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Self Improvement vs Self-Acceptance.
The most perfect definition of happiness that I’ve ever heard goes like this: “Happiness is the end of the striving for happiness.”
It’s simple and direct and I love it. It works because there’s this tension between striving for happiness and finding happiness that we’re all aware of. Most of us spend our lives alternating between the two, trying to work our way to the right end of the spectrum.
There’s the same tension between self-acceptance and self-improvement. I mean, you could just as easily define self-acceptance as the end of the striving for self-improvement, right? But if these two are also at opposite ends of a spectrum, doesn’t that mean we’re doomed to alternate between trying to change ourselves and being dissatisfied with ourselves?
The answer is a thoroughly unsatisfying; it depends.
The difference between happiness and self-acceptance.
Happiness and self-acceptance are similar, but they’re not the same. You could say that self-acceptance is a subset of happiness. Happiness is the acceptance of every aspect of the present moment, whereas self-acceptance is the acceptance of every aspect of yourself at the present moment…
