Complex Numbers

Help Yourself

By coincidence, another Guardian link today. This one's trying to help with self-help.

    Self-help was meant to make me feel better. Instead it turned toxic - and borderline dangerous  

I always questioned the concept of self-help books, myself. Even putting aside the questionable credentials of some of the authors, you're not really doing self-help; you're looking to a book and an author that doesn't know you for advice. Which is fine if you're cooking and grab a recipe book.

They do, however, sometimes self-help their authors to bigger bank accounts.

I remember buying my first self-help book, which promised I could be healed of anything if only I banished my limiting beliefs.

And then if you're not healed of whatever, it's your own fault because you didn't banish hard enough!

Over the next 15 years, I bought hundreds of self-help books, courses and apps, and tracked down every self-styled personal improvement guru on TikTok and YouTube in the hope that they could teach me how to become happier, more confident and more lovable.

Apparently, the concept of "to be happier, confident, and more lovable, don't waste money on self-help books, courses, and apps; and stay away from social media" never occurred to her. Of course, none of the people involved would have given her that advice. But I can.

Look, I'm the last person who'd advise someone to "be yourself." But at some point, I realized that the way to be content with what you have is to be content with what you have.

Some approaches were gentle and perhaps even obvious: “talk kindly to yourself, get enough sleep”. Others bordered on dangerous, whether it was encouraging me to spend more money than I could afford in order to “manifest” wealth or telling me to ignore my health problems to feel healthy.

If, on the other hand, I was content with being a bigger asshole than I already am, I would totally be like, "You know the secret to happiness and eternal bliss? It's to give me all your money. Yes, all of it."

Hey, it works for preachers.

But even though I was following the guidance, nothing was helping me to feel better about myself and my brain scans still showed I was living with an incurable neurological disease. I couldn’t help but feel that not getting results was my own personal failing, rather than the industry’s with all its promises.

Yeah, that's one of the biggest problems. I mentioned it up there, too: it's easy to fall into the trap of "obviously it's my fault because I didn't pray / manifest / wish / meditate enough." Which can lead to a whole spin/rinse cycle of doom.

It took a deep conversation with a loved one to recognise that in trying to change my life, I was trying to change things that had happened to me and shaped who I was – often things that were out of my control.

And yet, she had "a loved one." I think I finally understand some of the people who are like "be grateful for what you have."

Instead of focusing on who I wanted to become, I had to quit self-help to learn and accept who I really was.

Happiness isn't having what you want; it's wanting what you have.

Since I quit my self-help crutch, I’ve realised that focusing all your energy on improving yourself can really suck the joy out of life. It makes happiness conditional: only when I have got to a certain stage can I feel contentment; only when I look that way can I be loved.

So that's your ironic self-help advice for the day. For just $19.95 a month, I can self-help you even more!