“Better”

Recently, someone close to me said they wanted to be “a better person.”

My thought was: just be.

Not because I don’t believe in growth or transformation, but because the reflex to become “better” can pull us away from the person we’re already in the process of becoming. The word sounds innocent enough, yet it can quietly shape how we see ourselves. There is an evaluative, authoritative quality to “better” that doesn’t always align with the helpfulness people think they’re offering.

I sense the weight of “not enough” — conformity disguised as motivation.

“Better” often refers to a more regulated, more manageable version of us. A version shaped by external expectations and by the nervous-system adaptations we learn to stay acceptable or safe.

Growth isn’t self-correction. Just be — and in being, we become…

“Just being” is not stagnation or passivity. It’s choosing connection over performance. It’s the space where growth emerges organically rather than through self-vigilance.

Sit with the word “better” for a moment. What is felt? Comparison, direction, judgment?

Once you bring attention to the word, it becomes clearer. Something more specific surfaces — something precise, intimate, human — a desire for clarity, safety, coherence, or alignment.

Attention turns “better” into something you can be with, instead of something to chase.

We talk about being better at communicating, better with boundaries, or better at staying composed as if the measurement exists somewhere outside ourselves. But what we’re describing is internal — a certain clarity, a deeper read on what is surfacing, a more coherent place to respond from.

“Better,” when used without attention, can become a map that points toward a socially sanctioned ideal rather than the actual landscape of our lived experience.

Cultural expectations

Contemporary Western culture reduces the word “better” into something more regulated, productive, consistent, agreeable. A refined self. A disciplined self. A version of you who doesn’t disturb anyone.

I’d rather disturb.

“Better” becomes a way to signal conformity, without depth, without complexity, without the fullness of being human.

For those of us who have spent years masking or managing our nervous systems to appear steady, appropriate, or easy, “better” can feel like an old survival strategy resurfacing.

Be easier, be steadier, be smoother, be less.

No thank you.

Improvement defined from the outside narrows possibilities.
Improvement defined from within, reveals it.

The cost to creativity

Inner life and creative process move similarly: both open when we aren’t inhibited by expectation, when we are listening to what is happening within.

“Better” doesn’t inspire originality; it confines imaginative space to evaluation. Creativity doesn’t respond to pressure, comparison, or internalized evaluation. It responds to contact, attention, and the courage to be true to the work as it emerges. The creative process embraces uncertainty and messiness. It embraces growth, experimentation and intuition. Judgement replaces curiosity, leading to staying safe rather than staying true.

Work will evolve and refine as one becomes more attuned, more honest, more willing to let the work become what it needs to become rather than what you think it should be by comparison to outside standards.

Stop the focus on “better” and what happens? Possibility opens.

In place of “better”

Ask: what am I noticing that I don’t yet have language for?

If “better” is the only concept available, your possibilities narrow into striving, correcting, and performing…

Shift that framing: What’s really happening? What’s becoming clearer? What feels more accurate than before?

Let pressure dissolve into attention.

Ask: what softens? what sharpens? what stops making sense? what becomes impossible to ignore? These are the kind of questions that connect you with actual becoming.

Self-development is noisy. Inner life isn’t.

When you stop negotiating with an idealized version of yourself, you can begin to listen to what is really there. You can listen to what is being asked of you from the inside.

Just be.