A Different Take On Self Improvement
Stop optimizing humanity out of your life in pursuit of success
everyone’s obsessed with “locking in” right now.
scroll through any social media and it’s the same shit everywhere.
18 year olds posting their 4am alarm screenshots. “locked in.” “no days off.” “the grind don’t stop.”
20 year olds guilt-tripping themselves for going out on a saturday. “i should be working on my goals.”
an entire generation convinced that if you’re not grinding 24/7, optimizing every hour, constantly leveling up it means you’re wasting your life.
and i get it because i’ve been there. i spent years thinking that way.
but there’s something deeply fucked up about a 19 year old feeling guilty for having fun at a party because they “should be building their empire.”
like, you’re 19. you’re supposed to be doing dumb shit.
society has you convinced that you need your whole life figured out by 20. that if you’re not on the path to wealth and success by 22, you’ve already lost.
and it’s bullshit.
black coffee, no honey this time. tastes bitter as fuck but i’m out and it would be inconvenient to go get more at this time.
afternoon. sun coming through the window making everything look washed out.
this self-improvement trap people fall into is dangerous. it’s funny how the obsession with growth becomes its own kind of cage.
how we’ve turned life into this relentless ladder climb where every moment not spent “improving” feels like failure.
and nobody’s talking about the psychological damage this does.
THE COMPARISON TRAP
your brain wasn’t designed for infinite comparison.
for most of human history, you compared yourself to maybe 150 people max. your tribe and your village.
you could realistically assess where you stood. top of the group, middle, bottom. simple.
now you’re comparing yourself to millions of people simultaneously.
every time you open social media, you’re seeing someone’s highlight reel. someone making more money, looking better, achieving more, living a life that looks perfect.
and your brain processes this as “everyone is ahead of me.”
doesn’t matter that you’re only seeing curated moments. doesn’t matter that most of it’s bullshit.
your amygdala sees someone doing better and interprets it as you falling behind.
so you feel this constant pressure to optimize, improve, level up.
because if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. and falling behind feels like death to your nervous system.
this is why the self-improvement obsession is so addictive. you’re trying to resolve a threat that your brain thinks is real.
but the threat isn’t real. you’re not actually competing with everyone on earth. you’re just exposed to everyone on earth’s wins.
and that exposure is destroying your ability to just exist without feeling inadequate.
THE FALSE DICHOTOMY
"Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life." - John Wooden
there’s this idea that you either have fun now and struggle later, or you sacrifice now and enjoy later.
party in your 20s, broke in your 30s. grind in your 20s, enjoy your 30s.
as if these are the only two options. as if fun and building are mutually exclusive.
and it’s complete bullshit.
you can smoke weed in your dorm at 20 and people call you a college kid. do the same thing at 40 and suddenly you’re a burnout.
same behavior but different context and it creates an entirely different social judgment.
but here’s what people miss…
most successful people weren’t monk-mode from age 18.
mark zuckerberg was drinking with his roommates at harvard while building facebook. they literally had a keg in their dorm.
steve jobs dropped acid and traveled through india before apple.
and there are countless other examples.
they weren’t 16 year old prodigies who sacrificed their youth. they were regular people who figured shit out while also living their lives.
they had fun. made mistakes. wasted time. and eventually found their direction.
but social media doesn’t show you that part. you just see the success after the fact.
so you think they must have been grinding nonstop from day one.
and you feel behind because you’re still figuring shit out at 22.
when in reality, that’s exactly where you’re supposed to be.
YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A LITTLE LOST
there’s a phase of life where you don’t have it figured out. that’s not failure, that’s development.
your brain is still developing until 25. literally. your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully formed.
you’re not supposed to have your entire life planned at 20 because you don’t even have a fully developed decision-making system yet.
being lost is part of the process. making dumb decisions is how you learn what not to do.
wasting time on things that don’t work out is how you figure out what does work.
but self-improvement culture treats all of this as failure. as time wasted that you’ll never get back.
every party is an opportunity cost. every lazy sunday is a day you didn’t work toward your goals.
and this creates people who are 24 years old, already burned out, wondering why they feel empty despite “doing everything right.”
because you optimized for productivity and forgot to actually live.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DELAYED GRATIFICATION GONE WRONG
there’s research on delayed gratification. the marshmallow test. if you read my posts i’ve mentioned it before.
basically they tested kids and those who could delay eating one marshmallow to get two later tend to do better in life.
self-control predicts success. true.
but there’s an important aspect to mention here.
there’s a limit to how long you can delay before it becomes pathological.
if you’re constantly deferring enjoyment to some future point where you’ll “deserve it” or “have time for it,” you’re not building a good life.
you’re building a life where happiness is always conditional on future achievement.
and future achievement never feels like enough because your brain adapts to new baselines.
you hit your goal, feel good for a week, then immediately set a new goal. the satisfaction never lasts.
so you end up in this cycle where you’re always chasing the next level, never actually enjoying where you are.
this is called the hedonic treadmill and it’s why successful people are often miserable.
they optimized for achievement and forgot to build actual satisfaction into the process.
