Too Much Self-Improvement?--A Paragraph a Day

The ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant
busy in self-improvement, thus binding him or her to the
fact that the self is still there behind all the improvements.
For why should the ego kill itself?
-Paul Brunton


There's a part of me that's not really too interested in self-improvement any more.  Of course, I still want to become the best version of me that I can be, but that doesn't mean that I constantly have to keep improving.  Rather, at a certain point we simply have to live, to experience our lives for what they are without thinking of the shortcomings we have that we want to demolish.  We have to remember that when we seek to improve ourselves, there's an implicit assumption that there are shortcomings that we have to somehow "fix."  Perhaps we don't need fixing, though.  Perhaps the most important thing that we can do is simply let our lives be our lives, and live them as best as we can.  Maybe it's important that we remind ourselves constantly to be kind and gentle and compassionate, without thinking about a bigger picture or some sort of abstract ideal that we wish to attain.  I really do want to live my life to the fullest, but I think that in the past I've understood that to mean in some way that I have to fix my flaws.  Perhaps when we devote ourselves to our daily lives fully and completely, those flaws either fade away or become completely irrelevant.  Maybe we don't need to fix anything at all.  Maybe we just have to live our lives.