Self-improvement Or Compulsive-improvement
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Self-improvement Or Compulsive-improvement
  • Lim Lee Hyungsun / Reporter
  • 승인 2011.12.19 13:28
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“If you don’t study, you can’t survive.”  The words that you heard when you were preparing college entrance test as a high school student are now applied to all ages in our society.  The university students should build specs* to succeed in a job market like war.  Spending time for resting became luxury a long time ago and now students are very busy in doing part-time jobs or preparing various certificate tests during vacation.  According to a research of 1118 office workers, seven in ten (73.8%) are doing self-improvement.  For this reason, a neologism was created called saladent.**1

 

Swimming In the Flood of Self-improvement

 

The best thing to show the age of selfimprovement can be the publishing world as anywhere else.  It’s very easy to find self-help books in bestsellers and you can even find the section for only self-help books.  Perhaps a person who has literacy would have an experience to read the self-help book at last one.  In fact, Early Bird published in 2004 was a bestseller and came to the fore as a social phenomenon or problem.  Also The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey is
consolidating its position as the steady seller.  We couldn’t count out Painful is Growing that
made Korean youth cry.  It’s not only the publishing world.  Various programs that related to self-improvement like seminars, lectures, workshops, and counseling or consulting are pouring out day after day.  Also self-improvement became related to studying tools, self-realization, and managing
careers, so targets are more various and subdivided from elementary school students to university students, office workers and even housewives.2  Kim Yoonji, ’11 School of English said about the question on self-improvement programs, “I enjoy reading self-help books or attending lectures of celebrities.  It’s because I can get stimulation at that time even if it is quite short.”  In this way, self-improvement fever was gone past temporary fashion and became a cultural and social phenomenon in our society.

 

 

Surprising Tool for a Better Situation

 

 

 

 

 Then why do people stick to self-improvement like this?  Why do people spend their money in expensive self-improve goods and invest their time?  First of all, when we see the big picture, it's because the world we live in is neoliberal which puts autonomous competition as the biggest purpose.  Today the place without competition is nowhere.  Competition made new markets, categories of business, goods which didn’t exist in the past, and individuals were changed as human capital which means prepared human to sell one’s talents or ideas anytime just like goods.3  In other words, society required people to cultivate their own lives for themselves through self- innovation and self-creation. 

 

 

 

As a result, society had merit to find more superior people and to rate people more effectively through the request of the selfimprovement.  Also when we see the performance of tasks, people can do more effectively their tasks because of it.  There is an opinion that self-improvement takes the role as lubricant.  People would be tired when they do only their tasks but by doing self-improvement, they can diffuse hard things about tasks. 

Meanwhile it can improve the quality of life for individuals and can be a good chance to increase one’s value.  Also people can find their new talent in the area of new self-improvement they undertake.4  In other words, when we see individual aspects, self-improvement can be a surprising tool for self-realization.  Is selfimprovement the only choice to survive in modern society, social compulsion?  Or is it spontaneous choice to improve oneself truly?  Whether compulsive or spontaneous, it is a certain fact that self-improvement can be a great help.

 

The Trap of Self-help Books

However we should throw several questions to ourselves before conceding the validity of selfimprovement.  Does your self-improvement go the correct direction?  Do numerous self-improvement programs distort the essence of the problem and torment the ego with an empty promise and forceful action guide?  Is self-improvement natural, and should everyone do it according to inevitable change?  Now we need to bring out the question about uncritical acceptance of self-improvement. 

However we should throw several questions to ourselves before conceding the validity of selfimprovement.  Does your self-improvement go the correct direction?  Do numerous self-improvement programs distort the essence of the problem and torment the ego with an empty promise and forceful action guide?  Is self-improvement natural, and should everyone do it according to inevitable change?  Now we need to bring out the question about uncritical acceptance of self-improvement. 

 

The most popular thing for self-improvement is self-help books.  Various self-help books console us sweetly about our hard reality and show the ways to be a successful person to resolve the reality.  However, is it correct to accept these ways naturally?  Successful men in self-help books have different life environments and different values.  Therefore, we don’t have to act, think and live like these people.  Let's take an example of baseball.  Of course standard posture is good but there are so many baseball players who have their own postures after practicing and experiencing many times.  Although a person lives lazy compared with others, it can be related to relaxed personality.  Active and outgoing personality is excellent in relationships, certainly.  However, introverted people can have a long time to think before action, and it can be a good aspect in deep relationships.  Personality is not a problem but a characteristic.  In other words, it’s not wrong but different.  “When I had a rhythm of life that involved sleeping late and waking up late, the book titled Early Bird was very popular.  Many people around me recommended this book, so I read it.  After reading this book, I endeavored to follow it but the result was terrible.  My rhythm was broken completely and I couldn’t concentrate on anything around me.  After this experience, I don’t read self-help books,” said Hwang ’11, division of economics.  In this way, it can be poison to endeavor to erase one’s personality through a self-help book.  In fact, about self-help book, Micki McGee, sociologist and author of Self-help said, “We are caught in a trap of self-improvement and follow compulsive advice of self-help books blindly.  It’s just copying, not self-improvement. Therefore, it can be more helpful in success to get the compulsive idea that we should be changed like a person who is in a self-help book out of our head.”5 

 

 Do You Know Your Destination?

