Or is it all in the mind?
I know that there are lots of different types of self-help books out there, but I’m talking about the ones that promise to improve the quality of your life, the ones that claim they can help you become a better lover, and the ones that aim to heal your mind, and make you a better person.
I read on Keishon’s blog that Oprah’s latest pick is the fastest selling yet. It happens to be a self-help book. The title, Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose, gives us a clue, as to what it might be about.
I know that in America, self-help books are really popular, but I’ve started noticing them on English bookshelves too.
I must admit, I’m very sceptical about books that endeavour to tell you how to live your life right, but I guess with all these people shelling out their hard-earned money for someone to tell them that in order to be happy they should practice smiling ten times a day, they must work to a certain degree.
Anybody got any examples of self-help books that actually helped improve your life?
MB (Leah)
March 2
12:51 pm
I read “If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!” back when I was a teen in the 70’s and it was the most helpful advice ever.
Basically, no one person has all the answers, shit happens-deal, it’s OK to be a flawed human, you have what you need to know inside yourself; you just have to look.
Shiloh Walker
March 2
1:21 pm
Would the Bible count? 😉 If not, then I’ve never read a self-help book a day in my life.
Self-help books sell for the same reason that fad-diet pills sell. People are always looking for a quick fix to whatever their problem is, be it weight, sex, depression. If it can be found within the pages of a book or in a bottle, hey, life can be good again.
But the problem is that most problems in life aren’t easily fixed and they generally require a lot of change. Change is hard work. That, by nature, means there’s no quick fix.
sula
March 2
2:12 pm
I’m pretty skeptical of any book that claims to be a cure-all for everything in your life. But I do think that you can learn some helpful things from books. Maybe a small idea about one teeny tiny facet of your life that you hadn’t thought about before and that helps you become more self-aware and thus able to work on that particular thing. But change your whole life? Nah. For example, I remember going through a really awful break-up and buying some book about emotional recovery. Most of it was tripe, but there was one little visualization technique that I found really helpful and that I still use today. Rest of the book? *yawn*
So does that answer the question? lol.
Of course there is always The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy which gives us the answer to the burning question: “What is the meaning of life, the universe…and everything?”
Jackie L.
March 2
2:25 pm
Hey, my mantra for my entire existence came from Hitch-hikers: Don’t Panic. Had a lady stroll into the office yesterday morning, with a massive heart attack and I was sub-vocalizing my mantra a lot.
Seriously, because of bad experiences with organized religion as a teen, the Robert Pirsig book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has been the basis of my philosophy for years.
Shiloh Walker
March 2
2:47 pm
now see… MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE could never bring me zen. Even the word maintenance gives me hives.
😉
Selena Kitt
March 2
5:26 pm
Wow. Eckard Tolle has been reduced to “self-help.” Now I’ve seen everything in the world of commercial capitalism. It saddens me to see his message reduced by Hoprah… the dangers of reaching the masses, I suppose. His profound message will get diluted into easy-to-digest baby food. Damn. So goes the world.
emdee
March 2
6:13 pm
One of the reasons Oprah’s pick is selling so well is that she is offering a live, online classroom every Monday for the next 10 weeks. She and the author will be there to teach the principles in the book.
I think that like anything else, you take what you need from these books and go on. The thing is, people usually don’t use the principles contained in them until some great calamity or event in their lives forces them to see things in a different way. I don’t believe that all roads lead to the same place but I do think that there areany candles in the darkness.
emdee
March 2
6:14 pm
That would be there are many candles in the darkness.
Jackie L.
March 2
6:41 pm
Pirsig developed his philosophy after a FAILURE of motorcycle maintenance.
Rosie
March 2
7:01 pm
I don’t know whether you could really call it a self-help book but several years ago I read ADULT CHILDLREN OF ALCOHOLICS by Janet Woititz and it helped me see and understand my parents’ alcoholism through a completely new prism. I joined Al-Anon for a time as a result and I think that and the book changed my life.
Capo
March 2
7:13 pm
I think I’ll break down one day and write a book titled, How To Write A Self-Help Book, Get On Oprah and Make Million$Until then I’m happy to meander through life, making my own calls and learning from the consequences, good and bad.
Angelia Sparrow
March 2
7:54 pm
The Tightwad Gazette books helped a lot when we were living on a shoestring.
The best one ever was Aunt Erma’s Cope Book: How to get from Monday to Friday in 12 days by Erma Bombeck, which was a send-up of self-help books.
I read a lot of self-help back when I was a Christian. Trying to live a lifestyle I was completely unsuited for was making me miserable instead of joyful, and I was looking for fixes.
Ally Blue
March 2
8:38 pm
I tried to read a self-help book once, a zillion years ago when I was just a twenty-something young’un. Don’t remember now what it was or who wrote it, but I went crosseyed about the fifth page in and decided I’d get more out of some Clive Barker. I was right O_O
Some of us **points at self** do not have the patience or attention span you need to get anything useful out of most self-help books.
AnnWesleyHardin
March 3
12:43 am
I’ve read a few self help books, but I think the best one was written many moons ago: How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.
It basically tells you everything all the other books do, which is: be authentic, be interested and above all, smile.
Our behavior influences our mood. Act happy and, magically, you’ll start to feel happy. It’s infectious.
byrdloves2read
March 3
1:00 am
I vaguely remember a book from the 60’s or 70’s that described relationships as varieties of relating to one another from 3 different perspectives: child, parent or adult. I think the problems arose from coming out of either child or parent modes. I found this quite helpful, at the time.
