When I was 12 I did not fill my journals with interpersonal accounts of boys I liked.  Unlike many of my artsy girlfriends, I did not scrawl flight of fancy stories or purplish sexual fantasies.  Unlike the conventionally romantic girls I knew I did not plan my ideal house or wedding or man. I did not write new plots to my favorite television shows or compose odes to Leonardo DiCaprio’s handsome, non-threatening facial construction, rhapsodize about how I wished John Lennon was still alive or Patrick Swayze was my boyfriend. (I think I only did that in my mind).
Instead my diary, with its thumbnail-sized key, purple pages and gilded filigree lines was filled, from start to finish, with one thing, and one thing only….

Pep talks.
“Julia! You need to work harder in dance class! You will not become a Broadway star by being lazy in dance class! Steps you should take: …..”
“Julia! You should read better books. When you are a famous actress you will want people to take you seriously! Next steps …”
“Julia! Stop forgetting your pens! You cannot always forget your pens like this!”
I’ve had a lifelong obsession with self-improvement. When I was eight, my best friend Athena and I were picnicking on the side of Valhalla Road when the local bully Thom Beirsbach pulled up on his bike. After enduring his taunts and the turning over of our lovingly made apple crisp, I pleaded, “Thom, do you think you could leave us alone? We’re trying to cultivate our imaginations!”
Perhaps my approach has become subtler in my adult years, but my desire to constantly improve remains intact. It’s so tantalizing, the idea of becoming better at life. And I know I’m not singular, my roommate Andrew and I have practically built our relationship around the idea of mutual betterment. The first couple of years after college we spent two to three nights a week doing MTV yoga, eating salad, smoking grass and discussing how we could better follow Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues. We’ve stopped smoking weed, he got a girlfriend, I got a yoga membership and we maxed out on Ben, but give us a list of “things to do” and watch our eyelids quiver with pleasure.
Like 87.667% of adult practitioners, I turned to Buddhism to help me get over a failed relationship. But I also had the sneaking suspicion that Buddhism could help in my desire to become a super-human. And my greatest struggle with Buddhism to this date is not turning it into another way to improve myself. I can’t help but think that most people feel this way with their process.  I mean once you’ve felt the real improvements that those Buddhist highs can bring into your existence – the increased concentration, awareness and patience  that feel refreshing invigorating and energizing – well you really want to keep that vibe going.  It makes sense that we come to Buddhism to be better people, obviously. But we all know that there’s something about attaching to that goal of Buddhism making you better at stuff that kills the dharmic-voodoo magic that gets us to that place of concentration and awareness and patience in the first place.
It’s the most annoying thing about Buddhism (LIFE! GOD!) for me – the continual Catch 22 – the absolute necessity of faith in the emptiness and everything-ness of existence. The need to dive into the present moment completely, to let go of all the structural thoughts that shape your experience and fall into naked awareness with the faith that somehow the present moment will save you in some way. From experience I know that it will, but it’s so hard to jump completely into the present moment when it’s not a beautiful sunset or a steaming cup of tea or the play I’m working on or even my dishes at home, but a fluorescent lit office building, a computer monitor, unanswered emails about issues you don’t care about clad in red bulbous exclamation points and the strains of Raeggaeton pumping from the cubicle next door.
So the struggle I find is that Buddhism requires effort – but not effortful effort. And not effortless-effort, because that’s not effort. It needs surfboard/skateboarding/acting/handstand/singing/driving stick effort. It needs….Right Effort.
The third category of the 8fold path, Right Samadhi, has 3 folds: Right Effort, Right Mindfullness & Right Samadhi.
We discussed Samadhi on Saturday in Hardcore Dharma, focusing in our abbreviated class mainly on Right Effort. I will too, as I find knowing when to use effort to be extremely enmeshed in my struggle against/towards using Buddhism for self-improvement.
In class Ethan discussed this great Buddhist teaching about when to use effort: a four step or stage process that keeps us seeking awareness without attachment. He introduced us to the teaching by stating the only time we need to put forth mind effort is in these four steps, and the rest of the time what we need to do is r-e-l-a-x.  I just had to use the first two steps to write the last sentence because I’m trying not to snap from hearing Alicia Keye’s “Noone” from the cubicle next door for the 486th time at full computer speaker volume.  I bring this up only to say that while this may be *all* we have to do we have to do it pretty consistently.
The Four Steps/Stages Are:
1. Prevention: The first step is to refrain from Negative Mind States, or prevent them from arising.  It’s like, you know, it’s so weird how walking into a clothing store will make me really want to spend money I don’t have! It’s like… I would not be tempted to spend as much money if I don’t walk into the store! ….Woah… life is …. crazy.
2. Damage Control: The second step is when a negative event or thought has already arisen, to take steps to assure it does not grow. I’m already in the clothing store and I WANT THAT COAT. I know it costs way more than I should spend. I know that I should probably do my laundry and then decide how unsatisfied I am with my sartorial selections. But the lawyers in my head all graduated summa cum laude from Yale. They say, “Everyone else gets to look nice. Look at that girl, she looks so nice! She’s probably stable in her career and has a one bedroom. You could be like that girl if you got that coat! Besides you never get anything nice. You are practically an urchin, so immense is the dearth of niceness in your life”. Convinced, I grab the coat, I queue up to the cashier, and then some heaven opening moment comes when I realize I’m acting like a complete slave to my desires. That’s right Jules, just put the coat down. Easy now, that’s it girl – now I want you to just walk out of the store. Slowly now, slowly now – that’s a good girl.  Good Julia, sweetheart, that’s good.  Mindful walking, mindful walking, that’s it Jules, you’re a good girl, uh-huh – no don’t look there – keep walking – that’s right.
3. Birth of Good Habits: The third step is to develop healthy mind states – I like to think of this step as creating the conditions for the best of you to arise. That could mean reminding myself often about all that I have to be grateful about, or understanding cause/effect and karma and how the more I give in to cravings the stronger those cravings will be in the future, or (I find this to be an immediate antidote) putting my attention on others rather than myself. Again, insane how after spending the night at the shelter I volunteer for monthly I’m less inclined towards an “I need those leggings to be happy” kind of attitude. 
4. Cultivating Positive Arising: Keep and grow the good habits you create. Use those good feelings of generosity and inner richness as motivations to cultivate more. I find this one to be a pain in the ass, having been raised on the, “good behavior begets cookies” model of upbringing. So I throw this one out as a question – how do y’all keep those good habits that you cultivate going? Without attaching yourself to them and therefore killing them? While maintaining a sense of egoless-ness? What do you do?
The 12 year old in me wants to write it in her diary.