Rewriting My O.S. with Self Help Books
I love self help books. LOVE THEM. I guess that statement would lead you to think I’m really messed up, and you’re not wrong, I guess. But I love them for a different reason.
Most consumers of self help books will likely read “The Secret” or whatever, it will change their life, and then move on to their usual Danielle Steel or James Paterson novels.
But for me, self help books are a practice, like jogging, or meditating, or playing the piano. Maybe even like a religion? And reading them is like looking at the universe through a prism, and turning that prism so reality appears slightly differently. Learning this ability is like updating or rewriting my own operating system.
A lot of the books I like are about creativity and writing. Although I am not a writer per se (like a novelist or journalist), a lot of the concepts apply. For example, there’s a technique from Mark Levy’s “Accidental Genius” called “try easy” that I like a lot. Basically, instead of trying to write the next great American novel –and being paralyzed by the pressure of writing something that’s so called “great”– instead, try writing something obvious and straightforward. Then you can relax, and write about what comes naturally. This same approach can be applied to art, or writing music, or photography, or whatever. The idea is to stop overthinking and making it perfect.
While some books are about specific techniques like that, others are more about “being inspired.” A great example is “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. In that book, Ms. Gilbert presents reasons, anecdotes, and ideas meant to inspire the reader to do whatever it is they are meant to do. I can’t recall any practical, tangible advice, really, but my recollection from reading the book is a fond burst of energy and motivation.
And that is important. I’m a pretty motivated guy broadly speaking, but damn, life can just grind away at you, day by day. And as a person engaged in an artistic venture, it’s easy to become jaded, and to run out of proverbial gas. Therefore, reading a book that puts some fire back in my heart is nice, even if there isn’t any actionable suggestions, or even if I’ve already heard some of the “help” before.
That’s what I mean by self help books being a “practice:” an ongoing, renewing, of ideas and motivation.
But this also applies to books with actionable advice or techniques. Very often, books overlap each other’s ideas and techniques. But not entirely...maybe about seventy percent. And sometimes, even the overlapping ideas may have different perspectives that you personally understand better in one iteration or the other.
For example, Austin Kleon is well known for his easy-reader “Steal Like an Artist.” But that book heavily draws on Hugh MacLeod’s “Ignore Everybody.” There is a bit of overlap, but Mr. MacLeod’s book is very different in tone and attitude. Leon’s book is very bright and optimistic, while MacLeod’s book is very cynical and kinda dark (this may be a Millenial/Gen Xer thing). But both books have something to offer.
There is another genre of self help books, often called “management” books. They blur the line with business sometimes. But they still have things to offer. One book from a few years ago was “Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The book primarily pushes the reader to create various life plans in order to achieve their dreams or goals. But frankly, my main takeaways were that I learned about “mind mapping” and “rapid iteration” techniques.
There are a few books, however, that have a magic cross over of both “technique” and “inspiration.” The best one I have encountered is “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, which was shared with me by my very good friend. This book is certainly not a secret, but it was new to me last year. And it really rung my bell on multiple fronts. In fact, the book is supposed to be a six- or twelve- week process. Well, I was so energized by both the techniques and inspiration that I never finished the book. That’s a good thing. I simply ran out of time, because I was working on so many things.
Another interesting book I came across recently, was “The Bullet Journal Method.” From the title, you can deduce that it primarily informs the reader about how to start bullet journaling. But once it deals with that, the book morphs into self help territory, utilizing the bullet journal as its tool. The self help components are actually pretty appropriately framed, in terms of breaking goals down into steps, planning, that sort of thing. I felt this is a contrast to many other self helps where it’s all “THIS WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER!” writ large and over hyped.
So reading a lot of self help books, trying different creative (and life) techniques is how I’ve been re-writing my own personal operating system. And by changing my brain thus, I have seen, like, actual changes in my life. Not radical changes, like growing tentacles, becoming a circus clown, or moving to Antarctica, but developing a sense of clarity, creativity, and productivity.
And in many ways, altering my own O.S. has altered the way I experience reality. For example, I use the “morning pages” practice from “The Artist’s Way” to exorcise, externalize and figure out my issues, great and small. I dealt with my anxiety while playing with the help of the book “Effortless Mastery” by Kenny Werner. I helped develop my feelings about the universe with the help of a series of books (and audio lectures) by Alan Watts. And I learned to meditate with a few books, but also some self-help YouTube videos, which is a topic for another time.
But this actually addresses another point. Sometimes, a self help book reveals something you do NOT believe, or like. I read a book about lucid dreaming, how to have lucid dreams, and how to use dreams to improve one’s life. I realized, however, that I didn’t like the idea of being in control of my dreams, and I didn’t want to be productive while I’m asleep. It was just a bridge too far.
Compared to ten years ago, I’m the same person, but really, I’m a different person. I’m kind of living a different life, because I have a different mind. Maybe it’s just the kind of person I am, but I can’t be content without constant learning, growing, and bettering myself. But I find that tweaking my brain, and therefore my knowledge and experience of reality and this universe, to be endless fulfilling and fascinating.
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