Self-improvement is embracing your messy, imperfect life 5 years ago
some types of suffering - such as intense physical pain, or grief - simply aren't possible to be ignored or meditated or 'enlightened' out of. As long as you're feeling that pain, you're going to be uncomfortable.
On the contrary, one of the points of Buddhism is exactly that pain and suffering are not the same thing (and this agrees very much with modern neurology and psychology).