Self-help's big lie
 

You cannot have a life plan predicated on the belief that everything is equally achievable to you — especially if that same message has been sold indiscriminately to all comers. In the grand scheme of things, knowing one's limitations may be even more important than knowing one's talents.
While encouraging people to TRY to achieve it is important to make sure that people learn where there limitations are so that they can help themselves as best as they can and know when to ask for help. I find this last paragraph to be very compelling in people knowing just where their bounderies are.

Cynth - I'm surprised at you, don't you know we are all equal and deserving of greatness in anything if we just try?

Great article, but one thing is saddly mistaken.

Only applies if you are white or asian, others they still let pass.

I see myself quoting the words of my leadership prof:

"Dare to be Average."

Think about that for a minute. He had this concept pegged from the start, and it was really challenging to understand his rationale. I had been surrounded by a hyper-competitive environment for so long that I had trouble accepting my abilities and achieving inner peace.

Once I realized that grades were not important but rather the journey of knowledge was I able to let go and succeed. What do I succeed at, you ask? Being average.

Remember: Exactly half of the people (minus 1) you meet will be below average...

I dislike many of the self-help gurus. However, there are other glaring errors there too. SAT scores have not been in a 20 year decline. They have gone up and down from 1975-1995. Up through the end of the 70's, down through the early 80's, back up from the late 80's to early 90's. And this is during a time that the percentage of students increased steadily, so just on those stats alone, they should have gone down due to commonality. But they didn't, and the test got tougher in 1975.

I really don't like how Salerno equates positive self worth as a link to "sociopath" and "drug kingpin" behaviour. Hyperbole has a new #1 lover. Maybe we should tell all of the kids every day that they are worthless and weak. That'll make them Solid Citizens.

I don't get it. Medical schools practice racism?

Your title really does fit you well UsTwo.

Ben: He's talking about affirmative action.

Reminds me of the old saying:
"Behind every successful organization stands at least one person who knows the secret of how to keep the managers away from anything truly important."

For years the psychobabble types assumed that the reason people were sociopaths was due to low self esteem, but when it was actually STUDIED it turned out to be just the opposite.

Yes, they do.

Very true.

Unabomber, McVeigh, and John Wayne Gacy all had high self esteem.

Actually, the kids' movie The Incredibles illustrated this concept perfectly. No one can be special, no one is better at anything - which is just bullshit. The trends in American teaching today are frustrating beyond all belief - not only are the kids not learning, their parents are becoming monsters to deal with. For gods' sakes, if you get it wrong, it's WRONG! Learn the right answer! 2+2=4 is not open to feel-good interpretation, for fuck's sake!

Ahem, sorry.

It's appalling that we are the most powerful country in the world, and our education levels are laughable.

Poppinjay - don't forget, in the late 90's they made the SAT tests easier, too, IIRC. The scoring was softened - I don't remember the actual changes, but the result was better scores.

OOOOooooooh. I get it.

I thought there was something more to it than "In my opinion...." that was unintentionally left out.

And... they were batshit psycho. Let's not leave that part out. I'm all for giving an F were it's due, but warranted high self esteem can only be a good thing. Unwarranted high self esteem isn't really high self esteem, it's delusional self awareness.

I recognize that in the adult world there is no, "everybody gets a trophy day". In fact, to get to where you want to be int he world, you have to believe in yourself and have respect for your own abilities. That is true high self esteem.

What a load of crap. Sure, let's devalue our kids and wreck their confidence in themselves.

It really isn't as simple as that. Most studies in education suggest that what one child can grasp at grade one another will not until grade three. In the end, most kids catch up by grade four (for example).

Failing the kid in grade one wasn't the solution, rather it is important to track and adjust for a different learing curve... a more long term curve.

Education is not one size fits all.

But at some point you have to stop putting a gold star on their paper with an A for effort.

And I would never say that it is. It's that everyone is so concerned with using a green pen instead of a red one, they're not concerned with actually TEACHING. It may take one kid more time, but there's nothing wrong with that. My issue is not that it takes some longer - it's that the ones who are quicker are being penalized for the whole group. Just as some learn slower, others learn faster - and adjustments need to be made for BOTH. Every school has learning disabled classes along with regular classes, but not every school has gifted classes to go with.

