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Self help books more or less carry the same advice, just told in variety of different ways and in form of different stories. They all seem to come to the same c

Self help books more or less carry the same advice, just told in variety of different ways and in form of different stories. They all seem to come to the same conclusions. If you really want to read a good self help book, then toss everything from your shelf that has not been written before the year 1900. Self improvement and ways to do it has been mastered by many people long long time ago. For those who write about it now, are milking the age old cow. And it gets boring and repetitive real soon. Also, I would like to talk about what does the Author of this post means when she says "Being a Better Human Being". What does it even mean? Isn't it just a definition or a set of definitions, conjured by some human(s), to force/condition other people to fall in line. edit: typo/grammar

blowski 7y ago
Fabulous bit of advice. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a good start, though I suspect many here have already heard of it.
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
> toss everything from your shelf that has not been written before the year 1900 best advice ever! N.N. Taleb aggressively makes this point in Antifragile too. After sticking to Taleb's advise for a year and reading only old things, not only did I stop writing myself, but I no longer think I have what it takes to contribute. Everything that is worth writing about has already been written[1]. And if I contribute by writing myself I just dilute the pool of great prose by pissing into it. Most authors today (and 100% of authors on this list) have never read great books themselves and it's very obvious. Reading new authors always leaves me with a feeling like I'm the rear end of the human centipede. [1] anyone thinking about writing a book (or even a blog post) please before you start, proof to yourself that this sentence doesn't apply in your case (this is aka research and it doesn't stop with authors before your age - in fact it starts there). EDIT: this list was created by Aphinya Dechalert (https://nz.linkedin.com/in/aphinya-dechalert-7b782480 https://nz.linkedin.com/in/aphinya-dechalert-7b782480) who works in marketing and her job seems to be making spammy lists like this one. Looking at the OP's other submission it seems all links go to either her medium or her blog. On this tweet she is amazed by all the traffic her site gets after posting this very link: > So...I relaunched http://DottedSquirrel.com http://DottedSquirrel.com as a community space a few days back. Went to have a shower and came back to this. I checked and made sure it's not bots. It's not bots. #100DaysOfCode #tech #learnToCode https://twitter.com/dottedSquirrel/status/1204323739585765376 https://twitter.com/dottedSquirrel/status/120432373958576537...
- croo 7y ago
  Writing to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge is not the only reason to write! You may write because of money, fame, to learn a new subject or make a unique set of things already said or because you simply enjoy it.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  Granted, there's enough wisdom produced by really brilliant people that a lifetime probably wouldn't be enough to read it all, nevermind understand and apply it all. So I don't disagree. But still, calibrate? Your voice is still a voice, and it's the one you have. There is nothing new under the sun, but at the same time, nobody will ever have the exact outlook on life and the universe as you do. Maybe your writing is really terrible, I wouldn't know. But your heart is in the right place, so how could it be? > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. -- Ira Glass > If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done. -- Vincent van Gogh > The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. -- Margaret Atwood > Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. -- C. S. Lewis > The forest would be pretty quiet if only the best birds sang. -- Proverb (?)
PavlovsCat 7y ago
> The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo-scholarship which actually destroys its object. -- Hannah Arendt
codesternews 7y ago
No that is not the thing. The real value you get from self help books is continuous motivation. There is no person I think can remember everything. Well, when you read the books you get in to thinking of those thoughts and some time you get real valuable lessons. I also like to read same book again because it is continuous motivation and some time when you low you need that help. That's just my thoughts and opinion.

blowski 7y ago

Fabulous bit of advice. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a good start, though I suspect many here have already heard of it.

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

> toss everything from your shelf that has not been written before the year 1900 best advice ever! N.N. Taleb aggressively makes this point in Antifragile too. After sticking to Taleb's advise for a year and reading only old things, not only did I stop writing myself, but I no longer think I have what it takes to contribute. Everything that is worth writing about has already been written[1]. And if I contribute by writing myself I just dilute the pool of great prose by pissing into it. Most authors today (and 100% of authors on this list) have never read great books themselves and it's very obvious. Reading new authors always leaves me with a feeling like I'm the rear end of the human centipede. [1] anyone thinking about writing a book (or even a blog post) please before you start, proof to yourself that this sentence doesn't apply in your case (this is aka research and it doesn't stop with authors before your age - in fact it starts there). EDIT: this list was created by Aphinya Dechalert (https://nz.linkedin.com/in/aphinya-dechalert-7b782480 https://nz.linkedin.com/in/aphinya-dechalert-7b782480) who works in marketing and her job seems to be making spammy lists like this one. Looking at the OP's other submission it seems all links go to either her medium or her blog. On this tweet she is amazed by all the traffic her site gets after posting this very link: > So...I relaunched http://DottedSquirrel.com http://DottedSquirrel.com as a community space a few days back. Went to have a shower and came back to this. I checked and made sure it's not bots. It's not bots. #100DaysOfCode #tech #learnToCode https://twitter.com/dottedSquirrel/status/1204323739585765376 https://twitter.com/dottedSquirrel/status/120432373958576537...

croo 7y ago
Writing to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge is not the only reason to write! You may write because of money, fame, to learn a new subject or make a unique set of things already said or because you simply enjoy it.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
Granted, there's enough wisdom produced by really brilliant people that a lifetime probably wouldn't be enough to read it all, nevermind understand and apply it all. So I don't disagree. But still, calibrate? Your voice is still a voice, and it's the one you have. There is nothing new under the sun, but at the same time, nobody will ever have the exact outlook on life and the universe as you do. Maybe your writing is really terrible, I wouldn't know. But your heart is in the right place, so how could it be? > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. -- Ira Glass > If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done. -- Vincent van Gogh > The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it. -- Margaret Atwood > Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. -- C. S. Lewis > The forest would be pretty quiet if only the best birds sang. -- Proverb (?)

PavlovsCat 7y ago

> The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo-scholarship which actually destroys its object. -- Hannah Arendt

codesternews 7y ago

No that is not the thing. The real value you get from self help books is continuous motivation. There is no person I think can remember everything. Well, when you read the books you get in to thinking of those thoughts and some time you get real valuable lessons. I also like to read same book again because it is continuous motivation and some time when you low you need that help. That's just my thoughts and opinion.