🕉😀 You Cannot Improve Yourself - The Great Alan Watts 

I interpret this as: to actually become a better version of yourself, you need to accept yourself as you are. By continually trying to improve, we are never satisfied, and never accepting anything. And so we fail.

I fucking love his statement "the reason why you want to be better is the reason why you aren't" It took me 2 years to come to a healthy conclusion of what he meant. Its just literal! If you were better you wouldn't want to be better, literally. you would have no use for it hahaha basically you already are "better" I always took it as a slight(like his audience from their vibe in the room), as I come from a christian background. I took it as "too bad you aren't good enough, basically having a sinner mentality of desire" But no. Be okay with not being "better" in your mind and you'll just stop wanting to be better, it mainly comes from fear so just be okay with being afraid of the perceived consequences of not being "better", be okay with not being "better"

"I like the sound of my own voice" that's confidence !

Wanting to improve creates negative energy, frustration and too much of ” trying hard” when instead we are at easy and relaxed and in a good wibe about ourselves and our life we will attract good things naturally….

"That is the worst thing an American audience can hear!" How true!!!

I cannot improve myself. I have a serious working memory issue. Accepting this reality has given me a great deal of relief, and a reduction of major depression. Fortunately, so far, my colleagues/co-workers are patient with me.

Wanting to be better is just being yourself until you realize that you’re just spinning your wheels. You’re still trying to be better if you try to stop, until you realize it for yourself and accept everything as is

I am enough. I trust the universe. I can barely wait to see what happens next, but I do.

Thks for uploading these videos.

Powerful!!! Thanks for sharing.

This is one of my very favorites of his! Except for the dancing model flailing about. Pretty flowers, though :)

I think Alan Watts would be really amused about Jordan Peterson (no offense)

If I create 'good'', I, on this polar opposite plane, must create 'evil'

excellent speech, thanks for posting.

I love this man's insight and his wit!

Very few people seem to understand what his famous saying "the reason you want to be better is the reason that you aren't" really means. It's actually much simpler that some commenters think. The part of you that wants to be "better" is your ego. The reason you aren't better is your ego. The reason you will never be better is your ego. The thing is being better means having a better ego. But the ego is an illusion, it doesn't exist, or rather it only exists in your mind. So all desires and attempts to improve yourself are actually the desires and attempts of a fictional entity to be a better fictional entity, which is obviously absurd. You can't be better but you don't need to be. All you need do is recognize that you are always already whole and perfect because you are the universe/God appearing as a separate human being to have fun experiences. Easier said than done of course but that is what meditation and spiritual practice is for. What Watts was saying was learn to meditate properly so that you cultivate Witnessing consciousness and embodied presence. When you are simply here now witnessing everything that arises you experience your oneness with everything and this state is bliss or Awakened or Enlightenment 😍

this is incredible

I am just a small voice but I just want to say thank you to Forwago. This program helped me to build self-confidence and taught me how to believe in myself. More people should find out about it. Thank you, Forwago!

thank you

I felt so stuck when he said we can’t improve ourselves bc I have been such a bad person to others and I really wanted to change that, but I see another perspective... we can’t be better or worse than we already are. Just more honest and more aware?

That goes for every single skill, from very basic common to unique virtuous ones. From sleeping at night and getting up in the morning to becoming Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you're not meant to achieve the former you're probably not meant to acheive the latter either. And to top off what Alan said - there's no free will either. The outcome's fixed. Yet you have to try as hard as you can. Yet that together with how hard you actually can and will try and what impact that trying will make on the outcome is fixed too.

I Always work to improve yourself. Accept yourself as you are but always strive to Improve. If you’re 450 pounds doesn’t mean you should lose weight because Alan watts said you’re good as you are.

I think you can improve yourself out of spirituality, you cannot improve yourself out of vanity. To master chakras is self improvement. Yes you are perfect the way you are, but you should also constantly try to learn yourself, and you'll discover the aspects about yourself that you love and the parts you wish to change. I do not believe there is an end goal, so why not continuously better yourself

It's a paradox however, there's enough help out there to grow.

I try to be better. I am. Okay so now what. I try to be more better or I try to not care about being better. After either of them there’s still a “okay so what now.” It’s the infinite trap. A good bind. Something honest can happen there in the realization.

