The Paradox Of Self-help

[Vinsanity]

Leo has mentioned in some of his videos the paradox of self-help and happiness. One is striving to improve and fix certain aspects of themselves, and the other is being in the moment and accepting these flaws. Leo has talked about how it is possible to incorporate both of these in our lives, but I am still a little stumped on how too. Would anyone care to elaborate? thank you. 

[Extreme Z7]

@Vinsanity Accepting your flaws IS technically a part of improving yourself.

There you go, paradox solved.

[Ajax]

Just like Extreme27 said...

I shall also part with a poem from mother goose:

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

[ChimpBrain]

You can simultaneously accept/love who you are and have a desire to improve who you are. It's not all that much of a paradox when you think about it.

[Vinsanity]

But what about all those videos Leo has on fixing those flaws? Does that mean I should just stop watching them and just accept the bad aspects of myself?@Extreme Z7 @Ajax

[Vinsanity]

Maybe I'm overthinking it or maybe not thinking about it enough lol. But i can't seem to wrap my head around this paradox. Like, accepting your flaws while also trying to fix them just seems contradictory to me. But idk, I'm still new to this whole self-actualization thing so maybe in the future this will snap into place like a puzzle piece. @ChimpBrain

[Ajax]

@Vinsanity Watch the first 5 minutes of the paradox again. Basically, if something isn't working... adapt and work around it. Try something else and then try again later just like a puzzle. For example, if you are not funny, don't try to force it, work on an aspect that you are better at to compensate such as telling interesting stories or otherwise being a good conversationalist or being a good listener and giving wise advice.

[FindingPeace]

On 04/05/2016 at 5:08 AM, Vinsanity said:

One is striving to improve and fix certain aspects of themselves, and the other is being in the moment and accepting these flaws.

People missunderstand the term 'accept'. Accept doesn't mean that something has to stay as it is. Acceptance is preferable to judgment, criticism or denial. People tend to look at aspects of themselves and judge them or deny them. They question them. They become neurotic about them or depressed. Or whatever. Acceptance is to understand that these aspects just 'are' and that there is nothing inherently wrong with that. That it's ok to have these aspects.

However, that doesn't exclude the desire to change these things. We can identify things in ourselves, accept them for being there, but see that they can create unhealthy side-effects in our lives. Then we can choose to work on these things and change them.

So rather than looking at something about yourself and asking "why am I like this? why me? what's wrong with me? I'm bad, this is bad" etc you should be looking inwards and thinking "Ok, so I have these aspects, it's ok, they are what they are, I don't need to judge them. I can see how they can create negative side-effects in my life so I'll aim to work on them."

You've alread judged yourself by calling them 'flaws'. How about not looking at them as flaws, but accepting them as aspects of your psychology that can be improved upon to create more positive results in your life?

 

[vizual]

Hahah, as long as you are identified with the ego it is impossible to truly accept everything as is. Maybe if you are at the top 0,1% of society and you have attained perfect finances, health, looks, relationships, friendships, career, hobbies etc. Then maybe your ego would back off a bit. But still, it would find something new to nag about. There is nothing to fix, the ego is unfixable. It will always want more.

You don't want to fix yourself. You should strive to get rid of the thing that wants to fix itself. If you manage to do that, then you can be free to do the things that make life worth living.

[charlie2dogs]

your flaws will dissolve and flow away from you when you are seated in the right space of being.  its not about fixing things, it about being self realized and all the perceived problems will no longer be problems

[Vinsanity]

Wow thanks guys haha I guess me striving to fix my aspects is just me being neurotic. I'll try to do more research on just accepting myself now because while improving myself is great and all, I first need to accept my aspects in order to approach this from a non-neurotic Thanks!@charlie2dogs @vizual @FindingPeace @Ajax

[Ajax]

  I was thinking of ways to explain paradox a bit more to you, I was tired yesterday and so I don't think I explained it as well as I could have. 

Imagine holding a ball in the air that is half-blue and half-red. There are there is Joe to the left and there is Sally to the right. You ask, "What color is this ball." Joe say, "red", Sally says "blue". So who is right?  To them there is a paradox, because it looks red to Joe and it looks Blue to Sally.  Since you see both sides of the ball... it is not a paradox to you because you see the colors and where they fit.

Just like the ball, Life has many multi-colored multi-aspect facets to it that change just by perspective. If you can understand what I am telling you then, you understand paradox. Life is not uni-dimensional it has so many dimensions and aspects that only a narrow mind would be could say that it is either one way or the other... See now why Leo is so critical of Rationalism?

