How Concerned Are You with the Notion of Self Improvement?

Deb of Moms Without Blogs recently wrote a post entitled, "Remote Control vs. Magic Wand," dealing with the question of how to actually realize self-improvement (or change), rather than live on a kind of continual treadmill of effort and failure. She alluded to two routes open to us for effecting change -- 1) placing our faith in God, or 2) placing our faith in ourselves. Deb's is a funny post, but raises a serious question, one which she made me realize I struggle with daily (sometimes in a backburner-kind of way and sometimes with desperate urgency). That is, the problem of wanting to be a better person, and, more often than not, beating myself up for not doing better.

Everyone strives to do better or accomplish more in some sense -- some want to get all of Africa fed and disease-free; others want to be richer and more powerful CEOs. But the self-improvement Deb was talking about, and that I'm referring to, is of the kind pertaining to meaningful relationships in one's life -- relationships involving parents, spouse, children, siblings, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and even strangers (if the interaction is meaningful).

To give you an example of the way the necessity for self-improvement rules my life: losing my temper with my kids is something I battle all the time. I try not to lose it, but sometimes I do, and then I go through a lot of self-flagellation or self-analysis to try to figure out how not to let it happen again, or so often. I rarely think: "Well, serves that brat right. I was definitely justified in coming down hard on him."

Or, as happened the other night: I spend 10 minutes turning the house upside down looking for Kieran's tee-ball mitt and cap, and time is running short before we have to be at the game. I am extremely frustrated wondering why on earth they aren't where I last put them, and suddenly it dawns on me that the reason they're not in that place is that Kieran's DAD took him to his last tee-ball game. A rage seizes me: why the hell has he not returned them to their proper place, or failing that, to some reasonable, likely location in the house? While I'm driving to the game hoping that we can use a loaner mitt, I call Jeff on my cell to get his input. He informs me that the last time he saw them they were under the coffee table in the living room. Reason flies out the window and I let loose on him (way out of proportion to the offense), resulting in nothing but self-loathing and guilt later on.

I have a theory that women, and specifically mothers and wives, are more prone to being fixated with self-improvement in relationships than others who don't fall into these categories. Is that an impermissibly sexist viewpoint? Do I betray the cause of feminism by even thinking this? At this point in time, my daughter shows absolutely zero signs of compunction for the most outrageous misdeeds against her family, while my son shows a great capacity for remorse and an intense desire to please. So, it would seem that my kids are not bearing out my hypothesis. But then, they are not fully socialized beings, and they haven't hit the skids of hormone change. So I'm not sure that they are representative.

(And here's a wild thought that just occurred to me: you know how we parents tend to -- on our playdate gab sessions -- talk about how girls are devious and calculating, and boys are trusting and straightforward? Do you think girls grow up and feel they need to do penance for their evil, and boys grow up and go on holiday because they feel they've been so exploited?)

But let's be clear (I love that expression and have found myself using it more than ever since Obama became our president), I think that whether or not one makes self-improvement a central issue in one's day-to-day living has little or no bearing on how "good" or "evolved" a person one actually is. We can all imagine the stereotypically troubled or untroubled person in matters of self-improvement: the former is a tedious, guilt-ridden neurotic; the latter a smug, self-satisfied egomaniac. I'm assuming none of us are, or strive to be, either of those extremes; we probably fall somewhere along a spectrum between the two extremes. But perhaps it is the case that some people rarely reflect on their deficiencies as a person, and feel that it should be the rare occasion that makes them second-guess themselves. And perhaps some other people tend to the other side, thinking that every noteworthy encounter and experience in life should cause them to self-analyze and assess what they could do better.

It could be simply a matter of temperament I'm talking about, but I'm curious whether there is a gender component. So, I'm going to take a poll. Be a sport and vote! I'll give the poll a couple of weeks and report back to you with results (rest assured your vote is anonymous to me):

Would you characterize yourself as being concerned on a daily basis with the idea/goal of becoming a better person?