Advice Isn’t What You Need
You need you
This was originally published on Medium.
Everyone is offering you advice on what you should do with your life. They have theirs figured out, and they believe they can help you.
Except you have to give them some monetary motivation of some sort. Or by reading, listening, or watching what they promise you, they can earn money.
It seems they’d like for you to succeed more than even you would like for yourself. No big deal, right?
If someone who has gone through something I’m now experiencing has advice to give for just $12 or a couple of minutes of my time, what could go wrong?
It’s a deal so good, who in their right mind will turn it down? All over the internet, there are podcasts, videos, listicles, and articles seemingly crafted with you and me in mind.
Tongue-in-cheek examples
The titles read,
“Five Reasons Cats Don’t Like You and Why You Need to Change That”
“How to Drink Water Properly: Exploring Why You Don’t Know How to Enjoy A Cup of Water.”
“How to Get Your Pet Dog to Say Hello to Your Guests the Dog Way.”
“Do You Know Why You’re Living In Your Mom’s Basement? The Basement Probably Knows.”
There are countless others. Self-help books are among these materials that seem to want you to do well. Advice that seeks to help the person offering it? Definitely!
Self-help or fiction?
One of my friends asked me what my five top favourite books were. I gave him a list of about ten books. And he noticed there were a lot of novels in there. More of them than self-help books.
He asked why.
There had never been an occasion that this question had been posed to me, so I now had to think about the reason behind my preference of fiction over self-help literature.
Honestly, without thinking much of it, I told him most creative writings are products of the actual world, so just like self-help books, they have something to teach.
Or maybe I just don’t trust that kind of advice.
Honestly…
What I told him wasn’t the whole truth, though. The truth is, I’ve read my fair share of self-help books.
Because of what I’m talking about, I think it would be right not to give examples of these books. But one thing I realised is that each one of them promised to give the reader something the others couldn’t.
The last self-help book I read promised me that’s the last one I need. Only for the author to ask me to purchase another book he’s written. Sometimes I also feel fiction is closer to reality in their own unique way than self-help books, which seem unrealistic in nature.
Final words
I believe I need to read either genre if I want to grow as an individual, though. However, I should have a strong opinion about what I really want out of life.
Do I want a future that an inspirational speaker is selling to me, or do I want a life that I innately desire?
Coincidentally, the authors seem to have found out what most people want.
So I think except it’s crafted around what I personally want — which is highly impossible — then I need to take everything I read in there with a pinch of salt.
There are people who are genuinely worried about something and have written a book — fiction or self-help — to help address that issue, which has benefitted those who acquired copies of that book.
So a critical evaluation of the advice being given is very necessary if it’s going to be of any use to you.
What do you think?
