(continued from part 1)

The first four issues of self-improvement, from the previous article:

1. Industrialized short lived artificial value;
2. Lack of coherence and/or connection between the presented ideas;
3. Lack of closure;
4. Inexistent entry bars.

The target of the series is to innovate the self-improvement (or self-help, whatever you call it) concept so that it will actually benefit real people.

At the moment, the general area of self-improvement has become very unethical, being focused on selling cheap candies for piles of money.

Other than the previous four issues, there are some more, as follows.

5. Most people who get in this field do it *only* for the money

From “psychologists” to “philosophers” and bloggers, a whole bunch of people are into teaching self-improvement for the sole purpose of making money. I can’t disclose any emails or other types of private messages, but I can tell you that I received quite a few emails from different people asking me for suggestions on how to make more money from this field. I can’t give any names, but some of those people are bloggers that you know.

Strangely, I never got any emails asking how to offer more value… or anything along those lines for that matter.

You draw the conclusions.

6. Most of the ideas that are sold are learned in kindergarten. Anyone with a decent amount of common sense knows them

The best example in this regard is one idea that I’ve seen in a Stephen Covey speech. It was something about an Indian talking stick and it said that whoever holds the stick is allowed to talk while the rest are allowed only to listen. I am absolutely sure that all of you know this basic conversational rule: don’t talk while others are talking, it’s rude and unpleasant.

Here’s the movie.

There is some mumbo-jumbo added to make it look new and interesting (and worth the money paid), but the core idea is learned at five or six years.

7. It is all *too* positive and comforting

Roughly 99,8% of all the blog articles, books and presentations are motivational, in that they make one feel good about himself and about the world around. They are designed so that they can make ordinary people feel like they are the smartest and most beautiful of all humans. And if one needs to be motivated by others into believing those things, it means that one is probably neither beautiful or smart.One of my favorite philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote:

I shall be told, I suppose, that my philosophy is comfortless—because I speak the truth; and people prefer to be assured that everything the Lord has made is good. Go to the priests, then, and leave philosophers in peace! At any rate, do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to the lessons you have been taught. That is what those rascals of sham philosophers will do for you.Ask them for any doctrine you please, and you will get it. Your University professors are bound to preach optimism; and it is an easy and agreeable task to upset their theories. - Arthur Schopenhauer, “Studies in Pessimism”

Teaching self-improvement should be, at least in a small measure, comfortless. Too much of anything, be it a feeling of comfort or a prolonged state of happiness, is damaging for humans; one will eventually become immune, or neutral to that feeling, and then the pain would start, as the only place to go would be pessimistic in nature.

Self-improvement should build a pessimistic aura around it; however, it should have a certain amount of pessimism injected into it.

At the moment it’s a lot like Brothers Grimm “Hansel & Gretel” story; scary woods (the “world”), house made of candies (self-help teachings). The only problem is that the woods aren’t so dark and the candy house isn’t that safe.

Regarding the fact that “it is an easy and agreeable task to upset their theories,” I must say that I have a few comment bans and some full visit bans on some self-improvement blogs; I’ve earned them for expressing a point of view that conflicted with that which the blogger presented. Did any of those bloggers contacted me to talk about that issue? Not one of them.

(to be continued in part 3)

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Previous/Next Articles: « Fixing the self-improvement concept (part 1) | Fixing the self-improvement concept (part 3) »

Posted in Issues, Personal Growth