Not all “empowerment” is empowering.

Even Carl Jung the man who championed the journey of selfhood, warned against ego-driven individualism. For Jung, true empowerment meant integrating the unconscious, not reinventing yourself like a brand.

In the increasingly commercialized world of personal development, we must learn to distinguish genuine empowerment from exploitative manipulation. Becoming who you truly are isn’t about buying into hype. It’s about doing the hard inner work in the slow silence.

By believing that you control everything and can be whoever you want to be, you ignore the complex emotional, financial, and psychological challenges individuals face. Where religion once placed the burden of being inherently flawed on the individual, modern self-help replaces that with the burden of complete control. But the ancient Greeks offered a more balanced view: humans were neither doomed nor divine, but capable of virtue through reason, yet always vulnerable to hubris, fate, and internal conflict. Instead of pretending we are limitless or deeply broken, Greek thought reminds us that to be human is to be in between, striving for excellence, but never escaping limitation.