Self Help Con?
There is a common idea that a lot of self help is a con.
The evidence seems to support it.
People read tons of self help books but never change.
But suppose we treat this idea with a bit more scientific objectivity?
One thing that’s critical in any scientific endeavor is to subtract out the background noise.
To be able look only at the variables that are important.
For example, there is one test that actually indicates “psychic” phenomenon is actually happening.
It only works under certain conditions.
The test is pretty well set up.
You have two guys watch a five different videos.
Each video is five minutes.
Each with a specific emotional theme.
Something’s Happening
Then they two guys are separated.
One guy in a booth watch a video.
The other guy in another booth trying to guess which video the other guy is watching.
All the guy knows in the test booth is when the videos, that the other guy is watching, starts and finishes.
The “background” in this case would be random chance.
Since there are five videos to choose from, a random guess would be correct 20% of the time.
Anything above 20% would indicate somebody BESIDES random chance.
And there is one type of people that score consistently higher than 20%.
That is friends, and if both of them are long term practitioners of meditation.
Beyond that, nobody knows what’s going on.
Both two people, who have known each other for a while AND each has a habit of meditating, seem to have a higher than expected “knowing” if which specific video the other person is watching.
And?
So, how can we apply this to self help?
Is it the material in the books that is a scam?
Or is it something else?
One way would be to study all the non-musicians who bought music books.
And then check with them periodically to see how they’re doing.
But there is a much bigger industry.
Weight loss is, by far, the BIGGEST “self help” industry.
And HOW to lose weight is not a mystery.
At least from a purely, rational way.
So perhaps it’s not the stuff that’s IN the self help books.
Or maybe it is.
Suppose you’re in a book store.
And you’ve got two weight loss titles to choose from.
The first one is:
“How To Lose Weight Slowly And Uncomfortably.”
The other title is:
“How To Lose Weight In Your Sleep While Eating Everything You Want!”
Ice Cream Diet
This is the reason for most self help fail.
We silly humans are ALWAYS looking for shortcuts.
Magic tricks.
Are these our only choices?
Silly magic or uncomfortable hard work?
Nope.
There is a third option.
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