If I'm reading at an 8th grade level when I'm 8, don't hold me back with the rest of the class.

And if I'm getting stuff wrong, it's wrong - that's nothing to do with what a valuable person I am, it's just about learning to understand it and do it right. But they're making it into a self-esteem issue that it never was, and never needed to be. How can I learn if I am only coddled and never taught?

They're starting to promote this crap in the UK now.
The kids haven't failed at something, they've simply experienced a 'postponed success'.

BS.

If you're late for a hot date you're not 'postponing sex', you're being bad mannered and, well, late.

I've talked about it before, no need to rehash it again.

I think there are limits though, Poppin. Sure there's "I am a great person" high self-esteem, but what happens when it goes to the extreme? The extreme of it could potentially lead them to believe that everyone else (or nearly everyone else) is a part of a human stain; completely worthless, except to further their own goals.

There's a big difference between "self-help" and treating everyone equally or expecting people to be able to achieve the same goals.

Self help teaches you that you can achieve whatever you want, and I firmly believe this. I watched my dad do it. You can be very aware of your weaknesses and strengths and play to your strengths and achieve anything.

Treating everyone the same and believing everyone can achieve the same goals in the same amount of time is ridiculous, especially in school, where a child must be given the time to learn their strengths and weaknesses and learn to use both. I am a firm believer in giving grades not based on what others do but on the individuals ability and effort. Had this happened in school maybe I would have tried harder, I knew I was smarter than most, and I knew I could do better than most, but I didn't apply myself because my effort wasn't going to be noticed anymore or less than anyone else's.

Looking back on it, I regret that I didn't achieve more just for myself, but that is what happens when all kids are treated equally. It's what happens when all adults are treated equally, until they reach some form of self awareness and inner drive.

Yes, some kids develop it earlier than others. And some kids push the kids so that when they are out in the real world the kid as an adult have problems achieving, or with drugs, or with self esteem, or with intimacy or whatever because noone is there to push them anymore and they didn't learn to push themselves.

This is where self-help comes in. It's not whether what the author truly says is right or wrong..... IT'S WHAT THE READER BELIVES. If I read a book and it tells me I can achieve anything I desire and I truly believe what is written then I will achieve what I desire.

Did the book or technique help me? Perhaps, but more or less it was inside of me to begin with and the book or technique brought that out. So "self-help" is not BS it's just what it says....... you help yourself, but sometimes that stimulus or raised belief is needed and necessary.

People will conclude that if they have high self-esteem.

...if they're batshit psycho. Being a sociopath is a mental disorder. Just as a depressive can't be cured by 'thinking happy thoughts', a sociopath would've been a sociopath whether or not they received mroe beatings as a child.

I'm of the firm belief that self-esteem is important in everything you do. Being unrealistic will hinder you, knowing your strength and your limits will never do the same. Believing that you can achieve something doesn't make it happen, it's the hard work that does. I can be a CEO if I'm willing to put the work into starting and growing a company. Believing I can do it will not make it happen, but if I don't believe it can happen and will happen if I put that hard work in, I'm not going to bother. That work includes learning about how to effectively run a company, making contacts, establishing a client base, etc ad nauseum. The amount of work is monumental and it's the sort of thing that would probably span years, possibly decades. That doesn't mean I can't do it.

I've gotten many jobs solely due to my confidence. I know I can do the work and do it well and that communicates in cover letters and interviews. I've excelled at the same jobs for the same reason. I know I can, I know I want to and I will put in the work to learn the ropes and do the best that I can. I walked into a warehouse with no previous experience in the field and was somewhat out of shape at the time. Within two months I was posting better metrics than guys who'd been there for years. That isn't solely because I believed I could, but if I hadn't believed that it wouldnt've happened. Shortly after, I decided the work wasn't for me, walked into a call centre and did the same thing. My job, while officially tech support included sales as a large component and that was something I'd never done before. Again, within two months I was excelling far beyond what people who'd done the job their entire lives were managing. I left that job because I didn't agree with the practices the company used and because I didn't want to do sales anymore. I started my own business; it shows every indication of succeeding, but I've recently decided that the amount of time and energy I have to devote to it isn't worth it to me right now, so I'm in the job market again. I may eventually revisit business ownership, or perhaps I'll find something else I prefer. I don't know what my next job will be, but I know that I'll do well at it.

