Self development and capitalism

Introduction

Self development, also known as personal development or self-improvement, refers to the process of enhancing one’s skills, knowledge, abilities, and overall well-being. It involves conscious efforts to improve oneself in various aspects of life, such as physical health, mental well-being, emotional intelligence, relationships, career growth, and personal goals.

Self development is a vital part of life and of becoming one that we should all strive for, this includes constant stages of evolution similar to semantic versioning but it’s also important to see how this process has been warped on a societal level, in seeing this you can correct it on a personal level.

The natural process of self development

The natural process for self development is intuitive, you strive for something and (hopefully) achiveve it, how this striving is done however was always up to the individual, if you wanted to get in shape and you trying to meet that end was doing 100 pushups a day (though futile) this was seen as your process of development, however now the standard process is to look online and follow what someone else does, effectively undermining your self development and making it instead you just adopting someone elses development without the process.

The subversion by capitalism

It is no longer enough to develop as you see fit, in a way you see fit, privately. You now have to develop in the way others define to achieve only forms of development that have the possibility of leading to increased capital.

The goals you have have to be done in a way decided by someone else and the only acceptable goals are ones that will make you money, development cannot be done for developments sake and the process of development cannot be your own (you can modify the process slightly but theres socially acceptable boundaries).

Not only that but this process has to be done publicly, it is no longer a private or personal pursuit, it’s a public one that’s somehow still seen as private and personal - this is the only part I’ve seen addressed online, acknowledging that the pressure to develop publicly is harmful and pointless however they address this problem ironically by “going monkmode” which they then talk about publicly defeating the purpose, and each goal setout by this monkmode is already defined and laid out with the goals decided for you, The entire thing self defeating.

The acceleration of development

On the flip side, capitalism has also contributed to the acceleration of self development in some ways. The pursuit of success in a competitive market can motivate individuals to continuously learn new skills and adapt to changing demands. Technology advancements driven by capitalist systems have made information more accessible than ever before, allowing people to engage in self development through online courses, podcasts, and other digital resources.