Self-Help
Among the things I like to hate on, anything popular is guaranteed to near the top of the list. Anything which tricks people is also quite hate-able. This combination meant that for years, I simply couldn’t stand self-help books.
First of all, self-help books are clearly ineffective, or else more people would read them. I know you’re thinking, “but they do read them - they’re so popular - isn’t that why you hate them?” How astute of you to notice. But the problem is that they’re popular for a short time, and then everyone stops reading them. Why? Because they didn’t solve their problems, so they fall for the next self-help fad. Gross. Be better, people.
But then I was browsing a few hours ago and found this news story. A Scottish research group found that guided self-help treats depression better than the traditional therapies tried in the UK, which could lead to huge savings in their National Health Service! Of course this bugged me, since I can’t very well hate on something that’s been proven scientifically to be effective. It looked like my days of making fun of people in the airport reading their shitty airport books were over.
But lo! I tried to find the article again for this very post, meaning to accept my fate, and in the process came across a previous BBC article, shown here. In this study, Canadian researchers found that self-help (or at least, repeating mantras) make people with low self esteem feel worse about themselves. So unless there’s some strange effect the Atlantic Ocean is having on self-help programs, no one knows what the hell is going on.
Looks like I’m free to keep making fun of people reading their airport books until further notice. So don’t ask me if I’ve read any Eckhart Tolle, I’ll just look down at you from the highest of horses.