Failing is ego perception, there is brilliance of the mind but if it cannot be achieved how our mind perceive it we will never be pleased with anything.. let go. Walking away is not giving up.

Love this! Run from the upstanding do gooders

Wisest guy I know of. Thanks Alan Watts.

Salvia Divinorum

“The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t” It took me a long time to understand this but once I heard this lecture I had already started figuring it out. Don’t do things because you “should” or “ought” to. Do things because you genuinely accept yourself and your own humane light and the light dively placed within you. Then suddenly you will find you naturally improve. Don’t be a self improvement junkie, because they become frustrated and are on a never ending loop. State what you are, state what you want and watch. Have faith that it will happen. We are a big creation machine. Every thought word and deed leads to our ultimate future. I want to have a pain free child birth. That statement is flawed in this way of thinking. But by saying “I am having a joyous birth as my body and my baby prepares for a needed delivery” is way more powerful. Love yourself for who it is you are and you will naturally love others and any challenges that come your way. How? Deciding, that’s it, no program needed. Just decide. I love myself and all my little bruises. I love myself the way I am now and boom! Life will happen for you and loving god, universe, others will come naturally to you. We are not our bank account, our looks, our degrees. We are simply improved and accepting ourselves now will ultimately attract upgrades from god (higher power) NATURALLY. As said by another brilliant man. “I don’t want your time, your talent or your money, as much as I just want you, give me your whole self and I’ll give you a new self instead, in fact I’ll give you myself” Jesus Christ has already done the payment for your self improvement, you simply accepting that takes a load of crap off your shoulders and allows you to actually improve without shoulding all over yourself. I know Alan is Buddhist but who cares, what he says rings true and many Christian’s who understand this are vitally true Christian’s and I’m finding there aren’t many. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, is essentially what Alan is saying here! So profound how different ideologies and “religions” actually connect more than most of us are willing to accept.

Don't complain, don't explain. Don't make excuses, don't give advice.

There's no one who nails hypocrisy like Alan Watts.

spot on

8:59: = "Watch"

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❤ly

The one who needs to be improved is the one who is doing the improvement This is not the case You don't exist. Who are you? When you work out there is suffering but no one who suffers You will not improve yourself. You will get out of your own way and let the true nature of what is within shine through you as much as it can

And if by a miracle Goku somehow found a way to surpass Superman, WELL THEN GOKU WOULD HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO ASPIRE TOO! Would you want that? I wouldn't. So ultimately it comes down to understanding the difference between limits and purpose. Remember that!

Reality is... **CLAP**

Possibly. But perhaps I'm better than I know. Can't I improve upon my knowledge?

If we were going to hell fast when this was recorded, ca. late '60s/early '70s, we are pretty close to hell now 50 to 55 years later.

"Whatever happens, happens" -Spike Spiegel

So if people were more aware of their true self and live more in the present we would have Hogwards? I'm down.

So if self improvement is out the window and we are who we are...what differentiates a good person from a bad one. Are we born of a certain nature or is it how we were raised? On Star Trek, it is the point of the human race to continually improve ourselves

I think he meant to say don’t keep pushing for things which you can’t change (which are outside of your possibilities) But the overall theory of labeling bettering sth as bad seems not sophisticated and pure provocative style..

when I heard this video , I was a a bit terrified, maybe because it felt like his whole conclusion was it doesn't matter what steps I take I will end up in that same hell . A insecure incompetent boy stuck in a man's body..but after listening to this WATCH part . I guess he means that just take the steps you feel like taking and watch what is Happening. Just watch , not fir the sake of self improvement. Just watch where you are taking yourself . Maybe I still didn't get the real essence here , I still feel a bit unease , I hope someone will read it and help me

So I can't become a better athlete, a better student, a better lover, or a better cook?

That happy girl dancing and running around is a huge distraction!

