Stop Self-Optimizing, Start Living More Fully
Stop trying to turn yourself into a better person, and start leading an absorbing life. — Oliver Burkeman
—What lingers after this line?
One-minute reflection
Where does this idea show up in your life right now?
From Self-Improvement to Self-Absorption
Oliver Burkeman’s line challenges the modern reflex to treat life as a project of constant upgrades. The phrase “trying to turn yourself into a better person” points to a familiar cycle: measuring, refining, and correcting the self as though it were an inefficient system. Yet the twist is that this effort can become strangely self-centered, even when it sounds virtuous. From there, the alternative—“start leading an absorbing life”—suggests a shift of attention outward. Instead of orbiting around your own progress, you enter experiences that pull you beyond yourself, where meaning arises as a side effect of engagement rather than a reward for perfecting your character.
The Trap of Endless Optimization
What makes self-improvement so sticky is its promise of a future version of you who will finally be ready. Burkeman’s argument implies that readiness can become a mirage: there is always another habit to fix, another mindset to master, another fear to resolve before you “really” begin. In that sense, optimization turns into procrastination disguised as responsibility. Consequently, “absorbing” becomes a crucial word. Absorption is the opposite of constant self-monitoring; it describes attention so fully captured that you stop narrating your life and start inhabiting it. The irony is that many of the traits people chase—confidence, purpose, even kindness—often emerge more reliably when you are immersed in living than when you are auditing yourself.
Absorption as a Source of Meaning
An absorbing life is not necessarily glamorous; it is life experienced in full contact. This can look like learning a difficult skill, caring for someone, building something that might fail, or joining a community where you are needed. The point is that such commitments place demands on you that no amount of introspection can substitute. As a bridge between philosophy and psychology, this idea aligns with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research on “flow” (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990), where deep engagement produces a sense of vitality and coherence. Burkeman’s emphasis is less on achieving peak states and more on choosing situations where attention naturally locks onto what matters.
Character as a Byproduct, Not a Blueprint
The quote also reframes moral growth. Rather than engineering virtue through constant self-scrutiny, it implies that character is shaped by what you do and what you repeatedly show up for. When you commit to projects, relationships, and responsibilities, you encounter friction—impatience, fear, selfishness—and you learn to work with it in real time. In other words, becoming “better” may happen most reliably while you are busy doing something that isn’t primarily about you. This echoes Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (c. 350 BC), where virtues are cultivated through practice and habituation. Burkeman’s contribution is to warn that the modern fixation on self-construction can crowd out the very arenas where growth actually occurs.
Letting Go of the Self as a Problem
Behind the urge to improve is often the assumption that the self is a problem to solve. Burkeman’s sentence disrupts that assumption by implying that life is not a test you pass after sufficient preparation; it is something you participate in despite imperfection. When you wait to feel fully healed, fully disciplined, or fully confident, you make aliveness conditional. Therefore, the practical invitation is to relax the demand for inner completion and act anyway. This doesn’t deny therapy, reflection, or change; it simply refuses to let them become the gatekeepers of experience. The self becomes less of a fragile object needing constant maintenance and more of a companion you bring along into the world.
Choosing Commitments That Pull You Forward
If the goal is an absorbing life, the next question becomes what kinds of choices produce absorption. Burkeman’s framing favors commitments with real stakes: activities that require patience, collaboration, and the willingness to be mediocre for a while. They can be modest—volunteering weekly, joining a choir, apprenticing yourself to a craft—or substantial, like parenting, caregiving, or building a business. Over time, these commitments generate a narrative that is lived rather than designed. You stop asking, “Am I improving fast enough?” and start asking, “What am I part of?” In that transition, you may still grow into a better person—but now it is anchored in engagement, not obsession.