Self confidence isn't believing you're better than everyone else. It's believing that you are valuable. It's not connected to anyone else's worth. As much as some would have you believe otherwise, life is not a competition.

Well Worth Repeating

One wonders how kids who get 'postponed successes' will act when a 'postponed success' gets their sorry arse fired from a job. Shizzle like that also assumes that a person will immediately stop developing once they leave school, so we'd better not fuck up their childhood! Quick, wrap them all with cotton wool!

Of course, as any adult will tell you, that's just untrue. For instance, I learnt more useful life and social skills in the 12 months following my drop-out of year 12 than in the five years prior. Specifically, how to act like an adult, and not a stupid kid.

This is a sensible vision of things I think. I was not educated in the States but I can relate to this thread.

I think all over the world, putting aside self-help which can be a good thing most of the time, people are being fed this message that we are all destined for greatness and for getting the BBD. This expression was said to me by an American friend - it's the Bigger Better Deal. Because of this message, we are all thinking we always want better and more. We are never happy in ourselves, and with what we have already.

There always has to be more. Okay sometimes there is more, but I believe that is not where happiness lies. Applying this not only to education, but to life in general, and also particularly relationships, why do you think more and more people don't get married, get divorced, and generally break up at the drop of a hat? It's all made too easy and we are all so empowered and full of rights that we have to have them (those things we are "all" entitled to apparently) otherwise it's not worth it, that we don't try that hard to make what we have be enough to make us happy....and sometimes all it takes is a little compromise, and learning to be a little more selfless. I'm not saying people should sell themselves short, but sometimes when it's good, like that cliché in the movie "as good as it gets", maybe as good as it gets is ok.

I strongly disagree. Most of the relevant scientific community (meaning not natural sciences) would disagree as well. The "number of beatings received as a child", or simply the upbringing of a person has an enormous impact on who they become.

And as far as depressives not being cured by "thinking happy thoughts", well maybe not that exact oversimplification, but therapy is significantly more effective in treating most conditions than drugs are. And therapy, even though it is facilitated by another, is equivalent to "thinking happy thoughts."

*Note: I didn't say "self confidence" I said "self-esteem". Esteem being worth or value, confidence being faith in one's abilities. Now, obviously with our conceptual framework, we attribute a certain amount of value to other people in general. At the same time, we assign a level of value to ourselves (self-esteem); what do you suppose happens when the value assigned to ourselves vastly surpasses that assigned to others? <- aimed both at Martian and Tecoyah

Um, have you ever been to medical school? No, didn't think so.
I'm not sure what you're basing it on, but you're dead wrong and should be embarrassed for saying it.

I heart you.

Oh, and what tec said about what martian said.

I think that one must believe that most things are possible for them to achieve, to some degree or another, if they are willing to work hard, work long, and get lucky.

In most cases, one must have goals in order to excel. I see no point in setting easily achievable goals, nor in setting goals that one doesn't believe they can eventually achieve.

A goal gives direction and motivation, and then you embrace Ben's journey of knowledge and do the best you can. I find that working hard gives it own satisfaction. I believe you have to recognize that you could fail, but never accept failure or be content with it. Otherwise, I just don't see why one would ever do anything. What's the fun?

yeah, he might have been. or maybe dental school. the actual content of the the comment i really can't speak to. i don't know how affirmative action works with medical school. knowing ustwo, his position may be skewed by conservative tendencies and his taste for soggy piss stained cereal.

just maybe.

Yeah, looking back, he might have been talking about dental school even though Cynthetiq was talking about medical school. Even so, he's making some generalizations since I'm sure not all dental schools have such lax standards.

/wishes she could use supermoderator yellow to scold

Nope, it's not Politics. We're expected to behave ourselves there. :)

sorry, should have let it go like usual, but I found it really offensive personally.

awww...i love my little ustwo

knowing the way he can give it, i know he can take a little heated smartassery.

irregardless, if i happened to offend anyone, i suppose i'm sort of sorry-ish for it?

even if it's ustwo :D

/jess...use the go advanced option and change your color...

Piggy darling, I know I could. But that's Mal's (or Tec's or whomever's) domain. I was just being silly and envious of the scolding rights!

Scolders of the Universe, UNTIE!!!