In general though, I think we only find those tidbits helpful that we are ready to hear. The rest we think are tripe or useless or ridiculous because we’re just not ready to deal with it, yet. You know the old saying, when we’re ready for the lesson, the teacher will appear.
Shiloh Walker
March 3
1:15 am
Something tells me that would make many people change or develop a philosophy.
BUt I’d have to rely on the DH. Cars and me? We don’t mesh. If I didn’t feel so damn stupid, I’d explain the car emergency I had this week that arose my blissful ignorance about all things mechanical.
Rosie, I’d suspect that book wouldn’t be what I’d qualify as a ‘selfhelp’ book. Not sure what I’d call it, but I don’t know that self help is how I’d view it. BUt I view things weird.
Jody W.
March 3
1:16 am
“All I Need To Know I Learned From My Cat” by Suzy Becker. “Your Cat’s Just Not That Into You” was pretty enlightening as well.
Jackie L.
March 3
1:21 am
When my mom mobile malfunctioned, it was just like my first car’s throttle getting stuck. So I called my husband and asked if the minivan had a choke I could smack with a hammer like I did when I was a kid. Long silence, then “No, dear.” That dear, the one that substitutes for “idiot breath.”
Shiloh Walker
March 3
3:03 am
I got you beat. I know it. But I’m still not telling. Some moments of stupidity I simply refuse to share.
kirsten saell
March 3
4:15 am
Lemme guess. You drove around wondering if perchance *sniff, sniff* you were in the vicinity of a rendering plant, then realized once you got home and saw smoke pouring off the wheels that you had your emergency brake on they whole time?
(That one wasn’t me, it was my mom.)
(Ooh, and my dad’s a mechanic, so you can just imagine all the muttering and dratting that ensued.)
Shiloh Walker
March 3
4:27 am
Nope.
Worse, probably.
Although I don’t always act it, I’m a fairly inteligent person. I’ve always tested wwwwaaaayyyy off charts, and I always amazed my teachers. But I sometimes lack common sense.
When my common sense and intellect meet, it’s a lovely thing. Except when I don’t LISTEN to them.
And this was a case of my not listening. My common sense was shouting the same thing my intellect was shouting.
And I just went merrily along doing what I wanted.
So not good. So not cheap.
So silly.
CindyS
March 3
8:06 am
Hmmm, I found these in the self-help section so I think they count. Anxiety workbook (I was able to read about the first chapter before I started having a panic attack – apparently the first chapter was the best because it taught me the proper way to breathe – breathing correctly helps to keep panic at bay – people like me are chest breathers – short shallow breaths). Also got about a chapter into another ‘panic’ book – it was about the author and she didn’t have just panic attacks – being in the middle of my crisis, just reading about hers cause me too much anxiety.
Ugh.
More than you wanted to know but hey, I aim to please.
I should also admit I do buy self-help books, I just don’t read them. If I do, I figure out what they are saying in the first chapter and then breeze through the rest of the book when I discover it’s all just the same as the first chapter.
CindyS
azteclady
March 3
2:35 pm
Shiloh, now I really really need to know what on earth could you have possible done!
Curiosity is my besetting sin after all.
Angelia Sparrow
March 3
3:31 pm
Byrd,
You were, if I’m not mistaken, reading Games People Play.
My dad has a masters in Psych, obtained in the 70s and 80s, so I’ve had a lot of exposure to various bits of pop psychology.
Shiloh Walker
March 3
7:58 pm
Aztec, you’ll just have to suffer. Sorry!
azteclady
March 3
8:24 pm
Meanie! *sniff*
byrdloves2read
March 3
10:55 pm
LOL Thanks Angelia. The name of the book doesn’t sound familiar, but you could be right. Geez, I got my master’s in counseling in the 70’s but I didn’t keep any of the books (not that any pop psychology books were used in the classes). It all seemed to boil down to common sense. Sorry ’bout that, Shiloh. heh heh
Misa
March 4
8:11 am
I’ve read the Mars/Venus books for help on relationships. I’m not sure it was that helpful but it was interesting and some of the insights of the book seemed true. One self-help that did help me was Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. I read those in my early to mid 20s but I am suitably wiser in my early 30s but those books helped through some difficult times (at least the latter did).
Jon
April 29
11:16 am
I am suprised at the tone of some of the statements related to self-help books and the references to other fads.
Books are just bound paper with stuff written on the paper – they are not evil or to be laughed off – they are simply a medium. If reading books helps to remind you of the “common sense” things that you don’t do every day that could make your life better then where is the harm. Certainly much less harm than slimming pills – a proxy solution that preys on those people who should seek professional help.
I personally find some of these books to have limited value in my life due to the fact that what they teach, I already do or would find difficult to do in the way they suggest. Other books have given me a great deal of personal growth and helped me to rid the demons of a difficult childhood by understanding why I was continuing to blame others for my circumstances long after those people had gone away.
Different people learn in different ways, some live a perfect life and need no advice whatsoever. I take advice where I can get it because although I have high self esteem and know what I am capable of, I know I can get better at things in my life. If you live a perfect life then don’t pick the books up. If you don’t (and I think that is the majority) you should choose the medium of learning that best suits you and not criticise those who take a different path to you.
Personal recommendations…
The 7 habits of highly effective people.
Psycho Cybernetics (Maxwell Maltz)
Feel the fear and do it anyway (Susan Jeffers)