🌱A Letter to My Improved Self
Letter 192: Charting the Course of Self-Acceptance
Aloha fellow learn-it-all 👋
Greetings from ARS café playing jazz music filled with kiddos full of wonder looking at art in Honolulu, Hawaii!
I’ve been leaning into nostalgia from 2023 and chipping away at making a more comprehensive reflective piece on the year to share. Overall, I’m excited about making yet another one helluva year! What are you excited about so far?
For me, I:
Started reading Harry Potter for the first time last night, and wow, I get the hype.
Gave away 10 books and eight of them were already taken at the community’s little library house
Reorganized my bedroom furniture and it feels more inspiring to be in my space
Been shopping around to buy a road bike. I’m excited for some wheels 😍
Been going to hot yoga this week and my body feels wrecked specifically my hamstrings from all the squats and lunges in the sculpt portion of the classes. But it feels good.
Anywho, a little context of what’s on the docket for today: I first started writing today’s piece exploring parts of my identity and relationship with self-improvement a year ago. I’ve been too shy to share this until now. Shoutout to Kelly Clarkson for helping me feel uninhibited. Here goes!
Now, let’s dive into letter 192 from a learn-it-all. Enjoy!
If you are new here or missed last week's edition, you can catch up on the past letters here. If you are reading this for the first time, I’d love you to sign up below to join the other learn-it-alls:
❓Question to think about
If I wrote a letter to my Improved Self, what would I say?
🖊️ Writing
Dear Improved Self,
Thank you for helping me become a better version of myself. I appreciate you, on most days.
Then on other days, I recognize that you put an unnecessary amount of pressure on me. The expectations are that I can constantly level up as if I am a machine upgrading software daily. It’s exhausting. I know you like driving and you’re really freaking good at it. But, why do you always have to take the wheel? Can you love me as I am?
I love to learn, not just for the sake of production or improvement.
We created this identity as a perpetual student of life, a learn-it-all. It’s felt at odds with my desire to be grateful for what I have and where I am. I’ve been letting this fester inside me for a while now.
My first therapist, J, challenged my belief that you, Improved Self, hid from me and I forgot to see:
I am complete as I am.
Back at the start of 2021, I asked J how I could change my thought programming. She told me “You don't need to do anything. This is a horrible idea that your poor generation has been tricked into like fine French cuisine ‘foie gras’. Jeez, this idea of improving yourself has got to stop. You don't need to learn anything. You need to let things go more than anything."
When she told me this my world felt shaken to its core. She challenged me to stop having play dates with you, Improved Self. You’re constantly living in my head and I needed to get out of my sunless room in Chicago to go live life. I needed space from the neverending thoughts that I wasn’t good enough. I needed to stop choosing to believe them as my reality. Thoughts are not reality.
I desire things and you help me get there but life isn’t always about achieving. For me, life’s about laughing when I lose playing games. It’s about connecting, loving people, and holding them close. It’s about exploring the unknown to live courageously. And last but most importantly, it’s about those lightbulb moments from our close friend Curiosity.
Sometimes you take advantage of her. Curiosity fuels me to notice connections, but then you, Improved Self, lead me to see her observations as too many holes and deficiencies. You manipulate me to believe that I will never be complete.
I am done playing this tug-of-war game of who gets to drive. No, I don’t need to take eight online courses this year. No, I don’t have to read another book. No, I am NOT behind. I am right where I need to be. Each day is a beautiful day of opportunity, and I am exactly where I need to be. I open myself to the world and trust in the unfolding of my life. The fact of the matter is that I entered this existence as a human. There will always be more that I can do. I am eternally flawed. I can choose to see my imperfect self as good enough and accept that.
It’s okay to suck at things. I grant myself permission to keep dicing the onion too big, mispronouncing the dance moves at hula, burning the banana bread, typing slowly, missing my serve over the volleyball net, or getting pounded in the whitewash of the waves on the north shore. Accepting myself, for my flaws and all, has led me to realize that I can show up and be confident regardless of them.
Choosing to see my completeness enables Curiosity and she leads me down the path alongside Intuition to live a full life that I love. I grant you, Improved Self, to sit up near me driving the car, and we will chart this terrain together.
I am still uncovering what completeness means for both of us, though I do know that I already have everything I need. I choose to be complete as I am. I am satisfied.
With hugs,
Your satisfied self
🔍Word to define
Improve: make or become better
a. [with object] develop or increase in mental capacity by education or experience: I subscribed to two magazines to improve my mind.
b. [no object] achieve or produce something better than: they are trying to improve on the tired old style.
Etymology
late 15c., "to use to one's profit, to increase (income)," from Anglo-French emprouwer "to turn to profit" (late 13c.), from Old French en-, a causative prefix or from em-, + prou "profit," from Latin prode "advantageous"
Spelling with -v- was rare before 17c.; it apparently arose from confusion of -v- and -u-. Spelling otherwise deformed by influence of words in -prove. Meaning "make better, raise to a better quality or condition" first recorded 1610s. (source: etymology online)
📜🖋 Poetry Corner
Song of the Open Road
by Walt Whitman
Allons! the road is before us! It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d! Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d! Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d! Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law. Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
Written in 1856. In its full length, it is a 15-stanza poem that is an optimistic song of praise (aka paean) to wanderlust. This is the last stanza of the poem for the mere reason that I like it best.
🌟Quote to inspire
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” -Walt Whitman, American poet (from Song of Myself, stanza 51)
📸 Photo of the Week
I had a fun weekend of surfing and camping off of Ka’ena Point on the North Shore of Oahu. After a bonfire night full of storytime, I was awakened by the sun and the squawking albatross birds soaring by. I was delighted :)
🙏Shoutouts
To
for supporting me to figure out what the heck I am trying to say in this piece aka my “shiny dime”To my friend Hannah for her support in editing this letter
To my cool Swiftie cousin Christa for turning 22 yesterday! You bring out a more courageous version of myself who dives with sharks, hikes all three peaks of Olomana, and skies out west half naked! It’s so fun to cheer you on in life and all the adventures you have after graduating college and moving to Chicago 🚀 ✨
I appreciate you reading this!
If ideas resonate, I’d love you to leave a comment, press the heart button, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetjl@gmail.com. If you forgot who I am, I welcome you to my online home.
Keep on learning 😁
Mahalo 🌺
Jen
PS - I still would very much apprecaite if you filled out as much or as little of this end of year reader survey so I can better understand what you enjoy reading from me :)
PPS - in case you missed last week’s letter, I shared 100 experiences using the prompt 2023, the year that I…
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