SELF HELP IS THE WORST HELP |
- Sathya Udayakumar
- Oct 10, 2021
- 11 min read
Why self help books are oxymoronic and moronic !
The sequence of events that lead to the action is usually clear. You are either in a physical book store or the digital book store. Browsing/surfing/ meandering aimlessly. And then you see it - on the dedicated shelf which highlights the “Best Sellers”.
There are a couple of books from the fictional category and maybe one or two from the non-fiction category. But the list is dominated by books with clean covers, bold fonts, and usually an ‘ NYT bestseller ‘ or ‘ 1 Mn copies sold’ tag.
The title of these books is usually direct and in your face. However, sometimes they choose subtlety. In fact, calling them books is unfair. They are promises in paper form. You reach out for it, survey the cover, evaluate the blurbs. While your rational mind is still making the analysis, your subconscious mind has already leaped.
You buy the book. There is that small sense of achievement that lingers in you for the day. The feeling of having taken the first step, towards a better you.
This has happened to most of us, if not all of us, who own a self-help book. Either you have never heard of this genre or you have at least ten unread or half-read self-help books in your physical or digital library.
There can be no in between.
As the quarantines and the lockdowns started, the need to be productive and the need to upskill was the “in-thing”. Booklists were made, shared, and circulated. Reading challenges, book summaries and Tweet threads became the intellectual status symbol.
I too am the proud owner of several of these books. Money traded for anxiety relief. I too wanted to be amongst the intellectual elite. I too wanted to improve, be better, and help myself.
However, I realized that most, if not all, of these books, are distilled vomit in literary form. Words stitched together to make a passing hazy resemblance of meaning. The authors of these books usually hope that this haziness gets confused for depth and profundity.
In our grade schools, we are usually met with a “ Describe covalent electron bonds in 800 words”. Most of these books are similar to the answers we gave to such questions. A deft act in shuffling of all known words in a pattern that passes for structured thought. So what if I can't read a few meaningless books. Not a big deal right?. Wrong.
In today's day and age, you cannot be a citizen of the knowledge economy without kneeling at the altars of the self-improvement gods. I was even recommended to read a few self-help books as part of performance appraisals. That’s when I decided to learn more about self help/improvement books.
Self-help Industry - “Help me Help you to help yourself”
$11 Billion. That’s how much the self-improvement industry rakes in every year. To give you some meaningless pop-culture context, the best selling book series in modern history- the Harry Potter series, made $7.7 Billion ….across its lifetime.
To give you some actual context, The self-help industry is raking in more money than governments across the world spend on mental healthcare.
For some this data might be alarming. What is alarming for a few is an opportunity for others
It is important to note that in the parlance of the Self-help crowd, Books are but one part of the full stack. Any respectable self-help guru, apart from having a series of self-help books, will also have an audiobook of the same name, an app or website where you can pay for additional wisdom, comprehensive speaking circuits, and personal coaching. They will go the extra mile to help you help yourself…for a price.
To preserve the little sanity I have, I will not write or do more research about $2000 / 15 min sessions or about $150,000 per speech fees. Let us focus on the books - Self-help/Self-improvement books are a moneymaker for all publishers. Dedicated departments, marketing budgets, social media team, and the entire works. There is a good reason for that. Self-help books are the new volume movers. Estimates range that anywhere between 30-45 Million copies of various self-help books were printed in the United States alone.
Before we delve more into the trappings of this industry, it is important to understand where it all started
Self help books – A history
The year was 1859.
Charles Dickens published a novel called “ A tale of two cities”. A book that will be used as a bedrock of English literature.
Charles Darwin published his life’s work and called it “the origin of species”. Modern science will not exist the way we know it now without Darwin’s earth-shattering revelations wrt to evolution and adaptation being the true prime movers of life on earth. Interestingly, None of the above books did well. In fact, they positively sucked if sales were the metric.
The Global blockbuster of the year in the English speaking world was written by a man called Samuel Smiles. Samuel smiles was a Scottish Victorian parliamentary reformer and writer. During his tenure as the Editor of ‘The Leeds times’, he was asked to give a series of lectures on the subject of “The Education of the Working Classes”.
After the seemingly large interest he received on the topic, he decided to self publish it. He named the book (wait for it) ‘ Self Help”. It was an instantaneous hit. His book occupied every bookshelf on both sides of the Atlantic with positive word of mouth his only agent. There was only one book that sold more than his book in that year. The other book was called “The Bible”.
