I have been struggling to

• get (seemingly) important things done,
• stick to my schedules,
• stay productive,
• ...

...which is kind of a common theme in the few posts of mine. But today I stumbled upon a lecture / speech by Alan Watts, which kind of addresses this inner fight in an interesting way [0]. I'll try to summarize the bits which were most important to me:

First the obvious: Other people cannot improve you. They can guide, they can aid, they can make you think, but they cannot do the work for you. The person trying to improve themself needs to be the one to make the improvement.

Now the problem: To improve, I need to know what I need to do in order to improve. But if I knew, I would already be improved, so I obviously don't. It's a catch-22. I'm basically fucked, it's impossible.

Watts even addresses meditation: I can try to take a step back and watch myself - analyze my thoughts, my feelings, my doings, and so on. But who's doing the observations, the processing and the analyzing? Myself of course. So that part requires introspection as well. But what about the part doing the introspection of my introspection?

It's a laughable cat and mouse game: I'm trying to outplay myself. I'm playing against myself - and I'm hoping to win [1].

Watts continues: We are trying to grow, we want to grow, somehow. It's the child craving some candy all over again, only more spiritual this time around. It's inherently selfish. After all, what difference does it make? We all know or heard of people that feel like they figured it out, only to end up a little worse than some average dude.

Do you want to be selfish? Of course I don't. But why don't I want to? Because it's better that way. Better than what? Better than others?

We all have the drive to do something in life. Some interest, some hobby, some profession, some knowledge, etc. Some people are focussing on trying to maximize their income and money, but often solely to persue some other interest of theirs afterwards. I did not (and do not) enjoy attending uni, I'm mostly doing it for the degree; but I like low-ish level programming and creating software.

In this instance, university has failed miserably: It's no longer about the passion and profession. It's not about the interest in things. It's simply about the degree.

But for the people persuing their true interests, for the people who are enjoying university, for the people who are happy in life; ask yourself the following: Whatever you are doing, studying, learning or persuing - are you doing this to improve yourself, or is it "simply" some interest of yours?

For me personally (and this is where the realization kicks in): No, I'm not trying to improve myself. Improving in that field or profession is merely a byproduct. I'm interested in creating software, being able to satisfy my curiosity and overcoming obstacles along the way. But I'm not doing this because "it's the right thing to do" or because "it's better for myself" or anything like that. Just like me learning the piano - becoming good at it is a side effect. The mere fact of enjoying playing the piano or playing certain songs is my drive.

So know we can approach this whole fiasco in a different light: There is nothing you can do to improve yourself, and this does not matter.

This sounds oddly comforting to me, probably because this train of thought exempts me of any personal shortcomings. I'm not sure at the moment of what to make of Watts' insight, but it's definitely something to think about.

If this thought sounds interesting, dreadful, depressing or confusing, I can only recommend to listen or read the talk for yourself. It's quite likely that I will look into more stuff of his regardless of any upcoming personal conclusions on this topic.