For your paradox of fixing flaws/accepting them... It is good to view things in this way: Some flaws can not be changed, some flaws are not actually flaws themselves, some flaws are actually advantages in disguise, some flaws require other flaws to be addressed before they can be taken care of, etc.... You see when you look around and try to view the various aspects and view it from different viewpoints, it doesn't quite seem so much like a paradox anymore, does it?

 

I hope that makes some sense to you, vin

Edited May 5, 2016 by Ajax

[Saarah]

@Vinsanity it's basically about striving to improve yourself from a place of love 

if you learn to love yourself as you are, you will more likely be kind to yourself and then allow yourself to grow, from this it can be seen you are both accepting of yourself and growing 

imagine striving to improve from a place of hate, I think you will descend down the growth ladder instead of up 

take for example if you were an anorexic and psychologically you hated yourself and your appearance. What does the anorexic do? They stop eating because they want to look better as they currently think they don't look good at all, from a place of hate came a desperate and harmful striving to improve which instead just made things worse because they become ill 

If you love yourself instead, you will be less neurotic in your attempts to improve yourself, which paves the way for healthier options of growth such as eating healthy foods as a specific example 

If I was bad at maths, having a hateful teacher would not help me improve, but one who was more positive would give me a good place to improve from 

so it's about improving from a place of accepting and loving yourself as you are right now, only then can you also grow 

[Infinite_Zest]

Ideally, there are only two basic types of situations you can find yourself in (once you are a little more mindful and developed).

One is to enjoy a situation. That usually happens if you do something you like ... pretty self explanatory.

The other one is accepting. It is obvious that you cannot like every situation that you are in. Who actually enjoys changing the tires in the pouring rain? (Stole this example from Eckhart Tolle) However, if you think about it, there is no value in resisting and not accepting a situation as it is. By not accepting a situation - however it may be - you essentially create unease or even pain for yourself.

So now, if you go running (we'll just use this as a self-help example) because you want to lose weight, you do not hate every second of your exercise and you are not negatively motivated. Instead you can "accept your work-out situation" and might even find that it is quite enjoyable - you free your mind, you have some fresh air, you might be out in nature etc. This sort of attitude will help you so much more than a negative one.

Once you start a doing some introspection and outer self-help, you will realize that it is not really a paradox but that they can actually fuel each other. (If you meditate, you are drawn to stuff that is good for your body and mind, you will work out more, sleep better, ... a positive spiral)

 

Having said all of this, here is my last question:

Is there a more fundamental way to grow personally than to just be able to accept or even enjoy every situation that you are in?

Edited May 5, 2016 by Infinite_Zest

[Vinsanity]

@Ajax Wow thanks guy I didn't expect so many people to answer lol, but I think I have a better understanding now. It was really how I was looking at this whole situation, just like Ajax said I maybe am to focused on one side of the ball that I can't even see the whole ball. And I was coming from a place of lack, not love, so that will only affect me negatively@Saarah @brovakhiin .  I think I will try and approach a sort of "accepting the moment" type of mind and see where that goes@Infinite_Zest . But to be honest I can already tell I am going to have some mental doubts about this haha. So do you have any tips for not critizing the moment and just accepting it?

[charlie2dogs]

On 5/4/2016 at 0:08 AM, Vinsanity said:

Leo has mentioned in some of his videos the paradox of self-help and happiness. One is striving to improve and fix certain aspects of themselves, and the other is being in the moment and accepting these flaws. Leo has talked about how it is possible to incorporate both of these in our lives, but I am still a little stumped on how too. Would anyone care to elaborate? thank you. 

the problem you have presented is this, as the identity you are trying to fix things, trying to rationalize things about personal growth trying to improve your life.

Self realization is about functioning as a being of consciousness, from consciousness and not the identity.

The two cannot be incorporated,

I have observed that many are dealing with issues of the identity, and in dealing with issues of the identity there will be no ending. 

You remain as the identity and work with issues, doctrines and philosophies  or

You become self realized and all that nonsense goes away, you exist in a state of peace, joy, without problems.  There is no past to create problems, no future to create problems, only the moment of now, being in a conscious, aware, present state of being that no longer sees problems but observes events that may arise in the moment which can be discarded or seen as an opportunity for further evolution of your own consciousness.

If you want out of the dream you must stop trying to resolve issues of the identity and focus on becoming self realized.

You can work on issues of the identity forever and you may never become self realized.

So what is the answer to these things,     seek self realization, then the issues of the identity will dissolve