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Habits are formed through repetition, and that repetition can be a conscious decision. It is very obviously possible to train yourself to have better habits, people do it all the time. I'm not sure what your specific definition of self-betterment is, but mine is that you can through guidance, external help, environmental changes, personal reflection, (occasionally) medication, and (importantly) personal repetition, practice, and conscious effort slowly fix problems with your behavior/attitudes and pick up working/life strategies that make you more productive and healthier, and it is good for most people to try and do so. This is a kind of out-of-left-field comment that I'm not sure how to reply to. I don't think I understand what you're saying, because obviously there are good reasons to force ourselves to form habits? A huge percentage of learning any skill is in learning fundamentals in such a way that they become instinctive and where practicing them becomes habitual. Even day-to-day life habits like brushing your teeth are ingrained in us via conscious effort and conscious reinforcement, they're not something we accidentally pick up. So I have to assume I misunderstand what you mean by self-betterment and habits because I assume you're not arguing that people shouldn't consciously try to form habits, and I assume you're not arguing that it's impossible for people to learn to be better people or to pick up healthier habits than they have currently. I mean, that argument wouldn't even be a philosophical difference or a perspective difference, it would just be observably false. If self betterment in general the way that most people understand it was nonsense then nobody would ever stop smoking, rehab would always be a waste of time, no one would ever lose weight or improve exercise habits, etc... And that's so clearly not the case that I have to assume you're using those words differently than most people. ---- In any case, OP asking for help at the top of the thread is a kind of self betterment (although HN might not be the best place to do it or to get advice), and it's healthy for them to be putting in effort to understand themselves better and to get better at controlling their productivity. And it's extremely possible for them to see results; I bring up the records advice out of personal experience with it and out of personal experience looking back and seeing, "oh wow, I am way better at day-to-day tasks than I used to be." You can get better at this stuff. It's not a matter of just magically deciding to (which is part of my objection to the "just do it" advice I was replying to above), but self-improvement is a totally feasible thing for most people to do. |
I thought it meant to alter yourself, far more than just the results of adopting a healthy lifestyle, and i really believe it's not possible to really alter oneself.