A Selection of Self-Help Books

Dear Jeff,

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Never have the 10 or so blocks that separate us seemed so vast. You keep asking me about my enemies and whether I revere them ... all right, already, I revere you.

I would like to delve into your last point about the stupefyingly obvious advice most of these books purvey. I have come to the conclusion that obvious advice is a requirement for a self-help best seller. If you are in need of a truly dramatic overhaul, you're probably going to require actual hands-on assistance (credit repayment schedules, AA sponsor, that sort of thing). These books are for people who just need some work around the edges. You could think of self-help books as PalmPilots for the psyche. They are there to remind you of what you already know.

What new advice for living a happier/kinder/more fulfilled life is there anyway? In the spirit of further self-improvement I reread the counsel in Ecclesiastes. As that writer knew, "And there is nothing new under the sun." And, perhaps more aptly for our assignment, "[O]f making of many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

So, I decided to look at the specific advice in our many books and rate what I thought was the best and the worst.

Good advice from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff:

1. Lesson 18, Allow Yourself To Be Bored. Carlson writes: "Now, when either of my two children says to me, 'Daddy, I'm bored,' I respond by saying, 'Great, be bored for a while. It's good for you.' Once I say this, they always give up on the idea of me solving their problem."

2. Lesson 62, Do One Thing at a Time. Carlson is right, does it really improve your life to read your e-mail while talking to a friend, or listen to NPR while reading the newspaper?

Bad advice from Don't Sweat:

1. Lesson 9, Let Others Have the Glory. Yes, this sounds magnanimous, but I think that in general this is bad for women.

2. Lesson 40, When in Doubt About Whose Turn It Is To Take out the Trash, Go Ahead and Take It Out. Again, bad for women. Since Carlson writes "take out the trash" he is obviously implying that he's talking to men. But since it's usually women who notice whether the house has turned into a Superfund site, following Carlson's advice, they'll end up doing all the work.

Good advice from The Art of Happiness:

From the chapter "Facing Suffering," the Dalai Lama advises, "[Y]ou might consider things like old age and death as negative, unwanted, and simply try to forget about them. But eventually these things will come anyway. ... [I]f you spend some time thinking about these [and] other unfortunate things, your mind will be much more stable when these things happen."

I thought this was a refreshing change from the usual self-help drivel that one should only think about good things and then only good things will happen. This advice also appealed to me because I would say it described my mental state about 90 percent of the time.

Bad advice from the Art of Happiness:

The exact same chapter.

Since I spend all my time thinking about the catastrophes to come, it does get in the way of the time I spend not suffering.

Anything Resembling Advice from One Day My Soul Just Opened Up:

Jeff, I think you will agree with me that it's hard to boil down the advice in Vanzant's book. This is from the chapter "Honor Your Process With Authenticity." It reads: "My theory is that most people go to extraordinary means to cover up the fact that they fart." Jeff, how does one respond? In my case by saying, "Not in my house, they don't." Vanzant goes on to advise, "In order to be authentic, you must be willing to acknowledge and accept the natural outgrowths of everything you think, do and say in this life. In other words, you must be willing to fart in public."

On that note, take it away, Jeff.

Emily

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Emily Yoffe is the former "Keeping Tabs" columnist for Slate and a free-lance writer in Washington, D.C. Jeffrey Goldberg, a regular contributor to Slate, is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. This week they are discussing these self-help books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff . and It's All Small Stuff, by Richard Carlson (click hereto buy the book); The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama (click hereto buy the book); One Day My Soul Just Opened Up, by Iyanla Vanzant (click hereto buy the book).

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