71–80 of 109 posts
I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…
I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being inspired by Jesus, the problem is only when people disregard all other inspiration other than the "main one" they have chosen. Christian teaching is good in a lot of ways, but it's also completely lacking in other ways. People should be inspired and take the best from Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, the Hindu gods, ancient philosophers, modern philosophers, self-helpers and all ot…
I'm a little frustrated at the tossed-off reference to Plato and Aristotle at the beginning - "The good life may have sufficed for Plato and Aristotle, but it is no longer enough." - because I feel like that ignores the fact that both Plato and Aristotle, along with a lot of philosophers, actually had a lot to say about physical fitness. Plato was a champion wrestler, and both he and Aristotle viewed physical educati…
I know I will likely catch a lot of downvotes for this, but I found the teachings of Jesus to answer questions of how to run life. As well as the Proverbs of the old testament, and many other scriptures. Seek and you will find. When I get stuck, I found in the past I would look for excuses on why something isn't working, or why is this happening to me, or when will this end. But when I started to actually "seek" I al…
I'm a christian, but I'm probably more interested in my personal stoic philosophy first. What is God? Is God a programmer? What language was our universe written in? I find Atheism an excuse to skip these question. I think Agnostic is significantly a better way for Atheists to approach problems. I'm starting to believe in Simulation Theory, and that a nerd like me created a universe. Thats our Christian "God".
I know we're getting somewhat off-topic here, but... That's an odd remark? Being an atheist for me is not "an approach", is what I am - I simply don't believe in a god or whatever (anymore). That wasn't a conscious choice (although I was really conscious of it happening), but more of an observation: "huh, I guess I'm an atheist now."
Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…
There is no such thing as self help. It's what you do, outside information can only be a guide. And the only way to truly change is to put yourself in a new situation with responsibilities, and allowing yourself to fail till you get it right. Also the only difference between an extrovert and introvert is when they empathize with themselves. And the problem with the "introverted approach," is you are thinking about wh…
I think you're being overly pedantic and semantic here.
> It's what you do, outside information can only be a guide. And the only way to truly change is to put yourself in a new situation with responsibilities, and allowing yourself to fail till you get it right.
I don't think they're saying that the outside information is anything more than a guide. Many self-help books encourage just that - to put yourself in new situations, however newly equipped with tools to better work through the new situation. And of course those tools only become your own once you fully live through them, but I think it's a poor criticism to say that self-help books aren't useful or helpful. In that regard no book that aims to share knowledge is helpful. E.g. you should learn to program entirely on your own then, with no books or guides.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From an insider's perspective (I work in self help), there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault. 1. The field is very competitive and so everyone in the field hypes up their success stories. It's easy to go in to a self help book thinking it will work 100% of the time. The truth is that it probably only works 10% of the time. 10% is great unless you were ex…
> there are a couple of hidden things that contribute to you feeling self-critical that aren't your fault. This is the start of 100s of self-help books. Mainly, IMHO, because it's such an attractive pitch, not because it carries any truth.
Authors may try that. But thankfully, you feeling bad isn't actually good for their business.
All of my data on headlines in my publication says the articles always do better if they are framed in the positive rather than in the negative. I'm constantly telling authors not to say they're out to fix you... rather we're here to help you achieve some positive fantasy of who you could become. Almost any topic could be framed either way. "Stop procrastinating vs. The secret of intense focus."
And I've deconstructed a number of top self help books (Tony Robbins, Quit Smoking the Easy Way, Tim Ferriss). They all use a structure of inspiration and social proof to convince you that the change is possible.
Maybe my favorite example book structure is a book about waking up early called The Miracle Morning. The entire first half of the book is a sales pitch for the advice that comes in the second half of the book. At first I thought it was funny that I was half way through the book and I still had no idea what the steps of the Miracle Morning were. But that sales pitch had wormed its way into my subconscious and that made following the steps a lot easier.
All those authors used positive framings and avoided any negativity other than to acknowledge how you might be feeling about yourself when you decided to buy their book.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. I see no point in failing myself if I can do it right the first time by relying on expert guidance. For some things I do a single major mistake could leave me crippled or dead.
> You can save time by learning from the mistakes of others. Only barely. For important life decisions/paths, people only learn from their own mistakes (and often not even from those). Heck, Computer Science as a field itself forgets its own collected wisdom every new generation hits the market, and re-invents BS that other eras have tried and buried with another fad name. What's even worse, those "self-help" books a…
But how many of those people who are re-inventing what other eras tried already were aware of what those inventions were? That is, my point is that most often what is re-created is because the re-creators weren't aware of the past.
The problem is pairing it with too much trait Agreeableness. If you can easily work hard and you easily say yes to other people's demands, you'll always be busy sating the insatiable hunger for more work at your expense. The solution isn't to become a better worker, though there's plenty of advice for how to do that. The fix is to learn how to avoid doing things not in your interest.
For fairly obvious reasons of self-interest, there aren't many people out there telling you to look out for number one. Especially for people with self-interested and highly authoritarian parents that taught their children to live up to a high standard and not push back against their demands.
Very Interesting read. I'm someone who has been reading some self-help literature for the past year. Topics include Mindfulness, Buddhism, Stoicism, Social skills, Positive psychology, Habit forming, Assertiveness. I'm in my early 20s, and I justify this phase as un-learning the coping mechanisms/bad habits I formed in my childhood/teen years. Well intentioned but highly critical parents damaged my self-esteem; I als…
"The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half."
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky