#Immersion

Making Sense of Change by Entering It

Finally, plunging is not the same as abandoning judgment; it can be done with intention. You can enter change in increments—set a short horizon, define what “enough information” looks like, and build support systems—while still committing to participation rather than paralysis. The point is to trade the fantasy of total control for the discipline of iterative engagement. In the end, Watts suggests that change becomes sensible when it becomes familiar, and familiarity comes from contact. By stepping in, you stop treating life like a riddle and start treating it like a practice. [...]

Making Sense by Entering the Flow

Importantly, plunging into change is not surrendering your agency—it is reclaiming it. Avoidance can feel like safety, but it quietly hands your life over to fear and delay. Participation, even when imperfect, generates information, relationships, and momentum; it turns the unknown from a wall into a landscape you can navigate. As a result, meaning becomes something you construct through action. You do not wait for change to explain itself; you engage it until it starts to speak in the language of lived experience. [...]

Stop Self-Improving, Start Living More Fully

Oliver Burkeman’s line pushes back against a familiar modern reflex: treating life as a perpetual upgrade project. “Trying to be a better person” can quietly turn into an endless to-do list of habits, routines, and fixes that promise a future version of you will finally be acceptable. In that mindset, the present becomes merely a staging ground for improvement rather than the place where living actually happens. This is where the quote lands its first jolt. Instead of asking how to become someone else—more disciplined, more productive, more enlightened—it asks what you are doing with the only time you truly have. By shifting attention from self-repair to lived experience, Burkeman frames optimization not as virtue but as a kind of postponement. [...]

Choose an Absorbing Life Over Self-Improvement

Psychology offers a complementary lens through the concept of “flow,” where deep focus and challenge meet, producing a sense of energized absorption. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s *Flow* (1990) describes how well-being often arises not from self-analysis but from structured immersion in demanding, worthwhile activities. Burkeman’s advice aligns with this: absorption is an attentional stance that reduces rumination by redirecting consciousness into the task and its stakes. Importantly, the goal is not constant bliss but a richer contact with reality. As attention is reclaimed from internal judgment, a person may feel less “improved” on paper yet more awake, more anchored, and more capable of sustained commitment—qualities that resemble moral growth without requiring it as a project. [...]

Lose Yourself in the Things You Love — Anne Lamott

It suggests that dedicating yourself to what you love can help you find a sense of purpose and fulfillment in life. By focusing on your passions, you can create joy and meaning. [...]