When someone’s life isn’t exactly perfect, friends and family usually advise that person to look at the bright side of things, at what is positive.
When businesses fail, the managers who took them to the ground do the same thing; they look at the positive aspects of their failing businesses.
The two examples above share a huge error, an error that not only will make their subjects hit the ground faster, but will also take them there without anyone feeling the imminent danger.
“You’re heading towards hell, but can you see the bright side!?”
Every time someone advises you to look at what is good in your life, when your life is a mess or not going in the direction you want it to, you might want to slap that person. Call it a “wake up slap” and tell them to take it out on me (give them the link to this post).
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It has been a while since I wrote my last article. It has been a while since I wrote anything longer than simple chat lines on IM and answers to comments. Hopefully, I haven’t lost whatever writing skills I managed to develop since the starting of this project.
The period in which I’ve been inactive has represented a short break from blogging, because even if I love doing this, I can only do it properly for so long. Now that the break is over, it is time to man the cannons.
In this article, I would like to say a few words about addiction; how to avoid developing one, how to figure out if you have one, how to isolate it and how to get rid of it.
For the purpose of this article, I will define an addiction as being a recurring compulsion by an individual to repeatedly engage in some specific activity, despite possible harmful consequences to the individual’s health, mental state or social life.
Addictions
Addiction is a terrible thing. You wake up and say “I’ll only have one cup today” through a groggy mind. Then that first sip hits your veins like a freight train.
Quitting an addiction is best done cold turkey… and you are beyond that point today… so you give in. You have that second cup, quickly followed by the third.
Before you know it, you’ve lost count, the coffee pot is empty, and you break into a cold, nervous sweat.
Without even thinking, you start brewing another pot, while saying to yourself “I’ll only have one more pot today”… and you hate the fact that you are lying to yourself. Addiction is a terrible thing.
In a comment on my previous post, Z. Hereford raised a very important point; defining the truth and beauty on which I want to build personal-development 2.0 on.
Differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth and beauty, how to define and identify them, whether they is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute, continue to be debated by professional philosophers and scholars. However, it is not my intention or desire to go into that direction as it would uselessly complicate things. Here is my simple clarification on what I mean by truth and beauty.
I don’t know what feelings did the last three posts send out, but this one should make you feel good. No, not superficially good, but good because you are invited to innovate a concept that has a worldwide reach; good, because you can change something influential in this world, and change it for the better.
What is it about
Basically, I would appreciate feedback from as many people as possible, regarding the creation of a new standard: self-improvement 2.0 - name could change.
If you’ve read the previous three posts, or if you came in contact with the current self-improvement ideas and analyzed them, then you know they don’t work as advertised and exist mostly for profits.
Self-improvement 2.0 is the idea that came to my mind after realizing that I can’t really change what is wrong with the self-improvement concept; if new, working ideas are to appear, a fresh ground based on truth is required - thus self-improvement 2.0.
There are many sites offering quality information and thoughts that get little if no traction at all, for they don’t fit the popular self-improvement (or self-help) concept. And that is a shame knowing that they can genuinely help people have better lives - not only in the middle-class sense of having more cars, money, friends, etc.
In the previous two posts I wrote about some of the ethical issues with which the self-improvement “industry” is faced these days. However, those problems might be of small importance for the end-users, the consumers at the market end of the chain.
The #1 issue for the consumer is this, “does it work? Do I get any value for my time/money?”
And unfortunately, the answer to that question when it comes to self-improvement is a resounding “no” - in most cases.
Even though we could probably ignore the ethics of the people involved in self-improvement, we can’t ignore the results of the work that comes in direct contact with those ethics.
We don’t buy rotten tomatoes or untested vaccines, so why would we buy ideas that don’t work?
One could argue that they do work, that people are motivated by them; but how motivated are they? And in what direction? I would believe that they are motivated to buy the second book and attend another seminar; not motivated to start thinking for themselves and to take real action.
If I would buy a car that would need 50% of its parts replaced weekly, I would think of it as a poorly constructed car; self-help is that car.
