Having it All 101

Backstory.

My parents were never divorced. Still, my Mother went back to work
(After "war work") after my sister started school. Years later, my mother expressed sadness & regret about going to work while my sister and I were still young.

It took a prodigious effort to convince her that she was a great mother and all worked out extremely well. My Mother appeared to be reassured. However, my mother is not the issue here. The real issue is manipulation.

In the mid 70s the country was in the grips of the "self-help" book craze. In other words, we had problems we did not have until we had a solution for them. Like Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man.

The talk show industry went from entertainment to exploitation. Not all, but enough.

The snake-oil sellers created a social paradigm of anxiety that they claimed to be able to cure.

As Phineas said to Harold Hill, "But we don't have any problems in River City." To which Professor Hill replied, "Then we'll have to create some."

The Swiss Writer, Daniel Odier, played the same theme in his series of novels writing under the name, Delacorta

People are coerced into embracing a paradigm.

Remember, some people don't want it all. They only want some. They are made to feel inadequate. Why? So they will buy the book.

The same paradigm is "talk about it" or "go outside your comfort zone."

The only reason why people want you to talk about it, or to go outside your comfort zone is to convince you to do what they want you to do or to convince you to do something you don't want to do. If you wanted to do it, there would be no need to talk about it and you would not be going outside your comfort zone.

• Some people must go to work

• Some people want to go to work

• Some people want to become career employees

• Other people want to be painters or poets

Each should have the right to pursue what will make her happy and feel fulfilled. Not what will satisfy the need for validation in those who must coerce people to do things in an attempt to feel validation or to sell more books.

As far as I'm concerned: Diet books, get rich quick books, and self-help books don't work.  If they did, then--as a nation--we would all be skinny, rich, and happy.  But we're not.  As a nation, we are fat, poor, and polarized.

To those who object:

"Some people read self-help books because they need self help books.
Others need self-help books because they read self-help books."  ~ Slim Fairview

If someone wants to pursue a goal, she should be allowed to do so. If she needs help, and asks for help, others should freely give it.

Too much of what is going on in our society is not unlike the cliche of the parents who want their children to become Big Executives, when the children want to become actors, or painters, or singers.

Remember the movie "The Dead Poets Society' with Robin Williams?

Sincerest regards,

Slim

Slimfairview@yahoo.com 

Slimviews@gmail.com
 

Copyright (c) 2017 Bob Asken
All rights reserved.