The Tyranny of Self-Help
Do we need help with our obsession with self-help?
Are you having trouble with winning friends and influencing people? I heard there is a book on how to do that. What about your issues with thinking and growing rich? Apparently, Napoleon Hill solved that one a long time ago. What about the specific habits of highly effective people — how many are there? There is a book on that one too, you know (the answer is 7).
Books on how to make friends, how to make more money, and how to optimize our lives continuously sell like hot cakes. Americans (followed by many other nations around the globe) are enthralled by the idea of self-improvement. We love to spend money on our own perceived potential. And the more ‘life-hacks’ and ‘5-steps to…’s — the ever so better.
Chat GPT estimates the self-help industry in the United States to generate around $16.5 billion in sales in 2024 alone. This includes books, mobile apps, coaching, seminars, and online courses. Consolidate all of this into a corporation (let’s call it Alvin’sKeys2Success LLC), and it would easily rank within the top 1,000 largest companies in the world by revenue.
Amidst all the plethora of self-help gurus and stoic sages available at our fingertips, I can’t help but wonder — is any of it really making a positive difference to our lives? It would be unfair to speak for anyone else, but in my case, the answer is merely: marginally.
Napoleon Hill (author of Think and Grow Rich), Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad) and Dale Carnegie (author of How to Win Friends and Influence People) all played their part in the inception and growth of this multi-billion-dollar industry. Newer individuals on the scene such as Jordan Peterson (12 Rules for Life), James Clear (Atomic Habits) and Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck) have replaced the more nebulous words of their contemporaries with grittier, more practical advice on life optimization.
But no matter how concrete the advice, optimizing one’s life is not as simple as intellectually ingesting a book from cover to cover. The last time I read a self-help book from cover to cover was Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. That was about 16 years ago. Since then, the procurement of subsequent self-help books have ended up with nothing more than the occasional flicking through of the pages in random weekend afternoons. Suffice to say that none of them have changed my life, or altered the way I perceive the world in any meaningful manner.
The idea that you are just a few insights away, a few aphorisms away, a few books away from turning into an enlightened billionaire is a tantalizing one. And as proven by the billion-dollar-revenues generated by the industry, the market is always in search for jewels of truth and pearls of wisdom printed beautifully in book form, with tantalizing titles like I Will Teach You to Be Rich and The 4-Hour Work Week.
Perhaps the genre of self-help is an addiction in and of itself. And with all addictions, it must be stopped. Psychologist Dr. Gabor Mate has a book on this, actually (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts). Time to go to the bookstore.