Hi,
Been reading lately a bunch of self help, personal finance, and mindfulness books lately, to catch up with myself and improve my focus and productivity, but the more I read the more frustrated and irritated I felt as I read them. Trying to figure what bothers me about them, wanted to share and see what others think:
– I get turned off as soon as the books tries to justify itself to me through examples from great people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Winston Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln. I know those people are unique in a billion, but come on, I have nothing to relate to them, not even by a mile (examples: Obstacle is the way, or psychology of money, talking to strangers). I am a regular nobody, I was not trained for moon landing or been a politically persecuted person.
– vague and abstract quotes from brilliant people, taken out of context to be read in a different context. Even if the context and meaning are related, the poetry and beauty of the words chosen by the quote won’t make it more real or truth than any logical extraction of it. I get irritated when a beautiful Shakespeare abstract quote fits to general wisdom a book tries to teach me. No Go.
– treat me as if I were a robot of automation and habit, and assume the reader is an average idiot who was born yesterday and had zero exposure to life thusfar. Generic advice is fruitless and invites the reader to skim entire chapters.
– abuse positivism, and use motivational sentences as if the reader was about to start a CrossFit training session, full on, full power, you can succeed at anything attitude.
What are your thoughts about self help books? Do you find them significantly meaningful? Is there any book out there that seriously or potentially changed the way you see life and yourself?
by JeansenVaars
6 Comments
I once read “how to win friends and influence people” in highschool. All it made me think was that I was reading a manual on how to manipulate people. Haven’t bothered trying to read any self help book since then.
I don’t read them. I listen to life around me and take advice from others. I can see where one or two would be helpful, but not I library
I think they’re a load of crap, and I’m consistently surprised by how many people actually read them with any serious intent.
95% of them are crap. Most of them could be a pamphlet. I say this as someone who worked in a book store and has tried to read many of them. I would really only recommend 3 self-help books ever, maybe 4.
Self help:The Bible; Personal Finance: The Intelligent Investor, Confessions of A Street Addict; Mindfulness: Thinking Fast and Slow, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Through the Looking Glass.
I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It helped me gain a new perspective on things, but I’ll boil down what I got out of it for you: You are part of everything, and when you do something badly or hurt something, you are hurting yourself. So, don’t take shortcuts or do something badly because you resent having to do it. Other people may have gotten different things out of that book, there certainly was a lot to chew on, but that’s the lesson that resonated for me personally.