serve you well to achieve certain goals in your career and work. Just careerism, "personal effectiveness" should not become the main values in your life. These things can be used for private life purposes, but not to close their whole existence on them!
Criterion of the right values
Any ideology, philosophy, technological change, and even religious doctrine, in my opinion, should be evaluated, and only because they are in line with the values of finding personal and social harmony and happiness. If your success serves your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones, and not vice versa (happiness serves success), then there is nothing wrong with that. But if he brings only suffering, you should think about this goal, ask yourself, why are you doing this? And if necessary, adjust your small values and objectives in accordance with the most important values in this life.
When I first saw websites dedicated to efficiency and productivity, I realized that I could still give people something that was not on these sites. I decided that I could help them get rid of the dissatisfaction, the suffering, the fear that I myself was experiencing, I will help them realize their true desires, find the right values, and I can share with them my happiness and teach them to him! I will be able to tell them that happiness rests not only in money, but it is necessary to follow him on a journey inward! And when you get this happiness, you will understand that there was no travel!
