self-help books

To combat excessive and persistent anxiety, I bought myself:

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
by Dale Carnegie.

To my mortification, about three other people, whose opinions I do care about, joined me on the trip to the bookstore. I explained that this is the first time I am getting a self-help book because I've gotten desperate about my anxiety. Thankfully, my friends were nonjudgmental. However, Arthur pointed out that I need the How to Win Friends and Influence People badly. This is not the first time someone told me about that book. Mel confirmed my suspicion that it's not a good thing when multiple people recommend that book to me.

But the point is, I realized I had inadvertently lied to my friends for it was NOT my first time buying a self-help book. In fact, looking at my reading history, I consult a self-help book quite often. The book, It's all too much: an easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff, really helped me with decluttering and organizing my things. And my last entry in this blog was kind of a review of a self help book about graduate school.

So am I one of those people now who head for the prominent self help section at Barnes and Noble? Please tell me I am not one of them... When I was there with Shee a couple of weeks ago, I saw a waste of good shelf space devoted to cheesy and colorful books for illiterate and lonely people. There were way too many chicken soup books for distinctly afflicted souls. When a salesperson came up to ask if I needed help, I wanted to ask if there was a section on anxiety self-help books. I chickened out and asked instead if the self help books were organized by subject or author.

Okay, so it seems I am the judgmental one. I admit it. Ironically though I am kind of sold on self-help books. The "Stop worrying and Start living book" was amazing and it not only helped me to feel less anxious, but made me a better, happier person. I thought the book was going to teach me how to stop worrying, but it somehow hit at all my issues from interpersonal relationships to insomnia. Now I am actually starting to accumulate a list of self-help books to read.

It can be the recession of course. I read in the paper that people focus more on self-improvement during bad economic times. It can't be that these books contain novel jems. In fact the worry book told me things I already knew or things my parents, teachers, and friends have already told me. The book, though captivating and somewhat well-written, was not literary. So what is it about (good) self help books that actually allows me to help the self?

I came up with two things:

1. It's much easier to hear things (sometimes) from a total stranger who will never see you than from earnest friends and a loving family.

2. Reading these books delude me into feeling that I am making progress towards helping the self when in reality I am further procrastinating doing something about my flaws by reading.

Okay, those two things are rather cynical. I guess I don't want to accept that I am destined to watch Dr. Phil in two years. But I have to admit that some of them actually help. The worry book is awesome. Try it. Reading self-help books is probably a better way to cope than reading depressing poetry anyway.