While various versions of self-help/improvement books existed right from the Greek and Eastern philosophers to Victorian intellectuals, It was Samuel’s coining of the term that had the biggest impact in the industry. Since then, the bestseller lists across the years, growth in the influence of the self-help category is undeniable.
From Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence people) to Stephen covey to Robin Sharma to Paulo Coelho to a thousand more. The list is endless.
It is not surprising though. With the rise in industrialization and with the beginnings of a knowledge powered economy, it was only natural that people did not want to be left out. All of us want to be seen moving forward, not backward. How can you move forward? Listening to people who have made it themselves or experts. Sounds intuitively correct.
All kinds of wrong
What can be wrong with people sharing their life experiences for other people to read? Apparently, a lot!
A book, in our hands-on a rainy weekend afternoon or on a long journey, feels personal. It is not only your property but an extension of you. But what we most often do not realize is that books are also products. Products sold to us in exchange for money. We perceive value in the product and we offer money in exchange. A Crime novel offers you mystery and intrigue. A Memoir offers you immersion and detail. A textbook offers you facts and insights.
A self-help book offers you a better you. By definition, none of these books offer any particular specialized insight or tool. By definition, the book is doing nothing but helping you help yourself. We are paying for a better version of us. The cost of the improvement. Why wouldn’t we pay for it?
We pay this because we see the transaction to be in our favor. We feel that we are getting more in value from the transaction. There are certainly some books in this category that do offer insights and actionable advice. However, those are not the books that define this category.
There is a book in the market by a certain lady which delivers you a secret. So far it has delivered the secret to more than 30 million people. The secret is deceptively simple too. Just think about what you want in life, real hard, and you will get it. How? Because Universe, Einstein, quantum physics, and Buddha. To achieve this magical reality all you have to do is become delusionally positive and never have a negative thought in your life. Ever again. If you do, you fail. Buy one more copy of the secret and read.
In my mind, people like this are outright evil, not as evil as Hitler, but close. Because books like these have actively contributed to the worsening mental health crisis we have currently.
They are doing this without having the faintest idea or credentials on the topic that they are talking about. Most self-help authors are the equivalent of Paris Hilton or The Kardashians. They are famous for being famous. Most of them grifters, aiming to ride the latest cultural undercurrent to the bank.
In railway stations and bus stands, there will inevitably be a bookstall that sells you a trashy, less than a 100-page murder mystery. Something designed to be read over the noise of the journey, with the least amount of attention possible. These books have more intellectual honesty than the works of best sellers in the self-help category.
In TikTok or any video discovery platform, every video you see will be tagged with #handwash. Why does a middle-aged aunty doing the savage dance tag the video with #handwash. That's simply because the platform itself and the many brands advertising are tagging COVID videos with #handwash. They piggyback on this trend.
This is not new. Most self-help authors have been doing this for several decades.
One demonstration of this can be by the shameless Category tagging that this entire industry uses. Remember that these authors consider and explain themselves to be specialists. People who have researched their entire lives in one area of expertise.
Amazon shows at least 100,000 results for the simple search of self-help/self-improvement. It also has a mind-boggling 28 categories. Because time is a meaningless concept and all of existence is cyclical entropy death, I decided to do some digging on the distribution of these categories.
There are a total of 100,000 results for Self-help/ Improvement. However, doing a simple category wise tally (only for A-H categories) takes the book count to >300,000.
Therefore we can safely infer that the categories are not mutually exclusive, meaning one book can fall under multiple categories, which leads to liberal category tagging. Any book can be about anything!
This takes us to the conclusion that there is potentially a self-help book out there, written by an author that provides you advice on Art therapy, Death & grief, handwriting analysis, Hypnosis, and Sexual performance. The Holy grail of books. Imagine the breadth of knowledge the author possesses. As broad as the breadth of intellectual curiosity of this genre’s readers.
Four types of Readers. Not 3. Not 5
Dictators reign because the populace bends. Scams work because people are greedy. Self-help/improvement authors write because people still buy. To get a fully rounded understanding of this space, one needs to understand the various types of people who read this in general.
There are four kinds of people who consume these self-help/improvement books. Let me explain why these books are useless for all four kinds -
1. “I want to be The Smartest girl/guy in the room”
You are a go-getter, trendsetter. You are/want to be the best at what you do and you will do anything to do it. It is not enough for you to be abreast of current trends but you want to be ahead of the curve. You want to think fast, you want to grow rich and you want to be the master of your habits. So what do you do? You buy a book written by somebody, who you think, has achieved what you wanted to achieve.
