I was struck by how many of the self-help books tackle similar issues to those covered in my usual economics/politics/sociology choices - though from a very different angle. All in, there must be millions of tomes, all with slightly different perspectives on these same themes. Which themes? Things like: there's more to life than money, money doesn't buy you happiness, follow your bliss, your job is making you ill, our lifestyles are killing the planet...
What amazes me is, how come when there are so many books preaching these ideas, virtually everybody is still chasing the money, signing up for colossal mortgages, consuming like resources are infinite, turning a blind eye to others' suffering, and compromising on our own lives because we just have to work more, more, more and harder too?
It must be an amazing market to get into, because if you can rattle off a couple of hundred pages theorising on happiness and freedom, ideally along with a 'how I did it' case study, you may well have a best seller. And since people love the idea, but find it really hard to implement, they'll probably buy your follow up too. These books, in the self-help genre anyway, are selling hope! But don't actually have to deliver on it, because that's up to the reader.
I got some damn good quotes and soundbites out of the self-help books I browsed that day, and more than a few will probably turn up in this blog. I'll probably read some more self-help books too. But I think that overall, I'll continue to gravitate towards the broader genres, that aren't so self-help orientated. Of course I'm focused on me, and improving my life - what are most of these blog posts, if not a running commentary of my thoughts and efforts in that direction. But I think that recognising and changing the systems that create and maintain all these problems and imbalances is probably a more important focus.
May as well think big, if you're going to think at all.
Image by janetmck
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