Why is Self-Improvement Important?

Dissecting What May Seem Obvious

Photo by Jodie Cook on Unsplash

There’s a presupposition to all self-help, self-improvement, and philosophy as a way of life topics: that growth is good. Self-help and self-improvement, after all, is improvement OF the self, though not necessarily just FOR the self. Even the philosophy of Stoicism presupposes that growth is a good thing. Their eudaemonic state is often described as “flourishing”, which is often imagined as a blooming flower. And that is growth. However, why is growth important? And how do we keep growing?

“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.”Napoleon Hill

We Are Vulnerable

We are vulnerable, and we know it. That’s what makes us human. By adopting a certain way of life, a certain philosophy as a way of life, we can cope with this vulnerability. But here’s the kicker: a way of life isn’t just a set of ideas on a piece of paper. A way of life is really a set of habits and practices that you do daily or regularly.

Virtue is What You Do Regularly

This is one of the most crucial understandings that I think a lot of people miss: virtue is what you do regularly. In other words, they are habits. Habits are…