Saw this article title from BBC, “The Tricks to Make Yourself Effortlessly Charming” To be clear, I’m not against people being charming. In fact, if somehow there really are simple lifehacks that enable you to become charming, I suggest you take them right away. Charming is infinitely better than borish, draining, and toxic.
But I’m intrigued by the idea of an ‘effortless’ transformation into charm. Is ‘effortless’ the thing that is meant to attract us to this pursuit?
Most character development takes discipline and work, because for us to become better, there are obstacles within ourselves that have to be overcome. For instance, what if the reason I am boorish is because I love to talk about myself and I’m generally not interested in other people. Then there is a vice standing in my way between me and charm. That vice being self-centeredness. Charm will be impossible until that vice is overcome.
That vice cannot be overcome until I discover that the new virtue is more beautiful than the selfishness I presently have and currently enjoy. And even once it does become beautiful to me, it will require work re-wire my habits of thought and body towards that new virtue.
And the hang-up beneath that is the vice of laziness that sees work and discipline as inherently ugly and unattractive. This too must be overcome.
All this to say, the idea of effortless transformation sounds great to us. But it tends not to be how true transformation happens. And for that reason there is a deeper work in the soul that has to be done before we can do the work to be charming or whatever else.
A Pilgrim's Theology 