/lit/ - Literature

>>11675931
They don't work.

The pursuit of truth and meaning and the pursuit of wealth and happiness are not even remotely related, and people instinctively know that. But the can't express it.

>>11675931
aware of the common idiom about books,
that is some disgustingly unaesthetic cover art
would be ashamed to have that on my bookshelf desu

>>11675931
Everyone's personal situation is far too different for blanket advice, aside from generalities and anecdotes. Also, most of them rely on exploiting some sort of outdated and no longer useful method of doing things. Your government has time and time again shown it hates the middle class and we're teetering on the edge of recession, yet these people will tell you if you get up at 5am everyday and meditate for half an hour every night you can open a successful niche business in an oversaturated field.

Truthfully, digging into rational conspiracy theories, studying a bit of economics and philosophy, and just getting out there and working while living simply will give you the clearest idea of what you need to do with your life.

They all assume hedonism.

>>11675931
Some self-help books are really amazingly good, while most are made just for easy money.

Another issue is that a lot of people go down the path of reading every single self-help book, watching every single inspirational video on youtube, but they don't actually commit to anything.

It's like reading all the books about water but never attempting to get wet.

>>11676032
This is a good point. A decent self-help book is a starting point, ideally you should be putting the advice into practice all the time and essentially training youself. It's a recent phrase, but "lifehack" sums up the wrong way to do it: treating self-help as an instant fix.

These books make promises they cannot fulfill. It also seems stupid that these authors keep churning book after book and people keep buying them. This second point suggests such selfhelp stuff gives a kind of "feel good high" that compels readers to buy consume them without long term benefits.

>>11675931
Take philosophy, psychology or just fucking common sense, water it down to the point it practically loses its meaning. Then formulate it so it reads like a blueprint to fix all your problems and sell it to boomers.

>>11675931
I'd say it's because for a lot of them the 'help' is a matter of semantics. I read Ferris' 4 Hour Work Week and that was just him saying 'I only consider it work if I don't enjoy doing it. I happen to love networking and marketing and sales so I don't consider it work. I hate sending emails and meetings so I consider that work.' After that it was 100 pages of him shilling different websites on which you could hire cheap Indian staff to respond to your emails for you.

>>11676428
>Tim Ferris
The dude is such a meme, I'm sure he's a good person, but it's exactly as you said.
I can't take his work seriously, he makes the genre look so bad

Personally I'm very stubborn and have a fragile ego so I hate the idea of receiving help from anyone. When I see some aging Gen-Xer Joe Rogan podcast guest trying to give me shitty condescending advice it makes my blood boil

>>11675931
This guy is the biggest pseud and part of the cancer in society today
>just take a loan loool
>just get a default loool
y u c k

>>11675931
Describing what is hard, as if it were easy, is the longest running scam in the world.

The only good self help books is Dale Carnegie's. Every other is trash

>>11675931
People don't do what the books say to do. Or they do it for a few days and then give up. The books are fine.

>>11678429
How be a Conniving Two-Faced Jew and Act Womanly, a true classic

>>11675980
Good post anon

>>11675980
>Truthfully, digging into rational conspiracy theories, studying a bit of economics and philosophy, and just getting out there and working while living simply will give you the clearest idea of what you need to do with your life.

>>11675980
>if you get up at 5am everyday and meditate for half an hour every night you can open a successful niche business in an oversaturated field.

they're gay

>>11676032
no it's not, it's like getting wet but not committing to the whole scuba thing.

>>11678443

>>11677265
kek its something else when the guest and joe circlejerk for an hour about some bullshit lifestyle advice or pseudoscience.
that asian woman doctor talking about how the problem with america is that boys need to man up had me laffin.

self help authors and lifestyle coaches lack any self-awareness and honestly its interesting to observe.
now these gurus are politicizing themselves and its just pure madness.

>>11675931
They're like crack. People start reading one or two, then before you know they have a whole shelf. Vague enough to apply to everyone, but focused enough to cover the topics to satisfaction expressed in the title and blurbs. People are two weak-willed to ever apply any of the advice they read, so they just go and buy one more, just one more, then I'm rolling my sleeves up and applying all of this. Sure, bud.

self help books are just a get rich quick scheme

>>11675931
None if you want to be successful.

Most of /lit/ isn't.

>>11675947
I would argue you couldn´t even have one without the other.

Altough i have to admit I do agree not to mistake wealth and happiness for truth...

>>11678778

Personally I see self-help books as a good way to keep your mind from closing and would advocate reading more as I'm very sceptical about the idea of following any one book too closely,

That said, I barely read them myself. You can usually get the general idea of what the author wants to get across in the first 50 pages. The rest is fluff.

>>11676045

Good post. Most self-help is subjective and the authors tend to drone on about a lot of things that aren't applicable to the reader. It means having to stay critical and finding things you believe will be useful AND THEN taking it out in the real world and learning what works and what doesn't through active practice.

Nobody learns jack shit otherwise but the people writing the books rarely acknowledge it. Good self-help books should advocate daily challenges.

>>11675931
They're pure distilled ideology and your pic is a good example of that.

>>11675931
>the kid curved the corner and passed the oakslats and rubworn shelving to his left and stood silent in the economics section. He drew threadthin the piece of mint gum in his mouth between his teeth and tongue, his jaw loudly settling like a wild whipcrack in a sweltering desert heat.
>he picked up a copy of Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State and edged the tome against the sunlight crashing from the rear window lined with dirty ratchel in swathes of dustladen rays like hell's own stinking vapors.
>he began to sweat
>whats that there
>the boy looked to his left and there stood a small Taiwanese man in an almagre aguayo wrapped slovenly around a sullen sark topped in a faded sombrero looking down into the center of a jacketless hardcover. He swigged his pulque and wiped his mouth. He ran his thumb down the soft edge of the pages feeling out the rimple pulp and spat in the spine of the book and slammed it shut
>needa water these words here. theys the seedling of an infant mind n this'll round out theys intentions n give it meaning real meaning now
>so what's there
>what
>that there in yer paws m'boi
>nothin
>sure looks like somethin
>its a book on economics
>economics? dint ye know thas a dismal science? sorry science that is there fer sure. ain't no hearth in't no place n space fer the heart
>ye pick'n up son? its a sorry way'a life a sorry way'a thinkin its a heavensent grief mask'd in graphs and plotpoints all n' the purpose of steepin heavy in ye heart't make it drop to ye guts'n pine fer death
>the tiny Asian man stepped a few feet back abreast and reached for a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad and heaved it towards the kid
>he dropped it
>ye want purpose? thet there book is no demon. thet there is a shedself angel thets brought you in here n now to meet me to gentle ye into sanity
>itll change yer life if it don't kill yer ass first.
>the kid took the book to the counter and purchased the book, and with it took home a complimentary tortilla. and he left.

>>11679788
Wealth and happiness should be looked at as the proper but not inevitable effects of a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth and meaning. Truth and meaning, however, are the necessary ground of a good life and will suffice should those other effects be absent.

>>11678447
Enjoy your lack of success.

>>11675931
The act of reading them makes one feel pathetic, and as if their revelations are meaningless and universal.

>OP pre-frames thread with a presumptive question
>brainlets agree with OP by default
>Only 3 anons demonstrate critical thinking ability:
>>11675980
>>11676032
>>11679665