Be your selfer self

Success, betterment, and other shit

The other day I had a conversation with my friend, where I complained a lot: about all the educational books I left in the middle; all the professional blogs I subscribed for but never actually read; the permanent worry that I’m doing something that’s not good for my future.

In response, she had read me an article about how self-betterment became a marketing weapon. It aims at those insecure, self-doubting people, too educated for the simple happiness of shiny things and expensive alcohol.

Our insecurities make a big black hole inside, so we buy stuff — self-development books, career courses and meditation apps — to tuck in it. These neurotic attempts only make this hole bigger, along with the sales of self-betterment goods.

The fun part is that I’m now working in the marketing industry and I actually see how these stories are being made. I’ve read market reports, stating what customers now want: experiences instead of things to own; and then self-expression over consumption: and now self-actualization instead of status.

It’s a race up to the top of the Maslow pyramid. And with so little space for competition left, it’s now all about nuances and shades.

Being better is dated

The solution was waiting for me in the book “Limitless” by Ajaz Ahmed. I opened it at the page, where the author explained that the words Author, Authority, and Authenticity have the same root because they originally mean the same thing.

If you’re an author of your own life narrative, it means that you have full authority over it. It’s yours, you’re the owner. Nobody can argue with you because if it’s truly yours, nobody can have an idea about how it should be. Nobody but you has an authority over your emotions and thoughts, and over your past. They are in your domain to revise and build. No one can change, or cancel, or take away anything of it.

No marketing specialist has a right to tell you what your better self is. At first, because it’s yours and not theirs. Second, because there’s no better self. There’s just a selfer self: a youer you, more or less authentic choices, more or less peculiar story.

That said, let us take a big warm cup of coffee and watch the selfer self becoming a new marketing trend.