The Great Remembering: Why Embracing Who You Are Beats Striving for Who You’re Not

In the perpetual self-improvement industry — a booming marketplace of morning routines, biohacking supplements, and 10-step guides to a better you — there’s a relentless whisper that we are somehow incomplete. Not enough. Not quite there yet. As if the finish line is just around the next corner if only we work a little harder, optimize a little more, or sculpt ourselves into a shinier version of the person we are supposed to be.

But what if the path to peace — and dare I say, to joy — isn’t in endlessly striving to become something more, but rather in remembering what we already are?

The Trouble with Self-Improvement

In Getting Better, Adam Phillips argues that our obsession with self-improvement is, at its core, a kind of distraction. We busy ourselves with goals and upgrades not because we genuinely believe they will make us happier, but because they allow us to avoid the discomfort of simply being who we are. The pursuit of a "better" self, Phillips suggests, becomes an excuse to never sit quietly with what already exists — the tangled, imperfect, yet fundamentally whole self we are right now.

It’s a bit like a tree deciding it ought to be more like a mushroom: absurd, exhausting, and ultimately impossible. Nature doesn’t seem to get caught up in these existential spirals. The mycelial networks that weave beneath forest floors — those delicate yet powerful webs that connect trees, fungi, and plants — don’t spend their time longing to be "better." They simply are. And in being themselves, they support everything else.

The great irony is that by constantly pushing ourselves to be more, we often lose touch with the thing that makes us feel most alive — our deep belonging to something bigger than ourselves.

Remembering the Ecosystem

In nature, there’s no singular path to growth. Everything flourishes through connection — a constantly shifting interplay between soil, rain, roots, insects, and microbes. The trees in a forest don’t grow in isolation; they communicate through those mycelial threads, sharing nutrients, warning each other of disease, and even nurturing weaker trees. The system thrives not through ruthless competition, but through dynamic cooperation.

This is the truth we often forget in our endless pursuit of "better." We are part of a vast, interconnected web — a constellation of relationships that binds us to people, places, memories, and ideas. And just like in a healthy ecosystem, our contribution isn’t about being more, but about being true — showing up as ourselves, in all our messy, wonderful complexity.

The Science of Systems

The field of systems theory — which studies how interconnected parts form cohesive wholes — shows us that growth isn’t linear. Systems aren’t tidy, predictable machines. They’re intricate, adaptive, and deeply relational. When one part shifts, the whole recalibrates. Much like a river responding to new rain patterns, or a forest adapting to fire, thriving systems respond to change not by striving to be "better," but by evolving with the conditions at hand.

We are much the same. Our ability to grow, connect, and create isn’t about following a rigid blueprint of self-optimization. It’s about becoming aware of the larger web we’re part of — the stories, people, and environments that shape us.

The Myth of "More"

The belief that we must constantly strive to become something greater is rooted in the idea that we are separate from the world around us — that we are independent agents climbing some cosmic ladder to success. But the truth is far less lonely — and far more beautiful.

Like mycelium, we are always in relationship — with our families, our histories, our communities, and our future selves. Every action we take ripples out, changing the ecosystem we’re part of. And just as the forest floor flourishes when the mycelium is healthy, we thrive not by striving to be more, but by remembering that we are already enough.

The Great Remembering

So what does this mean for us, here in our restless, modern lives?

It means we can stop asking ourselves, Why aren’t I better? and start asking, What would it feel like to remember who I am?

It means trading relentless striving for gentle curiosity — observing the patterns in our own lives, noticing where we feel connected, and trusting that we are already part of something whole.

It means letting go of the exhausting illusion that life is a mountain to climb, and embracing the truth that it’s more like a river — something to flow with, something to be part of.

In this remembering, there is a kind of freedom. The freedom to know that we are not isolated projects in need of constant improvement, but vital threads in a living, breathing tapestry.

And perhaps that’s the greatest self-improvement of all — not becoming something more, but embracing what we’ve been all along.