A Selection of Self-Help Books

Dear Jeff,

PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...SINGLE PAGE

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

So now you've found out that your idea for a bestseller--how to find happiness by making other people happy--is being written by the Dalai Lama. Just who does His Holiness think he is anyway? I'm sure your editor friend said that the Dalai Lama is just elaborating on this idea, not that he came up with it. A perspicacious Slate reader suggested I look up some of the work of Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). I found this quote, "When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively." I'm sure Dr. Peale, if he were alive enough to still be writing self-help books, would say he didn't come up with the idea, either.

I don't think anyone is going to do as well with a book on helping other people be happy as one on how to make yourself happy. Anyway, if everyone bought the "make yourself happy" book and it worked, the "make other people happy" book would be unnecessary.

I think you make an excellent point about self-help books' not mentioning chemical means to happiness as it's not in their self-interest. But I would bet that many people stalking the "personal growth" aisles of the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble have had their moods tweaked chemically and still feel something is missing. (Speaking of the Upper West Side, I was just in your old home territory yesterday. Do you know people are walking around sans cell phone seemingly having bizarre conversations with themselves such as: "I told you to sell at 52!" and "I am about to go into the personal growth section of Barnes & Noble." When you get up close you see they are talking into teeny tiny headsets. Contemplating this trend I found comfort in Richard Carlson's Precept 82: "Remember, one hundred years from now, all new people.")

Our journey this week into opening one's soul, finding happiness, and not sweating made me wonder about this compulsion to be happy. Howard Cutler starts his book almost defensively, explaining that achieving happiness is a worthy goal. But isn't it easier to achieve some more tangible goal--i.e., get your master's degree; clean out the garage; tutor a kid, and the happiness will follow?

Or maybe the happiness won't follow. As long as you're not clinically miserable, so what? These books seem to want you to reach some static state of happiness. But to experience happiness, don't you need some time hanging out in the Slough of Despond, just for contrast? Perhaps I am sounding un-American, but our country was founded on the pursuit of happiness, not its attainment.

But I do disagree with you about the value of sweating the small stuff. Let's say you're the kind of person who spends an inordinate amount of time getting all worked up about trivial matters (which is a good way to not have enough time to achieve those wonderful goals I was just mentioning), and you truly hoped you would be able to apply Dr. Richard Carlson's lessons even if you find his writing so banal that you keep hoping he gets pickled in his hot tub. And let's say you're the kind of person who spent a week engaged in a "Book Club" on the topic, so you really had time to think about it and make some changes in your life. And let's say you're the kind of person who asks your husband, "Have you noticed I'm not sweating the small stuff anymore, my beloved?" and your husband says, "Ah, no. You're as neurotic and negative as ever." What would you do, then, Jeffrey? Here's what I would do, I would not buy Dr. Carlson's forthcoming bestseller, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love, written with his lovely wife, Kris. (If Kris isn't blond, there is no justice in this world.) You can read more about it on his Web site. Yes, you guessed right: www.dontsweat.com.

But maybe you're the kind of person who should say to her friend, Jeff Goldberg, "Should we all get together and take our daughters to Turtle Park this weekend?"
What do you say, Jeff? And since I know you have tried to apply the lessons we learned this week, has your lovely (and brunet) wife Pam noticed any difference in you?

Emily

PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

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).

SPONSORED CONTENT