I came across a quote a couple months ago that has since been knocking around in my brain:
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”
— Carl Rogers
These little words, holding their ground in black ink at the top of a crisp white page seemed to spawn a new life as they leapt out and started doing a little conga line in my head. Day and night, in any quiet moment, I’d look in and see them doing their little dance.
Why was I so affected by this particular arrangement of 17 words? What was this portal they opened in my mind and danced a little cha-cha through? After two months of sitting with it, I think I’m starting to understand.
I’ve been living in a condition of striving for change — change for the better. (Another refrain that’s knocked around in my head for a long time is “The biggest room in our house is the room for improvement.”) Change is an inevitable component of the human experience. But to will change — to create the conditions for a better you to emerge — has always been framed for me as an exalted virtue.
I’ve been living in a world where having the discipline to work out every day is good. Working hard and pushing through feeling exhausted is good. Reading instead of watching TV is good. Staying on top of life admin stuff even when it’s both scary and boring is good. Being nice to people even when I am irritated or upset is good. And not having the discipline to do these things is bad — and therein lies the room for improvement.
As a result, ‘improvement’ has meant the need to become the kind of person who can keep improving or keep getting better, keep learning and growing. But in order to be that kind of person, I can’t be the kind of person I am right now.
And here lies the heart of the paradox: a foundational internal conflict — in order to be the better thing, I need to be less or more of a different thing right now. Something needs to change about me so I can achieve a state of ‘improved’.
But in order to be less one way or more another, I need to effort that change. And that is so unbelievably hard. It’s led me to inconsistent results, guilt, and a resignation that I’m not yet the kind of person I want to be. And sometimes that sparks a renewed effort, which continues to be hard, and continues to disappoint, and so the cycle continues.
This quote presents a radically different way of being. It opens a possibility that I can just be me, and that’s just as good. I can be tired, be bored, be ‘undisciplined’ — and still have potential to grow. Not by efforting into another kind of person, but just by existing.
!!!!!!!
What an incredible new world to enter — to be as if I am already enough, and trust that the me I am has the capacity to change. A world that doesn’t preclude improvement, but instead embraces it as a part of who I already am. A world in which I can be tired or annoyed or upset, and still have the capacity for future hard work, grace, and generosity; in which the tiredness or irritation might actually be a signal to which I’m now listening.
Efforting will not produce a better me. It begs the question: what is behind the pursuit? What parts of the self am I trying to change? why? Is that where the new possibility lies?
Striving for change is I think is perhaps a near-universal human experience. Is it more frightening to strive to know ourselves?