"Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better."

     That's the self-help mantra coined by the French psychologist Emile Coue (1857-1926), the one that caught on in the 1920s, the era of Flappers and Banana Oil.  People recited it like the prayer Coue meant it to be--he advocated its ritualized repetition at least twenty times a day, especially in the morning and evening.  He wanted the message to seep down into the unconscious mind, which would eventually accept the premise as real.  Fake it till you make it.
     The "power of positive thinking" is how the minister Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) described the same idea, a career-making slogan that he preached and audiences paid to hear--and readers paid to read. It was a good living.  And people did buy the idea and tried to keep a positive attitude that would rub off on every aspect of their lives.  Visualize good things.  Think good thoughts.  Improve.
     Eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophers spoke about the "perfectibility of man," the same idea, really, but as it represented a shift to man-centered thinking (and away from seventeenth-century God-centeredness), it became a controversial concept, but one that has always had great appeal.  For me at least.
     That's what I've always seen, all my life, self-improvement.  Growth.  Development.  Education.  Moving past limitations.  Becoming better.  Every day in every way.  Nothing sounds so hollow to me as the familiar line by fatalists that people never change.  Not really, they say.  "You can't teach an old dog new tricks.  You are who you are, and that will never change."
     Hogwash.
     People are changing all the time, in fundamental ways.  They grow in taste, in understanding, in decency, in courage, in knowledge--and more.  Every way you can imagine.  We aren't destined to make the same mistakes all our lives; we learn from them, aspire to be better, push ahead.  Yes indeed, every day in every way, I'm getting better and better.
    It's too bad Coue's message was couched in a two-bit cliche--but it's the packaging that's all wrong, not the goal.