Self-betterment and the pandemic

I had a lot of time this winter to think about things to change, things to improve, ways to focus on self-betterment.

2020 I saw a lot of people looking at this time, as an opportunity for growth.

I do wonder if those people grew any, or if they were just telling people what they were working on day-to-day.

Self betterment and improvement are valuable, intrinsic goals for most people.  For some people, they can't look at those goals directly, it's better for those things to be dreams. Because realizing your dreams and making them real, requires real work.  And real work amidst job loss, isolation and a sense of hopelessness for some people is really hard.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear puts this in a way that is simple to understand: we are motivated by our environment.  To put in scientific terms of agricultural progress, the very nature of continents changed the way human societies grew and at what rate:

When agriculture began to spread around the globe, farmers had an easier time expanding along east-west routes than along north-south ones. This is because locations along the same latitude generally share similar climates, amounts of sunlight and rainfall, and changes in season. These factors allowed farmers in Europe and Asia to domesticate a few crops and grow them along the entire stretch of land from France to China. (Motivation is Overvalued. Environment Often Matters More.)

When we think about our activities, and our goals and habits, certain things align themselves naturally. Some activities have natural barriers determined by our environment.  If my goal is to run a successful restaurant, I'm bound by my location, and location matters ever so much in this time of pandemic.  Being a successful photographer or teacher is pretty hard when it's an in-person service.

Conversely, some activities are better suited to online learning or environments.  But the one thing I've learned, as I have read self-help, self reflected on social progress and my place in it, is that our environment determines what motivates us, and also what we are blind to.

I think when this is over, we will see bursts of productivity from people in ways we never expected.  Because just the idea that everyone believes an event has ended means a new psychological environment for us all.