Why I keep reading self-help books

by Blair Warren

Last year I advocated an idea I called Dangerous Reading.  In a nutshell, I suggested we read books outside our comfort zones in order to prevent our psychic lives from becoming stale.  I still believe this is a valuable practice and now about 25% of the books I read are outside my normal pattern.  Well, apparently that’s not enough because now my wife wants to know why I read so many self-help books.  She pointed out that, after all, I’d once said that if you’ve read one self-help book, you’ve pretty much read them all.  And yet I keep buying them.  Keep reading them.  And can’t get enough of them.  Now, she wants to know why.

Well, not that it’s any of her business (please don’t tell her I said that), but here’s the reason:

Being exposed to powerful ideas isn’t enough to change our lives.  Understanding powerful ideas isn’t enough to change our lives.  Even applying powerful ideas isn’t enough to change our lives.  In order to change our lives we must become - and remain - absolutely convinced of these ideas.  And since it seems that everywhere else I turn I’m inundated with negative, doom and gloom pictures of life, I intentionally keep returning to the one source I know will keep me focused on what’s possible.  And that’s self-help material.

So that’s why I keep reading these books.  Not necessarily to learn new ideas, but to become more and more convinced that life can be more than what most people would have us believe.

It makes sense to me.  Now I just have to run it by my wife - not that I owe her an explanation, mind you.  But because that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Posted on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 at 01:19 PM

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