Upon hearing what Dr. Inouye’s session would be about, I was secretly intrigued. Although I had no prior knowledge of the subject and had not yet done the reading, even the vague promise of a guide to improvement somehow hooked my attention. What if I could use Confucius’ The Great Learning to make myself into a better person?
Then I read it, and my heart sank a little.
The Great Learning comes in three guidelines and eight stages, outlining the necessary actions to reach one’s best self. Dr. Inouye described it as a self-help manual for perfecting oneself in a way that perfects the world. She said that finding one’s good should be as natural as coming home, because brilliance is inherent within everyone and just needs to be polished. Yet, its teachings seemed inconceivable to apply to everyday life. The guidelines come across as motivational rather than instructional, and the eight stages give no tangible advice. They assume that the end goal is to set the world at peace, and that self-improvement is simply the path that allows this to happen.
My western, modern point of view likely pays an enormous role in this critical perspective; the main type of ‘self-improvement’ in 2019 comes from $30 self-help books written by middle-aged businessmen. Thus, I hungered for something easy to follow, something that I could painlessly paste over the top of my life. The Great Learning is not this.
So what have I learnt from The Great Learning? I’ve learnt that some things aren’t as easy as they seem. Whether or not there is good within everyone, it’s up to each individual to decide how much effort their self-improvement is worth.
