How Much is it Possible to Improve Yourself?

[Insightful27]

Are there certain inherent limits to self improvement?
 

Using the video game analogy, you only have so many skill points and so to improve yourself more at one thing you will have to trade off other aspects of yourself.

ex. In order to be more extroverted and outgoing you will have to trade off being able to spend long periods of time in solitude and deep work.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Insightful27

[Nilsi]

10 minutes ago, Insightful27 said:

ex. In order to be more extroverted and outgoing you will have to trade off being able to spend long periods of time in solitude and deep work.

This is just a lazy excuse.

Go out every weekend and socialize heavily, do your deep work in the morning and every trimester or so spend a few weeks in complete solitude. For example.

There is no limit to self-improvement, that’s literally what Life is. That doesn’t mean you should be hubristic about it. Destiny will strike sooner or later and put severe limitations on you — but the self-improvement keeps going, just with new constraints on it.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Nilsi

[Florian]

@Insightful27 I think ye the analogy is true but in real life skill points are obvoiously a lot more nuanced then in a video game. Here skill points are basically the product of time and energy and the skill tree that you can put them into is infinitly times bigger and more nuanced then any video game. So yea of course you are limited, unless you find a way to "hack" life or find a "glitch" if there are any (and even then you would propably still be limited in some way). Inside this game you are limited by the rules that god made for the game. You start it with a certain unique build and set of stats and you got time and energy at your hands which you can use to improve those. Of course again these aspects are infinitly more nuanced then any video game you could play.

[SeaMonster]

You're framing the issue incorrectly.

It's not about limitless self-improvement.

That's a mindset where you're chasing the impossible.

It's about reorienting yourself to align with your own life purpose.

 

[Jacob Morres]

I feel its incredibly high if you make the right moves 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Jacob Morres

[SeaMonster]

You have to address whom you're improving for.

Is it to please others / receive approval from others or is your improvement something in line with what you want for yourself, your life purpose, what is best for you.

[SOUL]

If someone practices terrible habits they will become very good at those habits, one might even say they improved themselves in it. Nobody really has to try to improve, naturally their biology just gets 'better' at whatever it is they do.

We can attempt to intervene in the ongoing adaptation process and 'select' what those behaviors are by doing them, eventually we get better at it. Yet it just happens naturally.

Also, traits aren't connected as opposites in some binary, they are each their own individual characteristic in which we can explore in our experience of it or not much or not at all. I'm both outgoing extroverted and enjoy deep thinking solitude.

Reality is way more dynamic than any game, we can not only rewrite the code of the game, we can rewrite the code of the machine the game plays on.

gg

[LastThursday]

On 28/08/2023 at 7:52 PM, Insightful27 said:

Are there certain inherent limits to self improvement?

I do think we all vastly underestimate our ability to actualize ourselves. You can even see on here how most of us just sit in our own funk - me included. We don't know what we don't know. It's impossible sometimes to realise how much we can change and how quickly it can happen and just how much potential we have.

Even if we think we are severely limited in certain ways, there's still a huge amount of room for self improvement. There's nearly always ways around limitation. Sadly, most of the time the only thing stopping us from actualizing is our own minds and beliefs or bad health.

Are there limits? Of course there are. But we're not one dimensional. We can improve in a zillion different ways. 

[Insightful27]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:39 AM, LastThursday said:

 

Well put

[Sandy6]

I think self-improvement is unlimited. So, in a video game analogy, instead of having a final chapter, this game has endless results. Your lifetime may be your limit.

Self-improvement is related; one area can help improve other areas. Let's say you improve your health; with good health, you can also improve your relationships or income. With a higher income, you can hire the best coaches or teachers to attain more skills. So, skills are not just capitals.

Self-improvement is almost similar to the game "The Sims Freeplay."

As for your example, there can be multiple ways. In order to become more outgoing or extroverted, it can involve direct engagement with socialization and connections, not just solitude and contemplation.

[Luca001]

Start by changing your beliefs about how reality works.

If you firmly believe you can only improve so much, be sure you won't improve any further than that.

Concrete reality changes as the lens through which we see it changes. 

[Davino]

I'm sure there are limits but I wouldn't limit myself in this work, as all limits are creations within my mind.

[Jacob Morres]

16 hours ago, Davino said:

 as all limits are creations within my mind.

Bars