Long before the advent of self-help books and the positive thinking industry, Benjamin Franklin developed one of the most rigorous self-improvement systems on record. in autobiographyFranklin explains that he creates a graph to track his progress, marking his failures each day and reflecting on his patterns over time. The new year was the most important time for these records, an opportunity to assess whether, in his words, he had become more useful, orderly and effective. Franklin had little tolerance for ambiguity. Each virtue had short and precise rules.
As if inspired by Franklin, self-help resolutions have grown into a $6.8 trillion wellness industrial complex. As we head into 2026, private clubs will increasingly take the form of what were once exclusive sanctuaries, now becoming mainstream. They promise shortcuts like immortal rooman immersive pod that stacks therapy and spiritual trappings into one session for a complete reset.
Completely commodified happiness.
Being online today means engaging in performance. We live with an imaginary audience of fans and antis, as if we were all celebrities. The world becomes the stage for personal brand management. In the process, we stop seeing ourselves as people who need to be known and start treating ourselves as systems that need to be upgraded.
In the era of orthodontics, the goal was simple: maintain health. In the era of optimization, there are no baselines, only upgrades. Nowhere is this more evident than with the rise of the “quantified self,” where steps, sleep, mood, focus, and calories are scores. Benjamin Franklin became software.
Sunday falls into Monday, so you can train on Tuesday and have a long lunch on Thursday. Downtime is replaced by “deep concentration.” The line between choosing to work and having to work has become blurred, replaced by the idea that freedom is always available to us, as long as we can sleep, eat well, and avoid burnout. On this scale, a good life is not one that has limits, but one that simply avoids being broken.
Sociologist Eva Illouz calls this “emotional capitalism.” A culture where the logic of the market is brought into our most private exchanges. In the digital economy of brands, metrics and control, performance becomes a survival strategy. We live under constant surveillance, making sure we fit into an algorithmic box.
We no longer just talk, we “process” interactions. We don’t spend time with friends. We “invest” in relationships. Editing becomes an audit. Reading is about looking for benefits. The soul becomes a ledger. Self-actualization becomes measurable. Spirituality promises to reduce stress and increase productivity.
What if we refuse to be audited? What if, as an exercise, we ignore the trackers and apps that keep us counting, and set aside our self-indicators? To enter the world without a score or a goal, and not, as Virginia Woolf said, “other people’s eyes are our prison, and other people’s thoughts our cage.” Refusal to quantify yourself.
That refusal may create room for untoward initiatives. Choose the inefficient one. Please stay late to stack the chairs. Visit friends at home without looking at the clock. Host a meal where the conversations flow, rather than making the main points.
Optimization attempts to remove human-specific noise. But connections emerge in these unplanned and inefficient moments. This is something that cannot be replicated by focusing on individual outcomes.
in Burnout Syndrome AssociationByung-chul Han argues that the pursuit of the “best” version of ourselves ends in exhaustion rather than satisfaction. We are constantly optimizing and never ending. The subject of achievement has no rival other than itself and is driven to surpass its previous performance.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about JOMO and the joy of missing out. Unlike FOMO, which is the fear of not doing enough, JOMO gives its name to the feeling of relief that comes from choosing not to act. Celebrate opting out of data streams and optimization competition. Deliberately bring back sub-optimal. In a small but obvious way, more and more people are choosing presence over performance and enough over more.
The most radical way to improve yourself in the new year may be to stop trying. Slow is often fast enough. Learning to be imperfect can be a real accomplishment. It is the only effect that cannot be measured by any scale.
We may find that being who we are makes the most sense.
notes and reading
“New Private Club” —Sarah Ashley O’Brien wall street journal magazine (December 2025 / January 2026). O’Brien is a style reporter at WSJ, covering business and wellness culture. Also see Kristen Gale, a new voice in the emerging field of bioenergy technology. “Is it worth it?” (substack).
Eva Illouz—Cold intimacy: The making of emotional capitalism (2007), The emotional life of populism: How fear, hate, resentment, and love undermine democracy. (2023). Illouz is professor of sociology at the Institute for Advanced Study of Social Sciences in Paris and professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“Other people’s eyes are our prison, and other people’s thoughts are our cage.”—Virginia Woolf, “The Unwritten Novel,” short stories Monday or Tuesday: 8 stories (1921, 2014), 59.
Han Byung Chul—Burnout Syndrome Association (2015), transparent society (2015). Han is a Korean-born philosopher and cultural theorist living in Germany. You might hear an early echo of Thom Yorke’s plea, Radiohead’s “Hey, slow down.” OK computer.
“My New Year’s resolution is to focus on JOMO. Maybe you should too.”cheryl burke today.com (December 31, 2024 – Print and Video 4:23). Burke is an entertainment editor and journalist and the founding editor of the weekly magazine. Life & Style.
Why “Spiritual but Not Religious” Might Be a Scam: Your favorite spiritual self-care technique is probably a copy of the religious one. –“Your path will be trauma-informed and mystical. Both down-to-earth and cosmic. ” Liz Bukar (no religious affiliation); Religion, reconsideredIn: Substack (August 19, 2025). Boucard is a religious ethicist and award-winning author. godly fashion. Professor of Religion at Northeastern University.
the joy of being wrong―James Allison (1998). “Like all of James Allison’s work, it is full of tremendous spiritual and theological insight.” – René Girard, author violence and the sacred.
It’s Christmas after all
room for love
Approximately 2+2=5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
