Is Self-Help More Harmful Than Helpful?

What if none of these is true?:

"Do what you love; the money will follow."
"As long as you work hard, you can be anything you want."
"Believe, and you’ll achieve."
"You get what you deserve."
"You can think your way to success."
"Anyone can get rich."
"Nice people finish first."
"What you put out into the world, you get in return."
"You can have it all."
"You’re limited only by your imagination."

The self-help aisle at your local bookstore is full of assertions that we’ve read or heard so often, we’ve come to accept them as truth. The more skeptical among us may question content; the cynics often dismiss the genre outright. As an author myself, I’ve been thinking about the motives of those who write these books and take their messages on the road, drawing thousands and even millions of followers who embrace their propositions. "The Secret," and Oprah’s endorsement of it, was the phenomenon that got me seriously analyzing what’s going on behind our national self-help obsession.

Someone once said something to the effect that it’s hard to go broke underestimating the unhappiness of the American people. Most of the top-selling self-help books promise a simple recipe for achieving happiness or earning millions. (Most of the latter imply delivery of the former.) If you can develop a unique or even slightly fresh plan of action for cultivating contentment or wealth, and you can get it published, you yourself have a better shot than most at becoming richer and, by implication, happier. I can’t watch "The Secret" DVD without picturing all of those personal growth gurus imagining raking in dough by participating, and now having it be so. It certainly worked for them.

But that doesn’t make it a natural law, or true for the rest of us. I don’t even need to question whether or not they believe their own outsized success stories; I can assume that they do, and still wonder why they’re so sure their experience can be everyone else’s. I have great respect for Oprah Winfrey, but I take issue more and more often with her assertions that her phenomenal achievements are due only to her powers of manifestation, dedication and faith. She doesn’t believe there is any such thing as luck. But I know there are plenty of others who have applied the very same principles and practices to their lives and find themselves still struggling. It seems disingenuous for Oprah to imply that a more complex blend of opportunity, serendipity, smart associates, shrewd business, timing, charisma and yes, a lucky break or two, didn’t deliver her to a singular place in our current culture.

What I’m getting at is this: it’s hard to be told, over and over, that we can all have the life of our dreams if we’ll just follow steps A through Z. That if it doesn’t work out, we’re not doing it right. Or with enough passion. And while none of us wants to believe that those platitudes listed earlier might not be true, doesn’t it feel worse to believe them and then live a life of persistent contradiction?

A healthier approach might be to consider the advice as food for thought or even possibility, rather than guarantee. To recognize Oprah’s "Best Life" as a model, not a promise. To believe that we have more potential, greater adventures ahead, but that our particular road might not end in a pot of gold, but some other satisfaction. Maybe it’s the journey itself – a cliché that just might be worth embracing.

Trite Comfort

In this month’s Waking Up on the Planet e-newsletter, I talked about how little comfort we give to those who are struggling when we tell them "it’s meant to be," "everything happens for a reason" or "there’s a lesson in this for you." I suggested that, while we may embrace these theories, they excuse us from offering concrete help and healing – acknowledging a friend’s pain, allowing him or her to express it in whatever way offers relief, sitting in that uneasy place with our hearts, and listening ears, wide open. It’s not always easy to know what to say in the face of another’s despair, but knowing what not to say is equally useful:

"This, too, shall pass."
"He/she is in a better place now."
"He/she is better off now."
"It’s God’s will."
"It’s the way of the universe."
"It’s time to move on."
"Time heals all wounds."
"Be grateful for what you’ve got."
"It could be worse."
"Crying doesn’t solve anything."
"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger."
"God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle."

All of these cliches fail to recognize how people’s grief, loss, disappointment or despair transforms the quality of their lives and demands expression, acknowledgment and some measure of relief. It needn’t be profound; usually the simplest offerings, like a visit, a meal, or your undivided attention will do.

Surely it’s true that "into each life, some rain must fall." But when you’re standing in a downpour, you don’t want quaint wisdom; you want an umbrella.