Does it feel like America is OBSESSED with ENDLESS self-improvement?

[theXplorer]

call me a bitchboi but i miss the olden days where it was like "2 cows and a pig" or something like that. the POINT was that you did not have to be a gester for a chick but impress her FATHER. it was "ok man your good now you have x amount of cows you can join the adult world now"

now its like ENDLESS self improvemnt

don't be fat

ok not fat

make 6 figures ok got it

what is wrong with you? you need to be ripped have 6 figures and a mansion and a 15in cock lol.

when does the self improvement end lol. it used to be just a some cows and pigs and your good.

"chads" and "stacies" are the MOST BORING people around. ALL they do is

lift, eat, sleep, shit, f**k they reduce their function to a f***ing DOG lol PART OF BEING human is that we have art, literature etc. ONLY ANIMALS just eat, shit, sleep, and f**k lol.

i don't know about you but buildings in the olden days were BEUTIFUL compared to modern buildings and art used to be BEAUTIFUL compared to this "modern art crap"

-discuss

[jamesbond]

It does seem as if American's in general are OBSESSED with self improvement. Just look at the "Self-Help" movement and all the books and seminars that are out there.

This is drummed into our heads from the time we are children that "there is always room for improvement" to the point where we need to be 'perfect' in every area of our lives.

[flowerthief00]

I don't think we're obsessed with endless self-improvement. I'm not convinced there is such a thing.

But self-improvement for the sake of impressing other people including the opposite gender? Oh, that's because dating/courtship/romantic relationships are broken in America. Didn't you get the memo?
Just walk away from that shit.

[Winston]

Great lectures by Alan Watts, the great Zen Lecturer, about why self-improvement is a myth and illusion. I'm not against self-improvement, but Alan Watts does make a lot of witty funny points and insights about why much of what society teaches you is wrong and an illusion. Thus you shouldn't take anything seriously, either in life or from society.

[Winston]

Have you guys noticed that when you watch classic Western movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s that the men in them are so very different from modern men in that they have REAL GENUINE confidence, not the forced and fake kind that the self-improvement industry of modern American produces? It's so refreshing to see that. The men in those films act so authentic and masculine and it all looks so NATURAL and normal, not fake or pumped up like macho guys try to do. For example, see the Western films with Terence Hill in them. He is funny and cocky as hell, acts like he's invincible even. Yet his funniness and cockiness also look very relaxed and natural, not like it's an act. You won't see anyone like that today, either in movies or real life, who is so freespirited, cocky and happy go lucky like that without acting fake. It's priceless. lol

But a lot of the films of the 70's show that kind of vibe too too. For example, check out this trailer for "The Sting" from 1973 starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Notice their facial expressions. Redford looked a lot more wild, freespirited and uninhibited than he does now, whereas today he is so stiff and quiet now. There's also a happy go lucky vibe in that film that you can sort of see in the trailer too. How come you don't see men act like this today, so wild, masculine, playful and authentic? At least not in America. lol

[yick]

Self-improvement is great - you need areas to improve on but what happens when you go on a quest of self-improvement is that the reward system kicks in mentally and your self-esteem starts to grow.

If you learn things and improve, I don't know how that is a bad thing.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

All three American continents (I know most consider Central America a region, but it's culturally and landscape-wise unique so I call it a small continent) are formerly slave colonies of people of sub-Saharan African descent so they have racism (which is hidden under the guise of classism much of the time), weightism/size-ism, colourism, height-ism, socio-economics, transportation-enabled-and-independent and class of transportation for judgement. Mudshark-ism and Othello-ism/CandyMan-ism (the non-Black woman advances and sneak and freak the Black guy but the lovers cannot acknowledge each other in public and Black men are still dating women like that). Anything possible that can be discerned is a measure for discrimination....the Americas are at their apex.

I'm going to keep LatAm, the Caribbean, to a minimum as Central and Eastern Europe are looking a lot better nowadays. I had this epiphany not too long ago!!!

[MrMan]

The Japanese are more obsessed with self-improvement and process improvement it aren't they? That's why their electronics are so good. That, and an American named Deming added practical application of statistics to their philosophy while Americans ignored him and kept churning out the junk from our factories.

But America invented the self-help book genre, based on the idea that if you want it and will it you can make it happen.

[Outcast9428]

Have you guys noticed that when you watch classic Western movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s that the men in them are so very different from modern men in that they have REAL GENUINE confidence, not the forced and fake kind that the self-improvement industry of modern American produces? [/youtube]

Yes, everyone tries to act like an alpha now but they really come off as fake, annoying assholes. The whole self improvement scam where everyone is pushed to be "confident" has made your average person a narcissistic, unbearable piece of shit.

People are going to criticize you for this but there's a lot of truth to it.

At my college, what I noticed "be confident" meant seemed to be "get yourself to a point where you feel completely comfortable sending gross pickup lines over Tinder and grinding on random girls at parties."

Some right-leaning liberals try to say college doesn't have a rape culture. I strongly disagree. Its not "rape" that is normalized so much as sexual assault and incredibly vulgar behavior is normalized and expected. I can't tell you how many people told me in college that "being respectful is not how you get chicks" and stuff like that. Believe it or not, I was liberal back in college, yet the pickup lines I saw people send to girls over Tinder would turn my stomach. People had no chill at all. It was just blatant requests for explicit sexual acts without so much as a conversation.

In the traditional dating world, however, I do feel much more naturally confident because nobody expects you (or would allow you in the first place) to make these super aggressive sexual approaches on girls you don't even know. Being respectful is a requirement to succeed in the conservative dating world, not a weakness. The way some of these guys talk, in the conservative world, even saying that kind of crap to your girlfriend would be considered vulgar and gross. The girls weren't much better though, I heard about girls posting on Instagram, the name of a guy they slept with and mocking him for having a small penis. Ironically, its the traditional/conservative dating world that is really big about consent and not pushing the girl's boundaries whereas the environments that feminists create all seem to have horrible problems with rampant sexual assault, coercion, and vulgarity.