I don’t really get the stigma. Since when is it a bad thing to try to improve your self or your life? Are people just supposed to be inherently perfect and never need advice on how to be happier/more productive/whatever? Or is it just that we aren’t supposed to show weakness by admitting, via the book we’re holding, that we aren’t perfect?
When I see someone reading any book, I’m pleased that some people, at least, still read. Makes me feel better about humanity.
That’s me exactly. I don’t tend to notice what people are reading; I just notice that they are reading.
I’ve wondered how following the advice of the author of a book can be considered “self-help”.
I think, “Good for them!”, if I give it any thought at all. I’m just happy to see people reading, and if they gain something useful from the book—why not?
Self help books indicate some sort of problem-solving initiative on the part of the reader. Even if they don’t act on what they read, at least they are looking in to it.
I think your last sentence there is a big part of it, for me. I (probably unfairly) look down my nose at people who so publicly admit that they need help. Keep in mind that I come from a gender that would rather drive around aimlessly for an hour than ask for directions.
Living outside the US, I see non-native speakers reading English-language pop-culture books fairly often (sometimes self-help, sometimes whatever the management guru of the moment has written) and usually think “well, the language in that book is probably easier to understand than if they were to try reading Melville or Joyce, so it is a good way to practice English.”
More specifically, I do know one person here who reads a fair bit of Christianity-based self-help books, and unless they are telling her how to balance her household budget, make her lazy husband start pulling his own weight, and how to generally get a grip on her life, I don’t think they’re going to do her much good. (Maybe the books will help her to figure out these things, but they haven’t so far.) So when I see her reading another one, I just feel vaguely sorry for her.
I wouldn’t slam someone for realizing “there’s something wrong with me, and I gots ta change,” as if that was some sort of weakness.
The problem is that I think most people know exactly what they need to change and have a pretty good idea about how to go about doing it. And really, deep down don’t want to deal with it.
So, when they go to get a book on the subject, I suspect they’re looking for an easy way out. Either an easy answer where there is none, or a book that is going to tell them that their actions are really OK (even though the person overall is miserable).
I also think they’re pursuing something fruitless – that is, they’re trying to correct something as complicated and deep as “self” by reading a book!?
Shit, you can’t figure out how to swing a golf club reading a book.
So, to extend that line of thinking, I don’t think I’m looking at a person who is very critical and aware of how susceptible they are to marketing.
In other words, I’m thinking what I said earlier, “It’s too late.”
Um, isn’t there a level of filtering out what you’ll read in public vs. private? I’d personally be embarrassed to read a self-help book on the train, for example, as it seems like giving away too much personal info to anyone who notices. If someone was reading a self-help book in a more private context and I just happened to notice, then I wouldn’t care; read whatever you want. But reading a self-help or similar book in a pointedly public place seems silly and annoying.
I thought there was a law against making fun of fat folks excercising. I thought that the Law was if you can’t run as long as you laugh, you need to shut your pie hole. Being a lazy, lazy person, I always assume that they have done one thing I haven’t, which is get off their ass and do something about it.
Now, the self-help books, it depends. The new agey, touchy feely stuff Why I love men that love men and the women that love me type crap, hey, yer fair game. Then again, I feel the same way about the guy that comes in and plays poker a few times a week that always has a highlighter and some financial self-help book he is highlighting the hell out of. (Here’s a book, get off a $2 game with a 10% rake) I swear, that boy must buy highlighters in bulk.
I have been known to roll my eyes at the religiony help stuff too. (Quiver full anyone? Purity Balls?)