Self-help Books, Not all Nonsense
Basically, I don’t believe in self-help books inundating in the markets today like 7 Meth To Make You Rich or Short Cut To Be Successful. The reason varies. Since the author seems to know exactly how to be rich by really simple way in a short period, why did he or she bother to write such kind of book to earn extra cash? Simply out of pure kindness, put in efforts to inform everybody the secret of life? I doubt really doubt it. However, I don't want be cynic. To be subjective, I do find some of the self help books are useful, though, of course, they may not have the exact effect alleged in the books.
I say so because I read one of those so-called self-help books, Happier. And it really sheds light upon me about the perspective towards the pursuit of happiness. What may bring a people happiness? Is it cash, love, a lot of friends, good grades of examination, job success or something else? And these things would be choices of majority as people are chasing them every day. So to get these will definitely brings along happiness. However, these happiness are just temporary, because the happiness of attainment will not last long. What brings long-lasting happiness is actually the process of attaining one’s goal but not just the achievement of the goal itself. What’s more, the time spent to chase one’s goal is always longer than that of feeling moment of achieving the goal. By making clear this concept, I really find the importance of the process, and it is not worth suffering now for the future. Then I can either give up the business or try to make it more enjoyable.
However a book may be, we are what we are, and being a critical thinker, one is not supposed to be too eager to accept a idea before he really thinks about it.
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Yes. I have read a lot of self-help books. Maybe because I think reading other kinds of books is simply not efficient. All I feel is that 99% of the self help books can only offer first aid for your problem, not the long-time solution. However there are indeed some brilliant written books which I have benefited from a lot, Such as THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. It is always good to learn from others' failure than yourself's.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that the process of achieving your goal is as important as the goal itself. In fact, I think that's partly why we set ourselves certain goals, because we know that these will motivate us to work towards somethings that we feel are worthy of our time and effort. And I think that it's good that you don't just 'swallow' everything you read; it's important to read critically, because it's up to us whether to accept, reject or partially accept what the writer wants us to believe. As for me, when I do find the time to read, I tend to read fiction; it's something I enjoy very much.
ReplyDeleteI must say that you do have a point, Qiao Liang, when it comes to self-help books. Of course then again, it is too absolute to say that self-help books are not helpful at all, so I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt =)
ReplyDeleteBiographies are interesting reads though, and very educational. I find that I learn a lot about life reading about other's life stories.