The Fine Art Of Not Giving A Damn

Introduction: The Tyranny of Self-Improvement

We live in an era of constant performance. It’s no longer enough to just live (or survive) — you have to optimize. Optimize yourself. Run, but make it interval training. Read, but take actionable notes. Meditate, but follow the strict guidelines of a Tibetan monk who somehow ended up on YouTube.

Modern society no longer tolerates passive existence: every second must be monetized, tracked, and optimized. Productivity is king. But in this endless quest for self-improvement, aren’t we just running in circles, exhausting ourselves, chasing a finish line that keeps moving further away?

 

1. The Obsession with Optimization

Self-improvement has become a duty. A virtue. If you’re not working on yourself, what are you even doing?

Add to that the influence of a certain form of modern capitalism, where each person is a product expected to “scale” their existence, and you get a society where the self becomes a business project to be managed down to the smallest detail. We must “upgrade” ourselves. Because apparently, who we are isn’t good enough.

 

The problem? There’s no limit to optimization. There’s no “good enough” button. Self-improvement has no finish line. No matter what you accomplish, there’s always another step.

It never stops.

 

It’s like signing up for an ultra-trail race without knowing where the finish line is, how much elevation you’ll have to climb, or even how many mountains are on the way—only to realize that the number keeps increasing. Just like the slope.

 

2. The Algorithms of Self-Improvement: A Gilded Cage

Self-improvement is no longer just an inner quest—it’s a highly profitable market. The very tools that are supposed to help us (apps, courses, podcasts, etc.) end up trapping us instead:

• Meditation apps send anxiety-inducing notifications to remind us to be zen. Like someone knocking on your door to check if it’s locked.

• Sleep trackers stress us out by explaining why we slept poorly.

• Social media bombards us with “5 ways to be more productive” articles… while we’re already wasting time scrolling through them. Not reading them is already productive.

We’re stuck in a capitalism of optimization, where even our leisure is calculated. Reading becomes a KPI. Exercising turns into a quantified performance. Everything is measured, tracked, and analyzed—until we forget why we started doing it in the first place.

 

3. Stop Over-Optimizing Resumes

And of course, we optimize our schedules, our routines… and even our resumes. We “market” our experiences, tweak our LinkedIn profiles to match job descriptions—sometimes to the point of erasing what actually makes us unique.

We shape ourselves to fit a role instead of showing what we really bring to the table.

 

4. The Elegance of Mastered Nonchalance

 

Faced with this frenzy of self-improvement, why not try enlightened nonchalance?

No, this doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means relearning how to do things just for the sake of doing them. No hidden agenda. Just because we feel like it.

• Reading a book without trying to extract a “life lesson.”

• Exercising just to feel your body move, not to hit a performance goal.

• Drinking coffee on a terrace, without a podcast, without taking notes, without a networking objective. Just tasting spring, watching the street, the smells, the movement. Reconnecting.

 

Because striving to be “better” is useless if we forget to be present.

There’s a reason why in school, they teach us to conjugate verbs in the present before teaching the future tense.

 

5. Giving Yourself a Break: A Revolutionary Act

 

In a world that constantly pushes us to be more, learning to just be yourself is an act of rebellion.

It takes courage. It means accepting that maybe, just maybe, we won’t optimize everything, won’t achieve everything, won’t improve everything.

It also means accepting that not everything important can be measured.

And no, not everything should be SMART (for those familiar with corporate acronyms).

• A moment of connection with your child.

• A burst of laughter that will never appear in a performance dashboard.

• The simple act of existing, with no goal attached. Ouch, what kind of concept is that?

The real question isn’t “How can I be better?” but rather “What actually makes me feel good?”

And sometimes, the answer is simply: nothing.

Nothing useful. Nothing quantifiable. Nothing optimized.

Just being there. And that’s already a lot.

 

Conclusion: Making Room for the Useless

If we truly want to improve, we have to start by making space for the useless.

Because it’s in these empty spaces that the best ideas emerge, where the greatest inspiration is born, and where we feel most alive.

• Being human, rather than a productivity machine.

• Seeing professional relationships as more than just transactions.

 

So today, let’s disconnect to reconnect.

Let’s stop tracking, measuring, and perfecting.

Let’s stop being a project—and start being a person again.