Self Help Help for Myself

In the days before the information superhighway had been paved, books and magazines were my main source of information. My mother kept a small library in our home with many books and multiple encyclopedias. As someone who prefers writing over reading, I never made much use of it. My oldest brother, being the official nerd of the family, was the library’s most loyal customer.

Back then, books were a source of answers for all the goddamn homework I was given at Catholic school. The nuns loved giving kids homework. As if it were penitence for their stupid idea to become nuns. Hey lady, it’s not my fault you decided to get married to a guy that died over 2,000 years ago. You made the choice to have the worst kind of long distance relationship in existence. The one where you have to die in order to see your better half. I’ve seen better relationships develop in reality TV shows. This lack of judgment on their part meant I had to crack open encyclopedias every day. My afternoons were spent looking up terms, copying the definitions by hand using a #2 pencil, and struggling to hold a glass of anything afterwards due to the pain in my hand. All of this while a perfectly good video game system lay there waiting for me to get through the mountains of homework.

That multi-year experience taught me to really, really hate books. That is until I discovered self-help books. I cannot remember which was the first self-help book I read. It was probably “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. A man who recognized how much people were willing to pay for psychological fiction. That book mostly talks about how being nice and kind to strangers makes a difference. Yeah, big surprise. Why Dale Carnegie never wrote a follow up called “Have You Tried Showering And Brushing Your Teeth?” will always baffle me. It feels like the natural sequel in the subject of getting people to like you.

After reading that little number, I went on to read others. Not many. It was probably a dozen or so. I eventually realized that these books were really funny because all of it was made up nonsense. Some had valuable bits here and there. Like the ones who pulled the curtain to the side and let you in on the world’s worst kept secret. That we are all making it as we go. Even if the universe is deterministic, we really don’t know what we are doing.

So, I stopped reading self-help books and moved on to reading funny books. Currently, I’m reading “The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. His description of Lady Brandon made me giggle out loud. Calling her a peacock in every way but in beauty is similar to me calling some people at work smart in every way but in practice. Funny books not only make me laugh but they also allow me to see the world through the eyes of other funny people. That is something no self-help book will ever accomplish.

I still enjoy visiting the few bookstores that have remained open. Doing so is basically an episode of a mockumentary titled “Things People Will Write In Order To Pay Their Bills”. There are so many ridiculous books full of garbage ideas. There are different niches, but I do enjoy the ones that talk about working four hours a week. Sorry, what? Four hours? I’m glad farmers haven’t bought into this. We would all die of famine. The category of books using curse words to motivate you is hilarious. It’s like publishers realized people will buy books with curse words on the cover. Not much different from how teenagers start using curse words in front of mom and dad. They’re rebels without a cause, and without a fully developed prefrontal cortex.

What I find particularly interesting about self-help books is that we are the only species with a need to reaffirm ourselves so much. I hope to never meet an elephant that needs to read a book titled “You Are More Than A Trunk”. Or a leopard that spends their time in the savanna reading a book titled “Change Your Spots. Change Your Life”. Wait, I got another. How about a book for worms titled “Dirty Living For The Rest Of Us”.

Being the “most intelligent species” apparently makes us the most insecure. We need a constant amount of reassurance. It is why we have spellcheckers, emojis in the shape of hearts, buttons that allow others to show how much they like us, and machines that tell us how smart we are. It is also the reason why we write and read self-help books so much. We need someone, preferably a stranger, telling us we are worthy.

I now do cognitive behavioral therapy. It replaced the self-help books because they didn’t work. I did everything those books said to do and yet here I am posting funny essays on the internet for people I don’t even know. Therapy has brought a sense of normalcy and reassurance. Turns out I’m a pretty normal dude with some pretty normal problems. Sure, I’ve experienced some weird things, but I am not some celebrity’s kid. I do not need to find a reason to exist. The reassurance brought by therapy is also, well, reassuring. Now I have someone telling me that yes, we are all trying to do the best we can as we go. No one really knows what they are doing. Even my therapist struggles with building a practice that isn’t about treating people who are addicted to social media.

I might one day write a book about it. It will be my experience in therapy in an easy-to-read book, full of hands-on examples and exercises my therapist had me phone in. With tips and tricks about how to be a normal person in 2026. I might title it “How To Win At Therapy”, which is a question I asked my therapist. How do I win or finish this? He replied that the healing process takes a long time. Apparently, it takes about twenty years to heal my childhood trauma. It’s also the amount left on his mortgage.