"The reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren't" It have been 4 months since I first hear this but I still really don't understand what he meant

11:20

Lancey Foux 😳👀

The reason we can never be better past a certain point is because we have limitations, and limitations are important because they keep the structure of things in balance. For example Goku vs. Superman! Goku has very clear limits and must overcome those limits to solve the task at hand!(that's the whole point) On the other hand Superman's story isn't about getting better, but facing the challenge of home verses heritage. And after accepting his Kryptonian side he has reached his maximum potential. In short Superman is as strong as he will ever need to be. So what happens when you pit a man with the power to break any limits against another who has no limits in the 1st place? When only 1 has limits to give it all!

Forgive me, but this is edited. "Let's take jogging, that deplorable practice..." Your messing with the catalogue, bro!

Who is she?

what??

I just can't live by such philosophy. It is too depressing. It makes me fail even more in life than I already am. Although, I would say, that this way of thinking can give more insights to life. You may at first think, that you are doing good thing, lets say trying to start working out and, of course, you might feel better at times so you say, that it is working out which made you feel better. But wait. Maybe it is not working out which made you feel better, maybe you lets say, did something completely different thing that day, seen something that made you feel good, like (as absurd as it can be) a girl smiled at you certain way, it is summer with a lot of sun, which makes you feel better or, else, something completely unrelated thing for you. Also, dont you think that you did your exercises in wrong form and just made your joints worse? Is your body really made for such type of sports? There are people in Japan who live 100 years and haven't done sports in their whole life time. Did you took into account the time you spend doing sports and not doing other, more important things, which may be way better to you? Body is very complicated. Even a potato has different effect on two individuals, on their blood sugar levels. And look at other nutritionists, they will say, that it is very hard to know which food is good for that individual. So, he is trying to say, that there are so many things that you have to take into account (and not only in body health, but in all aspects of life) that it is impossible to tell what is good for you or what is bad. That is why you cannot improve yourself. And you still struggle to do so. Which causes you many problems. Not only for you, but also for others. And enlightenment, which what he wants you to experience, comes from just letting go of everything, somehow deciding, that there is nothing to struggle for, there is only that ..... You cant describe it by words, nor with images in your head and even trying to not think about is the same as trying to think about that .... (enlightenment). But you should stop worrying about that negative statement that you cannot improve yourself. If you decide to stop improving yourself, lets say, stop jogging, because you now know that you are too ignorant to understand whether jogging is actually good for you, you start doing the same thing - you are trying to improve yourself by trying to achieve enlightenment. So, you see, this philosophy is just about that .... which nobody knows how to get. And maybe, just maybe, when you stop trying to achieve it, you instantly will get it. Just go and do you stuff as you want to do it.

Bet

If democracy is not good, a dictatorship is? Mao China, Soviet Union , North Korea ... etc?

Where his argument breaks down is that rational selfishness alone won't get the job done. We all live in organized societies and must sacrifice a part of ourselves for the benefit of all for the whole system to work. Can you really take the attitude that I'm going to pursue my own immediate interests and Passions and forget about the rest of the world? Imagine a police officer thinking "Gee, I can't improve society, ergo, might as well let crime run free. What's the use, no way mankind can improve". Imagine if everyone were left to pursue their own interests and instincts without restraint or care ? What would be the outcome ? Hobbes explains : During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. "To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." How in the world could you possibly maintain a civilized society unless it was framed under the notion that it was constantly improving and moving forward? Imagine taking the attitude that people and society at large cannot be improved, therefore just let it run wild as the wind. That's not going to fly my friend. Alan Watts makes me think but - Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.” - Henry Kissinger

it would improve MY LIFE greatly if I could find the delicious girl in the video and she was my sincere faithful lifelong lover

I get confused. If you want to get better at playing piano you need to imrpove no?

You know what's weird? When I listen to this and then someone else ardent like Jordan Peterson, I feel like I'm getting closer to something...

XD

Foo

You cannot improve yourself but you can make yourself worse. That what we are doing in different ways, even when we try improve ourself.

In other words, you're stuck where you are and it doesn't get better.

some good and some absurd statements here he's merely stating obviously POSSIBLE contradictions

Acceptance of self does not imply knowing oneself just accepting whatever. In the moment we examine and listen and play and discover we grow. We can of course meanwhile and at all times improve ourselves. Tons of outdated material here. Who needs to hear someone’s statements about “you cannot” if this person does not understand or try the next steps after acceptance.

Lack

Why are you yaking away Alan? Why talk at all?