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It struck me in a moment of reflection yesterday that perhaps endlessly reading - one after the other - various "how to manage your life" or "stress reduction" books may actually be worse than not.
Is there some truth in simplifying things? For example, having decided what the next 10 years would ideally look like e.g do work, enjoy family holidays, aim to pay off mortgage, just getting on with it, giving things time and putting the books/internet down and letting things develop with an end goal in mind would surely be easier.... right?
Just feels like too much info causes indecision and constant questioning leading to a lack of "in the moment" enjoyment.
Edit I'll add as an example a quote from John Belushi that "...going to an AA meeting drove him to drink..." 😀
Overthinking doesn't help, not sure you can blame self help.
I am liking 3 Principles.
Thats not self help. It’s self doubt.
Just be happy being yourself and stop constantly overanalysing your life.
Stop planning ahead and just live your life. Embrace the chaos that is existence.
It struck me in a moment of reflection yesterday that perhaps endlessly reading – one after the other – various “how to manage your life” or “stress reduction” books may actually be worse than not.
No-one actually reads those books.
Is there some truth in simplifying things?
IME yes, a lot. Control what you can, don't sweat the small stuff, things take as long as they take, etc etc. Self help books are all turbo-charged-you-can-achieve-it-if-you-believe-it, filling a gap which should probably be better plugged with self reflection and acceptance, a bit of a non-help to shunt the problem forwards a bit.
A tangential take is that buying self-help books is a way of feeling you're taking control of stuff without really doing anything about it. A sort of monetised prevarication.
That said, I am about to start working on the first draft of my own book: 'How to stop buying self-help books - ten easy steps that will change your life forever'.
I know people who are addicted to self help books but who only read the first few chapters before moving on to the next one. That means they only ever get confirmation they are suffering but never find a solution. I sometimes suspect they like having a 'diagnosis'.
Based on my SIL the answer is yes
I think it's fair to say that once you realise that everyone else is also "making it up as they go along" and I include in that; every sun kissed Californian life style guru. Then life suddenly becomes a good deal less stressful.
Edit: I'll also add, that anyone who thinks that they have "special" insight into the human condition, or what it takes to succeed in business, is by definition mostly a egotistical maniac, and therefore, can safely be ignored. Or has by lucky happenstance been in the right place at the right time, and again (on account of them being the aforementioned egotistical maniac) cannot simply write a book that has one chapter with the heading "I was the lucky asshole who happened to be in the right place and the right time" plus, the royalties would be a bit shit, which is the reason most "self help" books get written. Cast your eye along your bookshelf and work out how many incomes you've contributed do...
Mike Tyson had it right:
"Everyone has a plan up until they get punched in the mouth".
Don't most self help books build on the message "live in the moment, enjoy today" by spending too much time over analysing yesterday and over planning tomorrow?
If by self-help you mean self-improvement, then yes. They're simply going to convince you that you are somehow currently a failure. Stop measuring yourself against others and do what makes you happy.
Yeah I think so, I'm sure there is a group of buyers who are looking for specific skills to fix a specific problem they have, or just for a bit of entertainment / discovery. Really thought I fear it's for the terminally narcissistic looking for another couple of 'life points' to feel superior and the desperately unhappy looking for a quick fix thinking that making their bed every morning will stop them feeling empty because their friends house is bigger than theirs, or worse unlocking the secrets held within the pages will get them and even better house and they'll transfer their pain onto their friend.
I'm sure there's lots of good ones, I read 'How to win friends and influence people' once, well some of it, it seemed like a guide for Psychopaths to appear more Human to get people to do their bidding. It's usefulness was helping to spot them.
It's about blaming the victim. People are exploited and alienated and stressed out trying to make ends meet then this lot come along to sell you a book or an app that seeks to persuade you it's all within your power to change things, inside your head i.e. accept your lot and deal with it.
Meditation, exercise, flow, diet are all good and useful things but the source of the problem is structural not individual. Should you try all these things and find that the world and your head have not improved, your rent's still too high and your wage too low, you may think the problem is with you and in that way it could make you worse.