Last year I was employed at a decent paying job with good benefits, doing work that mattered. Now I’m seven months unemployed, out of benefits and still getting ghosted by employers. Most everything else has remained the same (no friends, uncertainty with my gender and how I want to live my life, stuck living with my mom) except that I started seeing a therapist ~10 months ago who I really like.
It just feels really, really bad. I’m assuming other people have had this experience in their life already (I am both fairly young and a late bloomer in most respects), so I guess I’m asking how you dealt with it and how things got better, assuming they did :aware:
you can also commiserate with me if you like
thanks gamers
fuck every single self help book
Sorry. I started exercising from a self-help book and learned to cook and do house repairs from books.
That’s fine, and it’s good that you developed healthy habits.
Self help books are, though, a thoroughly atomized liberal response to what are social ills. It takes something that is a collective problem, and places the onus entirely on an individual to solve it for themselves. That’s fine or whatever, but so long as collective problems are met with individual solutions the problem never goes away, discrete individuals just get acclimated to the problem. This is not socially healthy.
I hope that explains the response a bit
No, it doesn’t. Not everyone has a family/social network in place to help them achieve their goals. Moreover, creating a united front depends on having people with the skills/willingness to attempt new things with new people. If you want collective action you need people who are secure enough to try new things. Back in the day the IWW promoted ‘self help’ programs like teaching kids to paint, sing, or orate. They offered adult classes, too.
You’re telling people not to use the books, and don’t offer any alternative.
A “learn to cook” book isn’t a self help book. It’s a cook book.
A “house-repairs” book isn’t a self help book. It’s a DIY book.
You are either misunderstanding the topic, or are being deliberately obtuse. Self help books transpose problems caused by capitalism into a problem with the individual and then tell the individual they need to change who they are and take part in hustle culture and understand that their motivational problems to grind grind grind caused by worker-alienation are actually problems with them as a human being that they need to change. Self help diverts attention away from the source of problems that capitalism is causing, aiming to treat the symptoms of these problems as a diversion away from recognising the cause.
What’s an example of a self-help book, then? My examples would include “The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous,” “Atomic Habits” (by James Clear) and “Getting Things Done” (by David Allen). They just contain useful info that makes life easier, is my perspective.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a kkkristian cult
Not exactly, it’s got some of that kind of baggage but it’s more about bringing together a bunch of people who all have the same problem to support each other and heal. I’m not a big fan of it, but it has helped millions of people recover from alcoholism.
It’s a kkkristian cult, nothing the kkkristians do can be trusted
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Oh I see. Yeah it makes sense that you don’t like this discourse since you want people to buy your grifter book. lmao
No, I was giving some context as to why someone might react to the suggestion of self-help books with hostility, and why a comment recommending a self help book in the thread might be removed by mods for “cringe.”
So, we’re at the point where talking about books is potentially offensive to people?
I don’t know why you’d get that impression.
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Do you have a torrent link? I have literally never paid for a book in my entire life and I don’t plan on doing so now.
Why should conservatives, fascists, etc. be the only ones allowed individual self-improvement? This shaming attitude towards self-improvement on the left, towards people who are literally just trying to do their best in a fucked system, is baffling.
I think collective, social action is most important, but I’m not going to engage in it when I’m suicidally unhappy because I’m aligning with the system in sabotaging my own health.
Just because the right has bootstraps doesn’t mean we have to ban the concept of individuals working on themselves. I understand that the social affects the individual experience but we gotta have some nuance.
Irrelevant because self-help books are garbage. “Self-improvement” is simple so all relevant advice is boring. Find a therapist if you can afford it. Cook for yourself more and eat healthy. Go to a gym, do a sport, or just go for long walks. Meet up with friends at least once per week. Get a hobby. Enjoy some form of media produced by your culture, like books, games, films, or shows. All of this subject to the constraint of time and money.
Agreed about the time and money constraints. All the stuff mentioned is easier if you have money. But, especially when you don’t have money, this stuff isn’t really “simple.” Habit and behavior change is very difficult, especially if you have adhd or other mental health situation.
People sneer at Jordan Peterson and Co. (and rightfully so) but his popularity is indicative of people really wanting some kind of framework to organize themselves into improving their life in like, the next month. (And not 2 years from now when your union gets concessions from your boss, or legislation passes, or someone overthrows the government). Everyone knows what to do (“common sense”) but not how to go about actually getting it done.
Certainly not a replacement for social change lol, but we all just want to make it to next week somehow.