This is a weak video.
Roosh looks confused and I couldn’t even figure out which audience he is speaking to.
Roosh’s definition of self-improvement is also vague. There are many holes in his argument and what he deems unnecessary self-improvement is not self-improvement at all.
I will go over the messages. If you feel I cherry picked anything out of context, correct me because I don’t think I did it.
Roosh starts with how babies effortlessly learn to talk and how learning to talk comes to them naturally.
The real reason all kids are able to learn how to talk and walk is not about effortlessness. Kids are not embarrassed to make mistakes, that’s how they manage to learn. When they are learning to talk, they make a lot of mistakes until they get it right. When they are learning to walk, they also make many mistakes on the way. They fall flat on their face or butt until they get it right. Next time you go out, watch all the kids. They are all doing stupid things but they just don’t care. Kids don’t have shame.
Mike Cernovich wrote about this. Shame is the killer of self-improvement.
Being shameless and not afraid to be embarrassed to makes mistakes is how we naturally learn. This is a strength. We lose this strength on the way to adulthood. We become embarrassed to make mistakes. Roosh says that we need to accept our weaknesses but what we are actually trying to do is to gain back our strengths.
Roosh points this as “as if there is no natural ability for a man or a woman to learn”. There’s a natural ability but being afraid to make mistakes kills it.
So, the conclusion Roosh arrives is the mindset of “something is wrong with me, I need to self-improve” is wrong. Roosh basically claims that there’s nothing wrong with us. There “is” something wrong with us. We forgot how to learn things.
According to Roosh, another thing wrong with self-improvement is “it never ends.” When you say “I need to constantly improve myself” you miss life.
I agree that it never ends and yes you will miss life if you are building a business, seriously lifting weights while following a strict diet/sleep schedule or reading a book. But this doesn’t mean I should skip improving myself. I will make it clear why it’s necessary later as I comment on the video.
What Roosh addresses as the wrong kind of self-improvement becomes clearer later in the video. He says “”we want to do it right the first time”. I already agreed that this is the wrong way to improve. We learn by making mistakes. But the title of the video is “self-improvement is unnecessary”. Trying to do it right for the first time is not the correct way to imrove yourself. This is not the fault of self-improvement. This is the fault of the person who got self-improvement wrong. If one person is trying to improve himself but he wants to do it right the first time, this doesn’t mean that self-improvement is unnecessary. It means that this person got the essence of self-improvement wrong.
Later, Roosh says that the message from parents to kids is “you are not happy unless you receive these material things”. Roosh objects to this. Well, I object this too, but is this really the kind of self-improvement we are talking about here?
Roosh reduces self-improvement to the need to reach material comfort. He says that self-improvement is unnecessary because we already have material comfort. “We are kings” he says. “If you had all your basic needs met: food, shelter, friends you have everything to be content.”
What audience is Roosh talking to? Who said self-improvement is done by getting everything right at the first try? Who is improving himself for material comfort? Does material comfort mean anything if you are not free?
Self-improvement is the only way to achieve freedom but Roosh makes a video about how unnecessary self-improvement is and doesn’t say a word about freedom.
Later in the video, Roosh loses it more.
He gives an example: “You improve yourself to become a doctor and please your parents but you are not satisfied”. Again, to what audience Roosh is talking to in this video? Is it fair to reduce self-improvement to pleasing our parents and dismiss it as unnecessary?
Roosh finishes the video with “ you no longer need self improvement. I guarantee, anyone who is embarking on a path of self improvement probably (80% chance) already has all his needs met and he doesn’t even need it”
Really?
How do you guarantee it?
Here’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. How do you guarantee everyone has all his needs met? An average man struggles at the bottom of the pyramid. How does everybody already has all he needs? How is it possible to climb up the pyramid without self-improvement.
Before I improved myself I had no sex life, I was working for someone else, I was fat and I was weak. Now I have a great sex life, my own business, I’m in terrific shape and I am muscular. None of these was possible without improving myself.
And the funny thing is,
it all started by discovering Roosh and I owe him a lot. Now, the man who opened my eyes to truth and inspired me to start improving myself is saying that self-improvement is unnecessary.
I probably wasn’t in the audience this video is intended for, but then again, it’s your fault not to make your audience clear Roosh.
2/10 video. WNWA (Would Not Watch Again)