THE REAL GOAL
if you focus on building something valuable while you’re young, you don’t have to sacrifice your 20s.
you get to enhance them. you get to travel more. experience more. live more.
you get to say yes to opportunities. spontaneous trips. random experiences.
because you’re not broke. you built something that supports the life you want to live.
this is what people miss about the grind. the point isn’t to suffer now so you can enjoy later.
the point is to build something that lets you enjoy now and later.
make money to enhance your life, not replace it.
work on things that matter to you while also doing things that make you feel alive.
the best version of your 20s isn’t monk mode in a dark room grinding 18 hours a day.
it’s building skills and income while also having experiences and making memories.
you can’t get your 20s or 30s back.
if you spend them entirely focused on the future, you miss the present.
and the present is the only time that actually exists.
FINDING THE BALANCE
"Balance is not something you find, it's something you create." - Jana Kingsford
it’s important to note that i’m not saying don’t work hard. i’m not saying don’t have goals.
i’m saying don’t let self-improvement become self-imprisonment.
don’t guilt yourself for having fun. don’t skip experiences because they’re “not productive.”
don’t treat every moment like it needs to be optimized for future success.
some moments are just for being alive. and that’s enough.
work on your goals. build your skills. make money. absolutely do that.
but also go to the party. take the trip. have the conversation. make the memory.
because successful people aren’t successful because they sacrificed everything.
they’re successful because they found something worth working on and also lived their fucking lives while building it.
THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT TRAP
here’s where it gets dark.
the self-improvement obsession creates this weird performative suffering.
people competing over who’s grinding harder. who sleeps less. who sacrifices more.
as if suffering is the metric of future success.
but that’s not how it works. suffering doesn’t equal progress.
some of the most successful people work less than you think. they just work smarter.
they delegate. they build systems that don’t require constant grinding.
meanwhile you’re proud of your 16 hour days like it’s a badge of honor.
when in reality it might just mean you’re inefficient as fuck.
and you’re so deep in the grind mindset that you can’t see it.
you’re optimizing for the appearance of productivity, not actual results.
posting your 4am wake up time for validation. tracking every minute. hustling publicly.
but what are you actually building? or are you just performing growth for an audience?
because if you’re more focused on looking productive than being effective, you’ve already lost.
WHAT YOUR BRAIN ACTUALLY NEEDS
neurologically, your brain needs downtime to consolidate learning.
when you’re constantly in work mode, you’re not giving your brain space to process and integrate.
creativity happens in rest. insights come during walks or down periods and connections form when you’re not actively thinking.
if you’re grinding 24/7, you’re actually limiting your brain’s ability to do its best work.
you need balance. not as some soft motivational concept but as an actual neurological requirement.
work hard on things that matter. then rest. have fun. do nothing sometimes.
your brain will thank you by actually performing better when you do work.
THE REAL QUESTION
so should you have fun while you’re young or build for your future?
both. obviously both.
stop treating them like opposites.
build something meaningful. make money. develop skills. hit the gym
and also go to the concert. take the road trip. stay up late talking to people you care about.
do dumb shit that makes good stories. experience things that have no ROI.
because life isn’t a spreadsheet where every input needs a measurable output.
some things are just for being human.
and if you optimize humanity out of your life in pursuit of success, what the fuck was the point?
you’re not a productivity machine. you’re a person.
act like it. work on your goals and also live your life. it’s not complicated.
you just have to stop believing the bullshit that says you can’t do both.
because the people who actually made it? they did both.
they worked hard and they lived.
and you can too.
stop feeling guilty for existing outside of grind mode.
your 20s aren’t supposed to be a prison sentence you serve before you’re allowed to enjoy life.
they’re supposed to be the time when you figure out who you are, what you want, and how to build it.
and figuring that out requires actually living. not just working.
so yeah, lock in on your goals. absolutely.
but also unlock sometimes and just be a fucking person.
coffee’s cold. still tastes bitter but extra shitty without the heat.
i finished writing this, and now i’m gonna go do something completely unproductive. maybe go lie down on the grass outside and stare into the sky.
because i can. and so can you.
ps. shorter post today, more of a thought ramble than a deep dive. just needed to get this off my conscious. paid posts dropping tomorrow, been working on some heavy psychology breakdowns that go way deeper. if you're not upgraded yet, $7/month gets you access to everything. dopaminergic system + nervous system breakdowns, psychological warfare, internal conflict, all the neuroscience behind behavior and change. lock it in before prices go up.
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This is pure brilliance in written form . This article is truly mind-blowing , the depth , clarity , and brilliance of ideas and reality make it one of the most astonishing pieces i have ever read . Absolutely unforgettable!!!.
This dropped in my feed right when i needed to seeit. I like to believe universe sends me little messages in the form of substack posts and this is just THE perfect timing. Thank you. You have no idea how someone's simple thoughts can have so much impact on someone else's lives, im glad you wrote this.