Self Help……Or YELP?!?

Disclaimer: I acknowledge that there are self help books that have helped so many stand on their feet.

I. The Rant

Hi,

I hope you’ve had wonderful day. A productive day. One where you woke up at 5 a.m., did a little morning self awareness, be it journaling, prayers or even meditation, worked out, had a great breakfast with the sun shining on your face, went to work for only 4 hours, or maybe to school, or where ever you chose to be, did meaningful work, had a nice time with your everyday people, checked on your stock market investment and it’s going up, met up with friends afterwards for coffee and chit chat, maybe came up with billion dollar ideas, went home, took a relaxing shower, nice music on, skin care stuff, peace of mind stuff, and stumble up on this article.

I hope you had THAT day.

Just kidding, I hope you had an actual real-life day. Just an average day where you were just a normal human being with an average human being behavior, because life is mostly mundane and days as the one I hoped to you before happen once in a blue moon. And blue moon might not even show up. Won’t pick up her calls, won’t text back. Just AWOL.

It is also possible that you have indeed started waking up at 5 a.m. every morning just to be bombarded with existential questions such as how am I going to make an “honest” living in this economy? While your brain plays the song “all by my self” as “Obama-self” non stop in the background.

This is, usually, when you come across a book.

A book that promises to make you,*sigh*, a better version of yourself by uncovering the hows of life, swears that by the time you turn the last page, you will have it all figured out and somehow might also end up living the life you paint for yourself everyday.

It’s the cover, isn’t it? Those big eye-catching words written in bold, decorated with colors that render your eyes unmovable and your mind a dopamine producing agent with the hope they promise, and the excitement they carry.

Chances are you would spend your hard earned money to buy it.

I would too.

Hell, I would even buy it as a gift.

And just like that, we are all subscribed to the never ending world of “self-help” hell hole.

When George Carlin said,

“Why do that many people need help? Life is not that complicated.”

“If you need self help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? That’s not self-help! That’s help!”

and

“There is no such thing as self-help. If you did it yourself, you didn't need help.”

he hit the nail on the head.

The world of self help is extremely absorbing. It gives us what they call the false hope syndrome. It makes us feel as if we are achieving things with out doing anything, and feeds our already reward-hungry mind what it needs to feel “full”.

It is almost as if you have been living in a cave of average life and now that you have found this book, you will be rightfully claimed by the elite squad.

Do me a favor — fire up google, and search for “self help books that actually work.”

The list is endlessly scrollable to the point where you re-google “top 5 self help books that actually work.”

There just can’t be THAT MANY secrets to a successful life.

As if the the genre doesn’t have enough topics to prey on, it also has one for people who second guess self help.

It is called anti-self help self help.

Yes, you read that right. It is for people like me who are skeptical about the toxic affirmations and manifestations. These books tell you to BE NEGATIVE, and accept that you are mediocre. Accept that suffering is inevitable and stop fooling yourself by dreaming about a state of euphoria. A good is example is the book which has become everyone’s handbook, The Subtle Art of not giving a Fu*k, where it is mentioned that

“The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience and paradoxically the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience”

This is just another way of saying, just accept it and be mediocre.

II. The Advise

What you should look for in a self help book

• New perspectives, experiences,
• Know what you want to achieve, and select a book that talks about it,
• Applicable skills,

What you shouldn’t look for in a self help book

• Instant results,
• Long lasting motivation,
• A life changing revelation,
• How to make magical money,
• How to be better,
• How to wake up early and work out,
• How to be a boss, etc…

What self help books are good for

• One liners,
• captions,
• Social media bios,
• Speeches

Lastly, here are some genuine “self-help” books that I recommend: (yes, there are useful ones)

• Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life,
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ( 🙄 ),
• The Power of Now,
• The 4 Hour Work Week,
• The life changing magic of tidying up (open to argue on this one),

If you want to listen to an episode where we second guess the self-help genre, you can head over to telegram, and listen to our latest episode, self help or yelp, where we discuss in detail about the books we read and our views on them.

You can find us on Telegram, Teraki App, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Google Podcast.

Cheers! 🥂