No amount of the wrong thing can ever make us happy. Self-knowledge and self-improvement are different means we use to get to the same end: living a better life. We often prioritise improvement over knowledge—but improvement is often futile.
In the era of technological advances and learning, it’s easy to feel inadequate, uninformed, unskilled. The world is moving so fast, there’s a sense that we’re going backwards unless we’re making progress.
We’re often told that we’re regressing if we’re not advancing. This is a distressing feeling for many and improvement helps us mitigate this discomfort. We focus on bettering ourselves—which gives us the sense that we’re not left behind while everyone else is making giant leaps forward. We’re moving along with the world.
But in reality, we’re driven by the illusion that we’ll ever be on top of knowledge, and so we’re playing a perpetual catch-up with something we’ll never be able to catch.
Our time and resources are finite and that’s why knowledge is more important than improvement.
The difference between self-knowledge and self-improvement
Improvement is about refining skills. Knowledge is making sure that the skills we’re refining are the right skills.
Solving problems more effectively is improvement. Knowledge is finding the root causes of the problems so they don’t manifest again.
Improvement is learning more and more. Knowledge is learning the things that bring you the utility and usability of knowledge.
Engage with the essence of things rather than with its manifestations
Problems have a way of springing in new shapes and forms unless we address them at the root level. This is why improvement is often futile. We’ve just dealt with one symptom and before we know it the issue has cropped up elsewhere.
When we improve, we’re often working with the symptoms of an issue—not with the issue itself. Our efforts as such remain on the surface level.
Figuring out how not to be upset by the things that upset us is an act of improvement. But if we don’t understand why the things that upset us upset us, we’ll continue being subject to their forces.
Improvement is solving the problem. knowledge is understanding what gave rise to the problem. It’s difficult for strategies and solutions to last unless we know the latter.
Focusing our attention on what matters
Attention is one of our most valuable resources. Making sure that we spend it on the things that are meaningful is useful.
What’s the point of spending time and effort on improving the results you get, if you’re not working on the right thing on the first place? When we improve, we’re trying to get better outcomes. But to get the right outcomes, those that create what we really want, and—more importantly—to understand what these outcomes are on the first place, we need self-knowledge.
We can’t get the right answers by asking the wrong questions. The what of self-knowledge is more valuable than the how of self-improvement. Improvement is becoming better at time-management. Knowledge is picking the thing you manage. Knowledge is having a tool. Improvement is using the tool. If you don’t pick the right tool on the first place, its impact will always be limited. Making the wrong thing better can never bring us lasting happiness. Pick carefully what you’re engaging with first and then refine how you engage with it.