Play for the Cure! Stop “Self Improvement” Now!

Self-help is not a new concept — and self-help books have been around for a very long time. Samuel Smiles published a book titled Self Help back in 1882 (available as a free download from Project Gutenberg). Smiles writes:

““Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual…Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.”

That an enormous population believes wholeheartedly in this spirit is obvious from the tremendous growth of the self-help industry over the past three decades. According to a 2006 Marketdata Enterprises report on the US self-help industry alone:

The total self-improvement market (incl. revenues of
weight loss programs) was estimated to be worth $9.59
billion in 2005. The market grew more than 24% between
2003 and 2005. We expect 11.4% yearly growth through
2010, to a value of $13.9 billion.

Now please understand that I have no quarrel with Self-Help. I am a believer in its spirit and have contributed thousands of dollars to the growth of the industry myself!

What I object to is the underlying assumption of Self Improvement that there is something about us that is fundamentally wrong and needs to be changed or fixed or improved!

How can this possibly be so? Here we stand, children of the Universe, packed full-to-the-teeth with a lifetime of experiences and understanding, beliefs and ideas, some of which work for us and others that do not. How can this possibly be improved upon?

We are, each of us, now, today, in exactly the right place to grow and learn as we need to! And what helps us help ourselves is good. Beating up on ourselves because we wish we were some other way is not only not helpful and argues with Reality, but actually impedes our growth by misdirecting our attention and thoughts to the imagined imperfection!

D’oh! Why would we want to focus on our perceived flaws when the Universe conspires to give us more of whatever we focus on??

Today at geniuscatalyst.com, Michael Neill addresses self-esteem as the catalyst for success, and offers Today’s Experiment:

1. Take the week off from working on yourself in any way. Don’t try to change, improve, or fix yourself — just enjoy hanging out with your work, your hobbies and your loved ones.

2. If you can’t bring yourself to take the whole week off, take a few days off. If you can’t get yourself to take a few days off, just take one. If you can’t even take one day off, repeat step one.

Do this experiment yourself, and let me know how you get on!

Tempus fugit . . . decluttering my days.

HOW has a month flown by so quickly? The days just slipped away unnoticed, leaving me bewildered and feeling that Some-Thing Important has gone missing.

In one of the groups I belong to, we were asked to name our greatest Time-waster. Mine, naturally, is paid employment. Working a day-job eats up fully a third or more of my precious days! But that’s not what they meant.

So I was forced to admit/accept that I profligately waste Hours of potential art-making time on the computer. Embarrassingly, not posting to my blog, but trying to keep up with the daily hundreds of emails I receive from the 30+ groups I belong to.

I have been patting myself on the back for my success in systematically decluttering my home and my studio; now it’s Time to declutter my Days, too, removing from my daily schedule the time-wasters and habitual activities that support neither my resolution to Make More Art, nor my desire to earn my living through arting.

It’s hard to leave artist’s communities where I’ve gotten to know and enjoy the people. It’s sad, too, that the folks I think of as my community are overseas. But my Life Adventure is pressing me into the studio, to commit my creativity daily to paper, to canvas, to Objective Reality.

Please rejoice with me in my new enterprise, and stop by from time to time to keep me honest!

Time to make some Art!

Time goes by all too quickly as I juggle work, play, and art-making. This solar-powered gal has run off to the beach after work all this week, to breathe salt air, absorb the sun’s rays, and have the dust and cobwebs of unimaginative routine blown away. I feel connected to the sea and sky in ways the land yearns for.

I have way too many ideas for this month’s postcard swap! Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities when planning a piece of art? And that to choose one is to reject the others? With more time, would you try them all?

I have selected a process I used in a recent altered book for my January postcards, integrating photos with art papers. How can I make this reflect my journey through the New Zealand landscape? Can I comment on myself without also commenting on the culture I find here?