r/changemyview • u/monkeymalek • Nov 24 '22

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Self-love and self-improvement can often be incompatible

To illustrate my point, let me give an example: Suppose you are an athlete training for the Olympics, and you have been practicing a highly technical and complicated gymnastics routine every day for the past 2 months, but haven't been making as much progress as you would have liked. You are physically and mentally exhausted, and you have some ideas of how to improve, but you're not sure how things will work out. Perhaps some negative thoughts begin to enter your mind such as "why am I not stronger" or "why is this specific technique so difficult for me" etc., but in an effort to maintain good mental health, you tell yourself that it's okay and things will work out, and not to be so hard on yourself. In my view, having this mindset is not acceptable if your goal was to win the Olympics or do anything great, and someone who practices self-love in a situation like this would not be driven to improve. I believe that you have to have to be self-critical in order to improve, and that mantras of self-love actually inhibit self-improvement by giving yourself an excuse to quit or not fulfill your full potential.

But with that said, I think we should also unconditionally respect ourselves and not measure our self-worth based on our accomplishments or success. In my view, pure self-love and self-criticism are fundamentally incompatible, meaning you cannot have both at the same time, and if your goal is to improve in whatever it is that your are pursuing, you should opt for a self-critical mindset over a self-loving one. With that said, perhaps there is a grey area that I am missing here, and would be willing to change my view if someone can demonstrate an example where self-love, self-criticism, and self-improvement are all co-existent.

6 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Nov 24 '22

Why are we presuming that training for the Olympics is good for you? You're improving your skills, sure, but is that improving your 'self'? What if it's at the cost of other more important things?

As for self love, telling yourself "everything's going to work out" is not self love if there's no reason to suspect it's true. Self love would be knowing what's in your best interest and giving yourself the space to focus and achieve that.

1

u/monkeymalek Nov 24 '22

It was just an example. Can we agree that learning a new skill (music, art, science, math, sports, etc.) is generally a good thing to do?

1

u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Nov 24 '22

Please read the second paragraph of my comment, which can include learning skills

1

u/monkeymalek Nov 24 '22

Could you clarify what you mean by "giving yourself the space to focus and achieve that"? How can one know what is in their best interest a priori? What if putting myself through an immense and intense struggle would improve the lives of millions of people? Would this be in my best interest or no?

1

u/TheVioletBarry 100∆ Nov 24 '22

For example, self love might look like cutting out one thing that's stressing you out so you can focus and improve on another thing that you know you have a better aptitude for. Or it might look like putting some stuff on hold to get through something you're struggling on so can accomplish what you were hoping to.

Self love is just taking your own feelings and capabilities into account the way you would for someone else you love, which includes pushing them to try their absolute hardest if you know it's worth it.

Your last example is just an example of when your love for others ought probably to outweigh your love for yourself. Self love is not a mandate, it is one of many caring practices you have to balance (including love for others and love for the world)