/she called me darling. now i'm all soft like chitlins :icare:

Chronic depression is not cured by therapy, it's treated by therapy. And medications, such as Xanax, the ever-popular Prozac or other mood stabilizers. Same goes for bipolar disorder, which is related. Neither one of these is curable, at this point.

As for your other point, you're mistaking the symptom for the cause. Sociopathic tendencies are generally caused by a deep-seated rage combined with a lack of ability to feel guilt or remorse. The over-inflated ego is a manifestation of the rage; the sociopath believes himself to be above the human swill, because he hates them so much.

Again, life is not a contest and if you're talking about value as related to others you're missing my point. My sense of self-worth has nothing to do with anyone else; I don't put myself on a ladder with the rest of the entire human race. It comes from knowing that I do have talents and abilities and I am valuable in my own right. It's not an issue of 'more' or 'less', it's simply recognizing that I have worth as a human being. Stemming from that is my acknowledgement of what I can and cannot do. I have valuable technical skills and a high aptitude for such. This makes me well suited to be an engineer, mechanic or technician. I have Crohn's disease, which makes me poorly suited for the military, police forces or other emergency services. So rather than beat my head against a brick wall trying to get into the police force, I do the best I can at being a technician. Unsurprisingly, I excel.

I graduated from College with a C average. And it took me 5 years. This isn't because I'm stupid or lazy. But I'm also not a genius and it takes a lot of effort for me to succeed. I repeated classes more than once at times. BUT in the end I succeeded and I taught students who have since done well in school. I didn't get a trophy, or valdictorian award. I simply improved myself. I started out, in my first semester only passing half of my classes. By the last year I had raised my grades and got an A in one of my core courses. BECAUSE I worked hard. I didn't have a high self esteem but I saw that I needed to succeed and so I pushed myself hard to do better each year, each course.

Pushing yourself to do better is more important than getting an A or some award. Success is improving yourself and working to your potential regardless of the end result. We can't lower the bar for students who don't want to work hard or for those who can't. But if you simply can't and you've tried more than once, then you need to know when to change your method or task and find something or someway TO succeed.

There goes the american dream.

Have I been to medical school? No.

Have I taken the same classes with the med students? Yes.

Have I spoken with the professors about this issue? Yes.

Are you just being a dick here? Yep.

Do you have a clue? Nope.

I'm sure you will get over it. You are wrong, and there is no point being offended when you are offended on a subject you are unversed on.

You never specified chronic depression, did you? And besides that, as a treatment or a cure, therapy is more effective.
First, you use the term "over-inflated ego"; if ego is akin to self-esteem, does that not mean that one can have too much of it? And even if you deny that, would it not be easier to execute anti-social behaviours if one has incredibly high self-esteem?
I said nothing about a contest, and it isn't for everyone; it's not for me. Everyone assigns value to everything, including other people. If you are an average person, you assign more value to your friends than to strangers, more value to humans than to insects, more value to your job than to your lawnmower, and so on. In this system, you assign value to yourself. If the value assigned to yourself is extremely high compared to that assigned to other people (such as the way most people assign their value compared to an insect's), then it would become significantly easier to act in the manner of a sociopath.

Saying that all you do is go "I have worth" is a cop-out. Worth and value, although vague concepts, are still heirarchies; you have created your own heirarchy and exist within it whether you are willing to admit it or not.

Since when was the American dream being able to be equal to everyone in everything?

That's assuming that my worth is measured in relation to the worth of others. What if I measure my worth by something else, such as my ability to make money, or my ability to keep myself fed and clothed? Perhaps it's a reflexive thing; my worth is proven by the mere fact that I know more and am more capable than I was yesterday or a week ago or a year ago. This is actually how I operate, if you're interested.

Bill Gates has made far more money than I ever will. This does not make him a better person. George and Gracie had perhaps the best marriage of anyone in Hollywood, ever. Again, they are not better people than me for it. Ghandi has made a much larger mark on the world than I ever will. Again...

