posted March 28, 2014 07:38 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by I'm so cappy:
Is it me or are they a waste of paper?

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They're a waste of paper.

posted March 28, 2014 11:30 PM            

The book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits: How to make changes that stick" came to me randomly and I think it would be self help but it was mainly citing studies involving the strength of a habit and the strength of our intention to change a habit. How it's been proven that habits require little mental effort and so we can easily bypass an intention precisely because we aren't using most of our brain when we perform some bad habit we want to break. Essentially, to change a habit, you have to change the environment the habit takes place in. Studies have shown that the easiest times to change a habit is when you move house because your environment has changed. Instead of being able to walk into the living room after work and sit on the couch for a few hours watching tv or browsing the internet easily, now your brain has to think "Oh, that wall is there. Where is the couch at? Where are the potato chips I like eating at?" We're more actively thinking so we don't trip, slip or hit our head on something and we can then make that new intention into a habit of this environment.

posted March 29, 2014 01:28 AM            

I like those, too. But those typically aren't the self-help genre (even if they do help people to figure things out).

The self-help genre is pop psychology (though some may be new age or religious in flavor) and similar to Oprah or Dr. Phil in a book to try to get people to feel better about themselves and their lives while made general (or generic) enough to try to get on the best seller list by appealing to as many people as possible which in turn lessens its effectiveness. Some people buy them the way others join cults, they feel better for awhile, but then they find themselves in a rut again and its on to the next fad. Self-help can be also be on how to "think yourself rich" or diet books or how to get dates. They tend to be filled with questionable anecdotes and what some call "positive affirmations."

"I am somebody. I matter. People will be attracted to my positive energy and help me achieve my goals. I am right where I'm supposed to be and not dying for something to eat!" --Cordelia Chase (in Angel) using a self-help book to get discovered as an actress...and in frustration adding her own line after "...where I'm supposed to be..."

The worst ones, IMO, are all about "you are broken, you must blame someone before you can recover." (There may be toxic people who hurt or hold someone down but it's actually disempowering to imbue such people with such power in the mind of the reader, and while that's exactly what some customers want as it relieves them of responsibility it can sabotage the efforts of people who sincerely want to change their lives who make the common mistake of trusting a false authority and believing themselves incapable of helping themselves as a result.) They occasionally do real harm to the innocent who never even heard of the book as the book encourages actions to be taken against whoever should be (rightly, wrongly, bit of both) to blame which ripple out to harm even more (and sometimes the reader has deeply regretted such actions).

posted March 29, 2014 01:39 AM            

Because I don't really see anything that needs fixing, I might have some quirks but that's kinda what makes me... well me.