(nods) Yeah, I figured this was coming.

This is the point where I generally part company with a lot of projects of this sort: I am far more interested in gaining clarity about the various segments of my psyche than I am about enforcing one segment's goals on another segment's.

I consider self-awareness something worth pursuing for its own sake, for the fun of it; understanding what I am for the sake of changing it into something else seems... odd.

I'm reminded again of my own process of coming out. Sure, Dave the Closeted Bisexual can decide to endorse or repudiate his same-sex attractions, or his opposite-sex attractions, or both, or some other way of slicing the data. But another approach is to accept what is there without trying to change it. In general, I prefer that approach.

I have a similar attitude towards akrasia. Yes, parts of me want to get work done, parts of me want to goof off. The usual framing of this is some version of "How can I effectively endorse the former and repudiate the latter?" My own framing of this is some version of "Well, that's interesting."

As another example, about six months ago I started writing a novel. I outlined it in detail and wrote about 50kwords of it, then stopped. Various beta readers of mine described this as "writer's block" and were full of suggestions for how to overcome it. I described this as "I don't seem to want to work on this novel any more," and saw no particular reason to overcome it. Perhaps I'll pick it up again some day. Perhaps not.

Admittedly, if I became unable to hold down a lucrative job, pursue a rewarding hobby, maintain rewarding personal relationships, etc., I might start feeling differently; it might no longer be acceptable to work on accepting myself as I am without trying to change myself. Then again, I observe that accepting that I am what I am and want what I want and contradict myself where I contradict myself often causes me to be more effective in the world, and I suspect that's not a coincidence.

I'm not exactly sure why I'm writing this comment, to be honest, beyond that I was thinking about it in response to this post. I'm certainly not disagreeing with any of what you've written here... the sort of endorsement/repudiation of well-understood aspects of one's psyche that you suggest can work very well, and certainly works better than trying to change things one hasn't yet understood. Nor am I suggesting that my current state is perfect and cannot be improved upon.

I guess I'm just articulating a different perspective. Yes, once you've identified what you don't like about your mind, you can work on changing/improving it, as you say. Alternatively, once you've discovered that there are things about your mind you don't like, you can work on being OK with them, just like you can work on being OK with other people's minds without changing them.