The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
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Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#2[dead]
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#3 It’s the relationships, stupid
Maybe I have to climb Maslow’s pyramid to be compatible with those?
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#4It’s the relationships, stupid But is it relationships with just anybody? Or relationships with emotionally healthy, intelligent, adventurous people who share my interests? Maybe I have to climb Maslow’s pyramid to be compatible with those?
I believe it’s a lifelong journey towards healthy relationships with anyone. We don’t start there, and we might never get to the finish line. That includes non-violent boundary setting; not friends with everyone, but relationship. Soft boundaries, where you neither cling on to something that was but no longer is without the need to blame self or other, nor you avoid contact with something new and unknown. To let go of the fight against personal limits and circumstances one cannot change. Not at once, and not without testing, but layer by layer.
Everybody is adventurous; each in their own way. You can invite people to your personal adventure, and be part of theirs, for as long or short as it serves the both of you.
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#5> the point was never yourself.
> It was never the pyramid.
> It was never the optimization.
> It was the people around the fire.
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#6Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately?
"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."
"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."
"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."
"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#7Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately? "It was cold out, but none of us were cold." "In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect." "We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But…
When my head-voice read "But hold on", I literally heard in my head the "record scratch" associated with comedy movie trailers from the 1990s and 2000s.
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#8This post strikes me as immature. Ask an older person like your grandfather what they think about “self help”. And ask like you believe they are wiser than you, not some doddering fool from “another time”. Look, we’re all slaves to our childhood learnings. But you can change and learn to think in a new way—in a way that’s you. Just be you.
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#9I enjoy self improvement, but there is something deeply therapeutic about self non - improvement.
I don't say 'self acceptance' because that's often described as a necessary precursor to changing whatever we find difficult to accept about ourselves.
Re: The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me
#10This post strikes me as immature. Ask an older person like your grandfather what they think about “self help”. And ask like you believe they are wiser than you, not some doddering fool from “another time”. Look, we’re all slaves to our childhood learnings. But you can change and learn to think in a new way—in a way that’s you. Just be you.
The author is one of the biggest self-help book writers. Perhaps his self-help book sales started declining and he decided to pivot to some kind of anti-self-help genre.