Other self-help programs are the same.  There are many people who don’t know what self-help programs are most necessary for them among the numerous programs.  There are many people who don’t know the reason why they do self-improvement.  It’s because people get nervous when they see others around them absorbed in self-improvement.  They think that they also should run busily to be freefrom being nervous.  About the experience of stupid self-improvement, Lee ’10 in Chungang University said, “I hoped to travel here and there without any plans and to recharge myself during vacation.  However after hearing my friends’ plans such as enrolling in an English
academy or preparing certificate tests, I changed my mind to enroll and study TOEIC.  However, the result was not so good, because I didn’t have strong motivation, so I regretted not sticking to my original plan.”  Of course there is nobody who denied the validity of selfimprovement.  It is an important goal we should pursue in our lives.  However we should know exactly whether it is true investment for ourselves or time-wasting which is swept away without a destination.  These days, people consider self-improvement as a tool of freedom that helps self-realization, not a tool of control.  However, it can makes people uninterested in what they have to or need to do because
people settle for the present with a comfortable feeling that they do something ironically.  In this
meaning, the freedom self-improvement gives can be restricted and dangerous freedom.6 In
fact, people who receive psychotherapy have increased because of OCD*** on selfimprovement.
7  Although many people are absorbed in self-improvement for a better future, because of a poor result, unlike their expectation they got so much stress and it leads to OCD.

Other self-help programs are the same.  There are many people who don’t know what self-help programs are most necessary for them among the numerous programs.  There are many people who don’t know the reason why they do self-improvement.  It’s because people get nervous when they see others around them absorbed in self-improvement.  They think that they also should run busily to be freefrom being nervous.  About the experience of stupid self-improvement, Lee ’10 in Chungang University said, “I hoped to travel here and there without any plans and to recharge myself during vacation.  However after hearing my friends’ plans such as enrolling in an Englishacademy or preparing certificate tests, I changed my mind to enroll and study TOEIC.  However, the result was not so good, because I didn’t have strong motivation, so I regretted not sticking to my original plan.”  Of course there is nobody who denied the validity of selfimprovement.  It is an important goal we should pursue in our lives.  However we should know exactly whether it is true investment for ourselves or time-wasting which is swept away without a destination.  These days, people consider self-improvement as a tool of freedom that helps self-realization, not a tool of control.  However, it can makes people uninterested in what they have to or need to do becausepeople settle for the present with a comfortable feeling that they do something ironically.  In thismeaning, the freedom self-improvement gives can be restricted and dangerous freedom.6 Infact, people who receive psychotherapy have increased because of OCD*** on selfimprovement.7  Although many people are absorbed in self-improvement for a better future, because of a poor result, unlike their expectation they got so much stress and it leads to OCD.

 

 

For the Future You Want

 

Needless to say, people know well that the world we live in is harsh. 

The important thing is how you can overcome difficulties.  Many people know that the reality is not good, but at the same time they know that an individual can’t change the hard world.  Therefore people do their best in a given mold, hoping for a thin possibility.  However, as time goes by, they get tired and lethargic.  For them, self-help books are sweet consolation and numerous self-help programs give comfort to do something.  However, we should face our reality as it is rather than concluding hastily.  Cultural critic Hwang Myungji said, “Most present self-improvements are proceeding without the step of despair.  It means that people can’t have an opportunity to find the goal of self-improvement.  As a result, absence of this step can explain the reason why people can’t get the result they want despite steady self-improvement.  Therefore, we should face our reality, and if this reality is abject, you need to experience the step of despair enough.”8 

The important thing is how you can overcome difficulties.  Many people know that the reality is not good, but at the same time they know that an individual can’t change the hard world.  Therefore people do their best in a given mold, hoping for a thin possibility.  However, as time goes by, they get tired and lethargic.  For them, self-help books are sweet consolation and numerous self-help programs give comfort to do something.  However, we should face our reality as it is rather than concluding hastily.  Cultural critic Hwang Myungji said, “Most present self-improvements are proceeding without the step of despair.  It means that people can’t have an opportunity to find the goal of self-improvement.  As a result, absence of this step can explain the reason why people can’t get the result they want despite steady self-improvement.  Therefore, we should face our reality, and if this reality is abject, you need to experience the step of despair enough.”8  On the other hand, so-called experts who present the information on self-improvement should have more strong ethics in business and responsibilities.  Guiding with only their experiences is very dangerous and irresponsible.  The most essential thing about selfimprovement is ruminating on self-improvement before doing it.  Starting without any thinking is not different from running without a destination.  Raising your ability to sort out what you want and what is helpful is first.  A few months ago, the society became abuzz with a false tasty food restaurant.  Then why could the false was taken as real?  It’s because people don’t know what real taste is and finally they don’t have the ability to sort out the good food.  Think about it applying to your selfimprovement.  Are you doing true self-improvement for you?

 

 

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* spec is an abbreviation of specification.  In Korea it has a special meaning that what people should prepare for seeking a job like academic ability, credit or score of TOEIC.
** saladent is a word that compounds salary man and student.  It means studying salary men.
*** Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

 

1 Kim Joonil,「Nervous office workers」, The KyungHyang Sinmun, March 2, 2007
2 Jang Heejung,「The Age of Self-help」, Sogang University Master’s Thesis, 2007

3 Park Monggoo,「Culture Change in 2000」, Korean Publishing Academy, 2004
4 Ibid.
5 Micki McGee,『Self-help』, Moyosa, 2011
6 Su Jinhwan,「Will of self-improvement」, Sisa Journal, October, 2009
7 Jung Jihyun,「68% office workers suffer from self-improvement」, Datanews, July 2, 2010
8 Jo Jungjin,「How do you treat the fever of self-improvement?」, Worldilbo, August 11, 2010

 

 

 


 


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