Hanging by Duct-Tape

Dear Admonister,

I've tried everything. How many times must I fix myself? What can I possibly try next?

Please admonish,
— Improvising Improver

𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔯 Improvising Improver,

Ah, the self-aware self-critical self-helping self-improver.

You've set up every productivity system, gamified every habit, implemented every life-hack — and you still need motivational quotes just to get out of bed.

You've used coaches and gurus to improve the same dysfunction again and again — only to find even more flaws.

You're exasperated by a meaningless quest for meaning. You're searching without finding, starting without finishing, and waiting for life to start while pretending to enjoy the scenery.

You've fixed yourself so many times, your life is now hanging by duct tape. And even that is not sticking.

Yet you sustain the eternal quest for self-improvement — or rather: the quest sustains you. If one is not improving, one is stuck with oneself — and we can't accept that, of course.

The paradox is that your noble endeavour to become your best self, is driven by the double delusion of thinking oneself both a failure and a winner-in-waiting. If only you make a few different lifestyle choices, change a few habits, and do some life-hacks — and then you're a golden child. Or the self-made man. Or the self-made golden man-child.

There's no need to undersell yourself, though. You are quite skilled. After all, it is no small feat to invent and sustain a fully self-sufficient 'ego-system'. You identify some flaw, embrace the self-loathing, make it fuel a new self-improvement journey — and when that fails, it's just another flaw to restart the cycle. Critique to critique, bust to bust, your fix for the addiction to the fix.

Moreover, the ego-system is a great delusional veil to hide both vulnerability and insufferable arrogance. One delusion tears the ego down to noble proportions, the other boosts it to proportions of a Chosen One. This is mark-to-market ego valuation — self-appreciation derived from imagined future potential, while writing off present flaws as temporary and 'not really you'.

Thanks to the ego-system, you can now avoid being 'good enough'. If you fail, it didn't really happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not your fault. And if it was, you didn't mean it. And if you did, you deserved it. And if you didn't deserve it, you will with more self-improvement.

You have duct-taped your broken self-image with false humility, arrogance, and self-castigating improvement. The self-improvement duct-tape has since covered your self-image so completely, it has effectively become it.

You rebranded delusions as a hero's journey. But it was never a journey to somewhere — only a journey away from. Like Don Quixote — not fighting windmills, but fleeing them. Perhaps because windmills don't pretend to do better than the circumstance allow them?

Your real journey is only to find out for yourself 'when is good enough?'