The tricky thing to the concept of value is that it requires a context. A pet dog, for example, may be worth very little financially if it comes from the pound. Emotionally, however, it may be the most valuable thing you own. Your own sense of self-worth and the confidence or lack thereof derived from it also depends largely on how you choose to measure it. You may choose to measure it financially and not be happy until you make the most money and have the most expensive car. You may choose to measure it in terms of renown and want to be famous. I choose to measure it by my own growth; so long as I continue to learn I continue to have value. I know more today than I did yesterday and I will know more still tomorrow. This, to me, is proof that I have value as a human being. I don't need to contrast it to others, because I may choose instead to measure others in a context that changes their standing. A man in a coma does not learn and thus has no value on that scale. However, he has people who love him, giving him an emotional value. The two are apples and oranges and there's myriad scales for comparing yourself to others; therefore, I submit that even attempting to make such a comparison is frivolous.

EDIT - I'm reconsidering my decision not to redress the issue of anti-social disorders. Yes, the increased ego (or self-esteem; I tend to use the two terms interchangably, but I do actually know the distinction to be made) will make such behaviour more likely, but that doesn't address the underlying cause. A chronic depressiv is that way due to an underlying physiological issue. A schizophrenic simalarly suffers from an underlying physiological issue and so does a sociopath. I maintain that the high self-esteem is not a cause, but a symptom. Rosa Parks carried a higher than average self-esteem for her demographic. She believed that she was every bit as worthy as the white middle class to sit at the front of the bus. There are very few who would call her ego a bad thing.

I still maintain that you're missing my point, in that you have the cause and effect reversed. The distorted sense of higher worth does not creat the sociopath; rather the sociopath creates the distorted sense of higher worth.

Ustwo, you've got a lot of nerve calling me a dick.
I'm pretty sure that violates the rules of this message board.
In any case, you can trust me to ignore you from now on.
All I have to say is that only one of us has been to medical school and that's me. I don't know what your experiences have been, but they do not hold true for most schools that I have had associations with. Hopefully, you will refrain from making blanket generalizations like that again.

The most dangerous person is the one who tells you not to try because the 'odds are low' or they think you are incompetent. It is this negative attitude projected as fact, which harms people the most.

You will never make money at that. You don't know enough to try that.. etc....

In every case there was a person who ignored those who told them to be 'realistic' and succeeded. Yes some failed as well, but you will never know if you are incompetent unless you try, and you won't try your best if you are not enthusiastic about it.

The american dream presupposes equal opportunity to succeed.

It also presupposes equal opportunity to FAIL.

The american dream presupposes opporunity not success.

I don't recall any mention of opportunity to fail in the american dream. I don't think living in homeless shelters or losing your house because one of your kids got a serious illness is part of the american dream. The american dream is necessarily optimistic because to emphasize the plight of the millions of people for whom it is hopelessly out of reach would be self defeating for those who subscribe to it.

Besides, the part i quoted sums up the american dream just fine.

So what? You didn't know that the american dream is a lie too?

I'm not missing your point. I just disagree. You've restated it so much that it would take a blind retard to miss it.

I'm just going to leave a well-known phrase as my last argument: "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

having relatives who came here with $20 in their pocket, no i see the dream every day that I meet with them.

I see people from Mexico crossing the borders illegally becasue the oppurtunity to be better than the villages they came from is more than enough for most.

It offers and presupposes oppurnity, not guarantees of success.

It could just as easily be said that most self help presupposes self worth, not a guarantee of personal success.

I see the emptiness of the dream. It's reflected in the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor and the shrinking middle class. Your twenty dollared relatives could have just as easily toiled in obscurity just below the poverty line for the rest of their lives.

This is where it started:
How does this not describe the american dream?

This is a great thread . . . please excuse the interruption, but I'm gonna refer back to the article for a minute.

There is no doubt whatsoever that our education system in the US has major problems (and needs a major overhaul, not just more taxpayer money thrown its way) but I disagree with the author's lumping self-help, our education system, and alternative medicine together like this.

Self-help has its place in our society, because, let's face it, lots of us had less-than-stellar upbringings and it is up to us as adults to get on and make our way in life. I'm not talking about the mainstream hype as presented with the likes of Oprah and Dr. Phil; I'm referring to genuine help with sorting things out, taking personal responsibility, examining our strengths and weakness for what they are, and finding our paths in life.

