Self-Help

I need somebody

Is there anyone who isn’t sick of themselves and doesn’t want to change their life? It’s certainly been a long-held desire of mine, dating back, I would say, to the late 1960s, but maybe I’m fooling myself, and it goes back further than that. Why couldn’t I stop pissing around in school? Why didn’t I study harder for exams? Why couldn’t I stop pissing around at university? (also: exams.) Why does it take me so long to get down to work in the mornings? (Tangentially related but important note. What fucking dictionary do you use, NYT Spelling Bee? You haven’t heard of a pelmet? Or a kora? Or a nappy? Why not? Jesus. A kora isn’t English, if that’s your objection. It’s a musical instrument.) Why can’t I write in unbroken four-hour stretches like everyone else? Why can’t I make up my mind? Why do I do things without thinking them through? Why did I cave in to my children, after drawing arbitrary and unrealistic lines in the sand? Why do I spend too much money on nothing? Why don’t I go shopping more? I’m going to learn to cook. I’m going to go to the gym, like, three times a week. I’m going to meditate. I’m going to stop over-thinking. I’m going to learn how to say no and also yes. I’m going to stop vaping. I’m going to read more. I’m going to look after my friends better. I’m going to delete emails more than one thousand years old. I’m going to stop scrolling, like, now. Soon. After this compilation of funny own goals. I’m going to develop a skin that is both thicker and thinner. I’m going to stop being so judgmental and less dismissive. I’m going to be less tolerant. I’m going to learn to love myself, while not forgetting to punch myself in the face. That’s just off the top of my head, but doing all of those things today, tomorrow, next week, wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of my inadequacies.

I have just returned from the USA, where self-help books seem even more popular than they are here, and have chased novels into a corner, where the novels whimper and beg for mercy.) When you have a genuine and sincere desire to change, as we all do, it’s easy to see why the titles might tempt you to shell out; in fact, there are only a couple of self-help books I don’t want to read. There’s Girl, Wash Your Face, by Rachel Hollis, which I will ignore for obvious reasons. ( I’m not sure I’d be tempted even if it were called simply Wash Your Face. That doesn’t seem like a whole book’s worth of advice.) Nor will I bother with 300 Questions To Ask Your Parents Before It’s Too Late. (It’s too late.) And I’m not convinced by the title How To Make People Like You In Ninety Seconds Or Less. I’m sure the thesis is sound, and God knows I’d like to cut a few years out of the process, but couldn’t the author just tell us for free? Do we have to read it? Because it can’t be much, surely? It’s got to be a handshake or a blink or a vitamin or something, right? But the rest of them sound great. You Are A Badass. I am, or could be! The Courage To Be Disliked. I have it somewhere! 10% Happier. (Dan Harris has left himself some wiggle room for a sequel there, and I’ll be needing it. ) Eat That Frog. I will! The Cow In The Parking Lot. The Chimp Paradox. These are all actual books.

I cannot help thinking that they are all aimed precisely at people like me - people who, deep down, know they aren’t going to change, that it’s too late, and we are going to muddle through in this self-aggravating manner forever. I could read Eat That Frog or You Are A Badass, but I fear that reading them will not be enough. I will then have to do something. And I won’t do anything, which is precisely why I am seduced by the idea of them. What I hope for is a short self-help book where one’s problems and bad habits and moral flaws are solved simply by the act of getting from one end of the thing to the other. Does such a book exist? Have any of you experienced transformation through the literature of pop psychology? If so, please share in the comments. No Roman philosophers please.

Yours, self-defeater.