Self Improvement? Self Help?
Motivation? The Law of Attraction? Where Did it All Go Wrong?
I'm sorry people, but I'm just a little tired of all these
coaches, personal developers, self-improvers, motivational
experts . . . oh, my favorite, law of attraction coaches.
To a great degree, they simplify the improvement process
to a few workshops, a little journaling, some programming
and . . . viola! You’re cured! Humans are a little
more complex than that. Certainly improvements are made
through these devices, but deed seeded and long lasting
problems take time and effort to change. No one is going
to learn how to play the guitar proficiently in ten weeks,
quilt in one, or overcome complex emotional issues in thirty
days.
But my question today is, why
has all this come about? Where has this proliferation in
self-help come from. It is nothing new, of course. It has
been around since antiquity with the poetry of Hesiod, Proverbs,
the Stoics, and in more modern times Benjamin Franklin,
but of late it has become an $8.5 billion dollar industry.
Why? My guess? We've just become too damn self-involved
with all our leisure time. Maybe instead of sitting around
moaning about how much we're hurting, it's time to get off
the couch and start assertin'.
I must confess that I label myself
a success expert, but I don’t and have never relied
on any courses, workshops, motivational books or tapes to
learn all the principles of success I have acquired and
applied to my life. I only just began reading the “experts”
after beginning my business in the last year. To learn the
principles, I simply used my God-given intelligence and
common sense to get to where I am now, overcome my weaknesses
and become proficient in the fields of computer programming,
entertainment, collegiate education, and as an entrepreneur.
The reason I write today is to
ask the question, do we really need all these experts? Do
their teachings truly work?
Think about this, where did all
the successful people of the past go to acquire success
principles? Certainly there were mentors, but there is another
source used that we need to return to that is truly missing
in this day and age. And there is one important element
that we need in order to tap into this source: silence.
It is there, we simply must overcome the distractions to
get to it: satellite and cable with 100+ channels, the Internet
(You Tube, My Space, eCRUSH, Facebook, Flickr, Tagged),
online games (don’t get me going on the addictive
World of Warcraft) and gaming (also addictive gambling),
Xbox, the (name of theatre here) 21, Blockbuster Video .
. . But by listening to the intuitive, the sixth sense,
our common sense, the divine, if you will, we will find
answers and answers in abundance. You simply have to shut
off your devices and learn. All that noise is blocking out
that inner voice so you end up going to the wrong or unnecessary
external voices for inaccurate and unnecessary information.
All this self-indulgence. We
have become a land of naval lickers. We pacify ourselves
with self-loving coos and caws hoping we will be the next
one to be the latest reality show “celebrity.”
But we need to overcome our self-indulgence, propensity
for continual and intensive entertainment. Entertainment
for distraction and variety is fine, but for endless over-indulgence
is where the problem arises.
Let me try to put our indulgence
into perspective for you. Some of this may not be easy to
digest, so I suggest you put the kid in you to sleep and
let the adult stay up a little later.
If you have a car on loan from the bank and rent an apartment,
you are doing better than 90% of the rest of the world.
If you are making more than $3 a day, you are doing better
than half of the rest of the world. If you can go off to
college with finger nail polish on and don’t risk
having your fingers pulled out and then getting killed,
you are doing better than most women in the Middle East
(a true story told me by one of my students). If you are
the oldest daughter and don't have to give up marriage because
you have to take care of your parents until they die, then
you are doing better than the oldest daughters in Mexico
(another student's story). If you don't worry about having
your grandfather taken out of his bed in the middle of the
night and shot for having done absolutely nothing—merely
because he was suspected of having done something—you
are living well (another student's story). If you don't
have to worry about starving to death or being shot because
of political persecution or chased halfway across your country
because your father was killed for opposing the paramilitary
. . . (you guessed it).
Where did this coaching phenomenon
come from? It was certainly born of a country with much
safe and comfortable time on its hands. But you aren’t
thinking about coaching if you come from a country where
if you lose control of your bike around a corner and smash
through the door of someone’s house, and getting up
you’re look down the barrel of a gun, and the only
reason this drug lord has not shot is because you act remorseful,
your humility saving you.
Where are you in all of this?
Where are you in your understanding of not just yourself
but the world that lives and breathes around you.
Americans are spoiled. From sea
to shining sea, from the greatest land known to man, one
where you can wear nice sneakers, watch, and rings without
worrying about being robbed, killed, or raped. American’s
need to get perspective. People need to stop spending pointless
loads of cash on entertaining themselves and over-indulging
in self-serving devices.
"Getters generally don't
get happiness; givers get it. You simply give to others
a bit of yourself a thoughtful act, a helpful idea, a word
of appreciation, a lift over a rough spot, a sense of understanding,
a timely suggestion. You take something out of your mind,
garnished in kindness out of your heart, and put it into
the other fellow's mind and heart."--Charles H. Burr
About
the Author
Jeff
has worked as a computer programmer, standup comic, college
professor, and entrepreneur. He has been writing for over
25 years: novels, poetry, essays, humor.
He reads anything
that isn't moving or tied down: history, science, math,
theology, philosophy, marketing, sales, etc.
His current novel
Black Body Radiation and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe
is available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com
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