Self-Help or Self-Harm?
Over the last number years, with the advent of self-help publications, blogs, seminars, TV shows on every feed, in the media, in advertising, I've found myself skimming through motivational quote sites. Momentarily, they'll make sense but I get about three quotes in and they start to directly contradict each other. I love that, though. I find it reassuring. Nobody has all the answers. I know that. Regardless, straight after reading, they tend to make me feel further away from the motivated, happy person I'm instructed to be on the inside. Why?
For the purposes of explanation, I've lifted the last three quotes from a popular motivational twitter feed. One I really like, actually. It serves the point, though, in this case.
1. "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." -- Albert Einstein
2. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the things you did. -- Mark Twain
3. "Self-trust is the first secret of success." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I'm to believe them, do I take that course that I'd love but would involve giving up my job, or will that get in the way of my real life's education. Moreover, how am I supposed to trust myself if two such great minds are giving me conflicting advice and a third is asking me to just believe in myself?
It's likely the often hapless, inevitable accumulation of experiences in any given life that have many of us seeking some lightbulb moment of supreme happiness. My kingdom for such an epiphany. It got me thinking about the notion of self help. It sounds good, useful, non invasive... pretty innocuous really. Is it, though?
Reminded of a conversation with my sister a few years ago about Christmas. Neither of us are massive fans and we talked about the festive cheer forced upon the unwilling. She made the point that at such times of year, the gap between how you feel and how you're supposed to feel can feel impossibly wide. I think the same can be said about a lot of self help directives. Recently watching 'Hector and The Search for Happiness' I noted a quote at the very end of his quest. It said it's our "obligation to be happy." That's fine, ceteris paribus, to borrow a term from my economics teacher, Brian McManus. A legend, by the way. I hope if he sees this he doesn't object to me lifting it to apply to one's emotions. It's the truth, though. Yes, all other things being equal, we are kind of obligated to be happy. However, how often do things feel stable, equal, predictable? Life is an ebb and flow and we should be allowed experience both without guilt or pressure.
Attitudes to mental health have changed so much, and largely for the better. Societally, it's become about unveiling the truth, transparency in sadness. No more hiding your blue from the world. Let it out. You'll feel better. I believe this to be true, and I think it's endlessly valuable to communicate that which ails you.
There's an odd spin off from this, though. Words like 'anxiety' and 'depression' abound. I think they've become devalued as a result. For people experiencing either, I think this poses a real problem. By that I mean that if near everyone is talking about how anxious and depressed they are, then how does one know when it's bad enough to seek help? In devaluing the language of mental health through overuse, perspective seems ever harder to come by.
I remember when self help books were viewed as a sign of weakness. Then they started to sneak in the back door and eventually, as with everything, we forget what offended us in the first instance, and start to believe they could confer some value. "Jean" did, after all, lose a stone, get her dream job and find the man of her dreams after reading that book about her being a fatty and why it was her school science lab partner's fault...
Now, though, help is freely available online from everyone with a keyboard and a half notion. Accepting such 'help' is no longer considered embarrassing. Result... the margins are taking a hit. So, it seems to this passerby at her most cynical, that the industry has turned in on itself to turn a profit. It's started to harm. Articles ask: Are you living too small, reaching your potential, pissing your meaningless life away, earning enough, brain training enough, reading enough list articles to have worthwhile conversation at dinner parties when the weather chat runs out. It begs the question, is self help is trying to ruin us so it can start selling to us again. Self loathing is the cash cow that never quits mooing.
Not quite with my Dad who has a neat categorisation for anything in this arena...he has a neat, possibly unprintable phrase but all the same, don't start the cycle of upping your self loathing by buying a book that fixes nothing and creates more holes in yourself than you had to start. We are all messed up and messy, just across a spectrum of measures. So, it's grand, take heart from that.
Years ago at a party I chatted with a young psychiatrist. I'd just been told that someone from my childhood had trained as a life coach. The training took six weeks. Full disclosure, I will never not be skeptical of both the term and the notion. I told her as much. She asked me what made her better qualified in my estimation, to guide someone's mental health, than this life coach. My answer was simple and immediate - years of training. A trained, considered distance between the subject and the therapist. There's freedom and honesty in that distance that I think is invaluable for people needing an emotional dig out. Friends and family can be brilliant supports. Let's face it, though, it hurts them to see you hurt so they will advise a variety of approaches, fixes that could send someone on the emotional rocks reeling. Personally, 'Life Coaching' is a byword for someone telling you they've 'cracked' life and can help you do the same.
So where does that leave me on the topic of self-help? Probably no better off! Common sense, I believe, should prevail. The ideas that prevailed throughout many a childhood are borne out - being kind to each other and being our own best friend. So, beware of the Emperor's new rigout.