Regarding the growth in the field of alternative medicine -- the main reason people are turning away from western medical "care" -- and I use that term loosely -- is that our mainstream medical doctors typically do not treat us as people; they medicate symptoms. I believe our system of medical care for emergencies is the best. However, I cannot count the number of times MDs have sent me on my way after spending a whopping 30 seconds with me with a prescription in hand for drugs (including antibiotics for sinus infections and colds and blood pressure medicine for slightly elevated blood pressure) without addressing the underlying cause of the problems. As opposed to our medical system, alternative medicine helps people with chronic conditions because the practitioners are more likely to see the person, and find the cause of the problem, address it, and help restore the person. Sure, there are quacks in alt medicine like in any other profession. Overall, though, alternative medicine definitely helps people where mainstream medicine cannot, and does not.

And I completely agree with Cynthetiq: In America, it's about equal opportunity to achieve, or fail, not guarantees of success. This is tied to another big problem we have -- this whole notion of entitlements as opposed to working and earning our way.

OK, I've said what I wanted to say. Carry on.

And the poverty line is better here in the US than it is in many other countries, even our southern neighbor Mexico. Success means something different to you obviously. For some it's as simple as being able to have an apartment, accessible healthcare, accessible education, and access to a labor market that pays wages 10x better than where they came.

It does describe the American dream, but what does the American dream mean to you? For my relatives who came over here it meant an opportunity. That's it. Success is not guaranteed. It's presupposed that here it is greater than 0% opporutnity that they had in their homeland.

As they say in the dieting and excercising infomercials, Results Not Typical.

To me the american dream is the idea that everyone has an opportunity to succeed. I don't think that this is true in any kind of meaningful sense. Certainly many people do have opportunities to succeed, but many people don't, even in terms of the conditions you outlined.

Healthcare isn't always accessible, apartments aren't always accessible, education is becoming more expensive and less accessible, and the labor market is what it is. Even if you make ten times what you could have made elsewhere, if you have to spend 12 times what you had to spend elsewhere it doesn't amount to much. I see what you're saying, i just disagree that it makes sense to assume that the opportunity applies to everyone.

compared to most 3rd world countries... it's much better than most.

The opportunity applies to anyone trying to better themselves by leaving their own homeland and emmigrating elsewhere, from America to Germany to Iceland.

As far as success, again, results not typical.

Results not typical?

So essentially, what you're saying is that the american dream has the same value as the promises of a slim fast commercial? And then you're holding this dream up as though it is some sort of beacon of hope for the world's downtrodden?

When i think of the american dream I see someone attempting to sell a promise to masses of people when they damn well know that that promise will essentially be meaningless to the vast majority of them. Then I see that same salesperson blaming the people he fooled when they don't succeed like he tricked them into thinking he would. I also see many of the people who would presume to spread the message of the american dream complain when masses of illegals sneak over the borders to try and cash in. I see this and i think, "Wow, that's kind've fucked up. Maybe everyone would be better served by a more honest approach to explaining what things are really like in america. Something like: 'Come to america, where some of your dreams might come true if you're lucky'"

Not everyone gets the same opportunity to succeed or fail in america. There are certain things make the opportunities available to people fundamentally unequal. Just like everywhere else in the universe. America acts like it invented opportunity when actually it was just the first country to co-opt it into a successful national marketing campaign.

an example of the American dream unequalness..

Yeah, and?

Like you said, "results not typical" a.k.a. "only a fool would bank on this". They don't have newspaper articles about all the immigrants who aren't making connections with soviet oil ministers because there isn't enough paper and nobody wants to read about "failure" because it so common so as to be mundane.

correct, but people still are going to places that they think they have a better shot than where they are.

The example before cites an extreme example, but there are others that just wanted to give their kids a better opportunity at education for some that was enough.

It seems that you don't really believe that the american dream is about opportunity. Accessible in the land of opportunity doesn't mean that something is guaranteed or in hand, just that it is possible. From that standpoint, apartments, healthcare, and education are always possible... if certain conditions are met. Mostly those conditions involve hard work and some risk and/or sacrifice (educational debt, for example).

I would have said that the american dream is that improvement is possible through effort. Regardless of the excess that some people get through luck, I think my version of the american dream is alive and well.

Of course, we could simply have different ideas about this... I suspect this may be the case.

two threads on the American Dream:

Are You Living the American Dream?

The American Dream...Is...?

an excerpt from the person that coined the phrase.