The self-help section of a bookstore or library is one of those places I sometimes end up despite efforts to avoid it. While I don’t like to paint any genre with broad brush-strokes, I think I am safe in stating that there are a greater number of pretenders and outright charlatans publishing self-help titles than any other subject area.
In all honesty, I scoff openly at most titles but then, from time to time, I crack one open. Inevitably, I am disappointed because a lot of them boil down to “the power of positive thinking” (incidentally, that’s the core of The Secret
In Dewey-decimal land, the self help books are usually just a couple of shelves away from the computer books and on a recent trip to the public library, I was drawn to a colourful book-jacket with the title “Make Your Creative Dreams Real
Then I started reading. Soon I was laughing at the ridiculousness of sending one’s inner critics on missions “to Madagascar in search of rare lemurs.” “Lady,” I thought, “If my inner critics were so easily duped, I’d be dining on champagne and caviar and would not have been tempted by your book,” which immediately made me grumpy. Yes, I have inner critics. Yes, I am a world-class procrastinator. Does knowing that make her book any more helpful? Nope. Because there is no way I will do any of the other suggested tasks. You will not catch me making a dream journal or putting all my self-defeating thoughts on to paper then tearing the paper into tiny pieces to release the negative energy. No I won’t “reframe” my negative thoughts — it’s the same problem I have when someone tells me to “smile” or worse, “turn that frown upside down!” It’s Polly-anna-ish and it just makes me punchy.
sidebar… Once, on a hiring committee, I stated that a candidate would not be my first choice, personally, simply because they came across a little too perky and positive. I told the committee that for me, it would be a challenge to work beside the person but emphasized that it was my problem, not the candidate’s. Incidentally, that person was hired and I did grow to have a good working relationship with them.
I have been wracking my brain trying to recall any self-help book that contained a nugget of useful information. I can’t come up with anything. I have three different home organization books — and you’d never know it when you walk through our home. I didn’t give much heed to any of the parenting books we were given or that I gathered from the library — especially the awful What to Expect When You’re Expecting series. I’ve read and mocked a mountain of diet & body image books. I’ve leafed through books that call themselves “handbooks” and “bibles” to various parts of our psyche. All of them leave me annoyed.
I know what you’re thinking, “Annoyed? Punchy? Hooey? You need a book to deal with your pessimism!”
GAH!
At one point, I actually thought I could write a book about embracing pessimism — but then I see there are several already and another due out in October that I might just have to pick up: “The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope