Improving yourself

The way I have always tried to live my life is to better myself at any chance. Better myself mentally and physically. I am not sure if I did it when I was little too but something I noticed when I got older was that I would try to find out my reasons for wanting to better myself.

When it comes to knowledge, it seems as I don’t really need a reason, it’s just because I want to know. I have no problems with that. When I was younger I trained physically because I enjoyed it, so that was my reason for doing it. Both of those reasons are excellent reasons to do something. These are self fulfilling – you do something because you enjoy it, and you enjoy it because you do it. (Not that that last sentence makes complete sense but I am sure you get the gist of what I mean.)

Now that I am older, I am finding problems doing some things. I find I make a lot of excuses for myself. I find myself not doing something because I don’t accept my reasons for wanting to do them. Take going to gym or getting fit for example: In my head my reasons for getting fit are good health, a good body and so that I can impress the girl next door. Immediately after this I think this is the shittest (the dictionary says shittiest – I like shittest) reason for doing anything. How could I do something like this? Put myself through all this hard work just to impress a women who may or may not care about me. It’s completely ludicrous, I am doing something so that I appear better in someone else’s eyes. Surely this is the wrong reason to do something? Surely you should do something so that you are better in your own eyes?

Judging from my behaviour over the years, one of my strongest beliefs is that one should live one’s own life. The reason for doing something should be because you want to do it. Not because it will make you appear better in someone else’s eyes. This is a good way to live I think. However, as I type this, I realise now that I have misinterpreted this maxim for quite some time. Even though there are numerous other benefits which would benefit me, I would focus on the fact that part of my reasoning for going to gym was to impress a skirt. I would then be disgusted at the thought and and use this as a reason not to go to gym.

I realise now, just because you shouldn’t do something in order to appear better in someone else’s eyes, doesn’t make a good reason not to do it. If we continue with the gym example, yes going to gym might make the girl notice my awesome body but there are other benefits. Seems simple enough, I know. Not sure how I could have missed that one.

This is enough for tonight. At some other time I want to explore friends and family as motivation.