Wait. Time out
You want to be at the cutting edge. One in million. The smartest person in a room, arena, or the pin code. You thought buying a book that was written keeping in mind the lowest common denominator of human intellect will help you do that.
Wouldn’t your time be better spent on absorbing the works of the masters in your field? If you want to be a CEO – Biography of Bob Iger-Disney CEO, If you want to learn to write – On writing well-, if you want to be a successful social media influencer – Art of war- Lao Tzu. And so on.
Do you think it is plausible that the spewings of self help gurus will be smarter than the condensed life long learnings of intellectual heavyweights? But you still buy and read these books. Its almost like you are afraid of actually consuming complex knowledge. Its almost like you are reading this because it is easy to read.
2. “I have FOMO but I can't read heavy stuff”
Fear of Missing out (FOMO) is a natural side effect in our fully connected lives, where every event /update in your network’s lives is constantly live-streamed to your consciousness.
You also want to know more about this amazing trick to ensuring habits stick (a book your boss recommended). You also want to know how to make your kids eat vegetables (recommended by a fellow parent). You also want to know how to make money on Instagram (recommended by a fellow influencer)
Wouldn’t you better off reading 15 Min book summaries or even better a YouTube video summarizing the book? That quenches your fear, gives you enough material to spew in social situations but also saves you the trouble of having to read these books.
But you still buy and read these books. Its almost like you think by putting time in reading 300+ pages you think you are smarter and wiser.
3. “I am broken and I need help”
You are a walking time bomb. A mess. A broken vessel. It is like the world was made to make you feel weak. Everything you touch and do seems pointless. Everything you touch and does seem to fail. You don’t have people in your life. Only vultures who take advantage of you. No friends. Nothing.
You need help. You read a book titled “ How to win friends and influence people”. You read the reviews. “Life-changing”, “Mind-blowing”. You decide to buy it.
You are mid-way through the book and you already hate yourself. The author is talking about making eye contact, remembering personal details of friends, and subliminally influencing people. You cant even say hello. The chants of “You are worthless” rings in your head.
You stop reading it, like everything you ever did. This too was a failure. You are a mess, a broken vessel, and depressed. Again.
However, you are also an idiot. If your self worth is based on a book by a mediocre salesman, a failed actor and a public speaking teacher in YMCA. Millions have liked it, so f what? If Mein Kampf had review blurbs, it would have had a million positive reviews too in its time.
You need help. Not via words from vacuous books but from certified mental health experts. But you still buy and read these books. Its almost like you don’t want to address the fundamental underlying problems w.r.t your life and would rather use tissue paper to treat a bullet wound.
4. “I believe in generalizations and learning life lessons from everything”
You think that all wisdom is distilled. You think there are only 7 habits for highly effective people. Not 6. Not 9. But Seven. You also believe that there are only 12 rules for life.
You believe that knowing these cheat codes is important. Important to know so that you can cite them. Loudly and arrogantly. You believe that Plato’s teachings are relevant to B2B sales. You also believe that our mind controls our body and our body is governed by habits and our habits control our mind.
You also believe that when the author of this essay says there are 4 types of people who read self helps books. There are exactly 4. Not 3. Not 5.
You also look for things to be broken down for you. The complex is bad, wrong, yuck. You need the word pre-chewed for you and given to you in small lumps so that they don’t clog your limited intellect.
To You, I have nothing to say actually. You will continue to buy these books and read them regardless of whatever impassioned argument I make. Unless ……I write a book titled “ How to stop reading self-help books and not be an imbecile”.
This is not to say that there is no wisdom at all in this category of books. I will then be guilty of the same crime as many of these authors. Gross generalization and confirmation bias.
Wisdom or true insight is complex/messy and more importantly, unearthed. Unearthed by the number of hours/days/weeks we put into it. There is no shortcut. There is no life-hack. There is no “secret”.
We must not fall into the productivity rabbit hole. Reading/ seeking knowledge is not a race. The knowledge we gain cannot be blurs that we barely recall .
In conclusion , any author/writer who promises a better version of yourself is selling you a pipe dream. It is okay to pursue the pipe dream, it is important not to confuse it with actual knowledge/wisdom.
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