I have never felt more miserable in my life — after sincerely trying to follow the sage advice given in some of the best self-help books!
The point is not that they are all wrong. That would probably be much more miserable!
So my advice: Read them. They make a great read. But don’t be moved enough to follow them fully.
There was one about doing great things without a title. I have actually done that all my life! And I am still doing it. But it doesn’t work. It may give you a high for some time, but life will quickly push you to a low. You need a title. Even a monk has one. Can you imagine a self-help book without a title??
Titles make titans. A manager in reality may not be worthy of being even a security guard. And yet this title of a manager opens the doors for a better life, compared to the security guard who spends all his life respectfully opening the doors for such nincompoops.
There’s one condition under which you can do wonders without a title — when you have enough money to not care about titles!
Take another example. If you are intelligent, good-natured and a self-help book fan-boy, you will sooner or later become a loner or a loser! Wonder why? It is because these days everyone knows everything. Or so they believe.
Initially the culprit was Google. And then came the Whatsapp forwards. Powered by the latest mobile.
First people stop asking. Then stop talking. Then stop listening. Then ask what happened!
What’s next? Probably people may choose to marry a mobile? I mean you don’t need people, when you have a mobile. It is more good-natured than say your partner! It will not talk back. It will do what you ask it to do. And it is far more intelligent — it will not argue with you!
Those who feel left out have the choice of talking to Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, or whoever the next one is. Life partners in real life, are now an obsolete model and extinct, though alive — a true oxymoron thanks to technology.
One self-help book declared that knowledge increases when it is shared. I religiously followed it (I am not referring to Whatsapp for this was earlier) and found that if you do it, you are left behind!
People hoard information or/and knowledge to move up in their life or work. And to gain an air of respect and status. Yes. Think about it and you will have seen such examples in your own life.
That’s how society is. If you go around telling people what you know, believing in all sincerity that you are spreading knowledge, they will in all likelihood call you a duffer or indiscreet — behind your back! They would much prefer you send a Whatsapp forward! That’s how much help these self-books are.
There was this fellow working in the personnel department of a government bank. For a person in HR, secrecy is mandatory. This guy was like a sponge. He used to collect all information possible from everyone but when it came to himself, his lips were always sealed. Once he was calling his son to find out the latest score of some one day match being played by India. I had seen him making the call and asking for the score and so a few minutes later, asked him what was the score. He replied with a straight face, “I have no idea.”
Surprised by his reply, I asked him, “But I saw you a few minutes back enquiring about the score over phone?”
“No, no. He told me the old score, not the latest one.”
“Fine, tell me the old score only then,” I retorted, and he was forced to concede defeat.
Next, these books tell you like god that if you do good, only good will happen to you.
Ha! If only it was that easy, 11 out of 10 would have been do-gooders actually!
The harsh fact is, the good that supposedly returns to you is just not good enough! And it then it takes so much time to return to you, that by that time you may be “not reachable”!
Look around you, A majority of say ten people you know may well be actually petty-minded, selfish, not committed to work, think only of what they can get, mouth all the right things which they never follow, pretty ignorant, and yet they will be much better off than you — when you are everything they are not. That is because you follow all the “good” advice these self-help books offer and end up at a lowly, last number to round off the 10 people!
These self-help books do work — but only after you have got more than enough money to get away with giving the advice they give!
Seriously, one thing is really, really true: The part of being and doing good, but forget whether it comes back to you or not. Nothing can give you more satisfaction — of helping a stranger, or even a person you know, or anyone, for that matter, and doing it by going out of the way, and not expecting anything in return.
This, this satisfaction makes you so happy that it will spoil you — and you will go buy the next best-selling self-help book, follow them, and yet again feel miserable…
Final piece of advice: Be of help to someone in some way, every day, at least once. And you will never feel miserable in your life!
Caution: This advice too is from a self-help book…