Self-help books

Are they actually useful?

Wizardhood is right round the corner, social life is non-existent, wage-slaving 5-7 days a week for a pittance.

Are they the literary equivalent of /adv/? Are they at least entertaining to read?

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self-help wont give you the willpower to get out of your hole, but it can sometimes give you a place to start.

Self-help books are just my diary desu of people who feel ok about their life

Meaning they're not really for people that deep in the hole?

They may be motivating, but if wizardhood is around the corner, it's over.

That's a bummer. What am I gonna do with the remaining 20 years?

go to the gym, meditate, drink water

If you're at the point where you serious consider buying self help books, just find a shrink and start playing sports.

Doesn't really sound like much of a life.

Read esoterica, adhere to a mystical religious tradition, and revolt against the modern world.

There are probably only half a dozen that are even worth reading. The more practical and narrowly focused they are, the better. Any self-help book that tries to get too "deep" is just a con man's bullshit. An example of a practical self-help book is John Molloy's Live For Success (now out of print), which is designed to teach you how to get along with your co-workers and not embarrass yourself in front of the boss in the corporate environment.

...

I am in the same spot. Less than a year to wizardry. I am constantly asking myself why I bother to do anything. I make okay but not great money, but it all just accumulates in the bank because material things have become absolutely pointless. I have been reading and working out a lot but I really don't see the point.

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If you are considering to read self-help books you are totally fucked up.

>but it all just accumulates in the bank because material things have become absolutely pointless.

Anime and vidya gotten stale for you too? How long now?

>renouncing the material world without all the spiritual gains that come with it
Get to reading religious/esoteric works you dummys

People are starting to wakeup to the shallowness and vapidity of modern culture, and CEOs and politicians are scrambling to pump propaganda and identity politics in everything to keep the masses consuming their shit. They know the masses know self-help is snake oil trash and have pivoted to publish titles loaded with profanity like the one in OP's pic to offer them the "real and practical" self-help.

>People are starting to wakeup to the shallowness and vapidity of modern culture
That's way too optimistic.

You're better off studying classical philosophy like Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus. A lot of the Romans were especially concerned with learning how to be happy and live a good life and they're worth listening to.

You're probably right, and most of those that do perceive there is something wrong with modern living will fall into the pseudospiritual traps of mindfulness meditation, hatha yoga, and tai chi. I was in a teahouse the other day listening on a conversation between a couple thots discussing meditation courses and then the conversation turned to how one of them wanting to have passion in something. I wanted to sperg out right then and there and explain to them they have zero understanding in Eastern philosophy, and dissolving all passion and desire to escape samsara is precisely the point.

I suppose this would count as self help but it's also a legitimate commentary on stoic philosophy. Everybody should read it because even if you don't buy into the greater system there are some very useful techniques and practices which we also see in modern psychological therapies.

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S-shut up!

>Anime and vidya gotten stale for you too? How long now?
A couple of years.
>Get to reading religious/esoteric works you dummys
I am reading the classics and trying to absorb them as much as possible, but I am so bitter I feel like I can't open my heart to the divine. I am starved for affection, but there is something deep inside me that completely rejects it and fills me with terror. I think this is what Hell is.
Any recommendations for translations of Cicero's works?

Good advice user, OP start with Hays’ translation of Meditations and the penguin edition of the enchridon. They also put out a good selection of Seneca’s letters from a stoic. Pretty sure they make one for Cicero’s selected speeches - if not them then OWC - and if not them then Loeb def has the complete, but the translations are pretty wooden

There are good ones, bit there's also a lot of crap, and if you read too many, it's far more likely you just absorb the crap. If you feel compelled, stick to the best ones (Carnegie, covey, hell even some Robbins) but also read philosophy at the same time, to keep a sharp skeptical eye out for dumb snake oil advice. And whatever you do don't read any self help blog, never buy some bullshit "program" and remember libraries are your friend

>I'm 10
>wizardhood is around the corner!

Go to Southeast Asia my man.

30. I don't expect nor do I want to live beyond 50. Hell, my 20s have sucked and I expect my 30s to suck much harder.

No. In fact they can be hurtful, because reading them can make you feel Like you are making progress, urning up modavation

why not work to give yourself the happy life you desire instead of the self loathing

Have you got a time machine?

Is Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality and Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation good reads to straighten out my worldview? I'm 32, my life revolves around work and wasting time on internet. I'm alone but not lonely but lately I can see how I'm wasting my life. Already stopped excessive vidya and anime and started light excercise.

>give you the willpower to get out of your hole
anti-depressants will

Have you got a time machine?
That was my problem 5 years ago. You had all that potential, and you wasted it, right? Your problem is narcissism.

It makes me depressed that my mother is a self-help swallowing NPC. She's reached absolute existential lowest lows in terms of social and intellectual development. Seeing her and her friends gradually turn their lives and lives of those around them into hell and then buy another shitty book instead of actually analyzing the situation with their own brain makes me sick. Please help

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>implying you can gain self-awarness as an old person

might as well try stoicism or some religious practices because that would at least bring you something instead of nothing

You need to be so sub-human for self-help books to work that all your problems are hormonal in nature and you could just take some anti-depressants to solve them.

No, yes, maybe. I think the problem is self-help books appeal to neurotic people, but any book could help you gain a new perspective I imagine. If you read a lot of self-help books you should probably have spent that money on a therapist.

late baby boomers/early X-ers aren't even that old

What was that early 20th century book posted her a while back that actually had really good advice on how to live a good life? Might have been late 19th? It was posted ironically to make fun of childless women women IIRC.