I love what can broadly be defined as self-help. I really do. In that definition I’m including productivity, spiritualism, mental frameworks, health, life approaches, and people giving their advice on, ultimately, how to answer the question of ‘how can I live a life well lived?’. Wow – what a broad and important genre!

Let me be unbearably earnest for a minute to show my bias. I really do want to live a life well lived, whatever that means. I imagine other people do as well.

It’s useful that people share their insights in pursuit of this. It’s great in fact. A lot of it is valid – I haven’t read/heard all that much where I’ve thought, ‘hmm, this is flat out wrong’, and where I have thought ‘this is bull’, then that just solidifies my current thought. They show a path forward. They show a ladder of progression. They show that it is possible. However, there are numerous traps in which I fall down, and I imagine that others may fall down as well when consuming this stuff.

So, in true irony, I thought it might be useful to add to the advice pile by having a guide to check back to, advice for myself at least, and a template for you to then make your own, to navigating through this content. I will build this out over the next couple of posts.

First principles: why do I bother?

Questions to myself: Why did I pick this book/podcast/blog post/youtube video instead of watching netflix/reading fiction/listening to a comedy show? Why did I choose this relative to other things? What itch am I looking to scratch right now?

Currently I’m reading 4000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman after spending a lot of time umming and ahhing about whether I should read it or not. I ended up taking the dive because it has popped up a few times in the last few years, and then I thought I’d give a podcast interview with him a listen a month ago, and then I’ve decided to take the plunge on the book. What a sucker. 

I was hesitant because I didn’t want to buy something that I already knew. I already know what he’s going to say, not just from its percolating, but from across my entire life before, because the key points are really timeless. We are finite, embrace that. We are imperfect, embrace that. We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, embrace that. It’s not worthwhile approaching everything as a means to an end, because our ends are often mirages. Embrace that. There are more points than this, but my point is that these are not new. 

It may be worth adding that I appreciate his writing style, the central themes that are approached from multiple angles and relatability of modern times. I do feel like there are solidly fresh perspectives here. I would recommend!

But why did I start (and continue)? Honestly, if I really think about it, and it’s taken me about two to three hours to conclude this part alone, but it’s not that complicated. It simply makes me feel better. I know I’m going to feel better reading it. I enjoy it. I enjoy the act of it; the process of reading/listening. I am genuinely intrigued about how other people approach the ‘how do I live a life well lived’ question. In many ways it’s a conversation I rarely engage with in my day to day life, and if it was, maybe that would scratch the itch as well.

Trap #1 – Thinking it’s not my entertainment

I should then recognise that this enjoyment is because it is a form of entertainment for me. My partner doesn’t seem the least bit interested in this kind of stuff, preferring to watch football or a true crime documentary. Internally, I get a bit snobby: ‘how can you really be watching football again?’; I argue (internally) about quality: reading a paperback of Thich Nhat Hanh is much more wholesome than watching a mid-week Premier League game! but that’s entirely subjective. Also, I have nothing against football – I watch it. In reality it is all just content to be consumed. I’m no better, my snobiness is unjustified, and she could very much say ‘how can you really be reading about finiteness again – boring!’. I am a passive spectator looking to be entertained and reading finiteness is how I get my kicks. 

Sometimes I even finish a book and immediately start another, and then chastise myself for not giving myself time to reflect on the first book. Same with podcasts. I tell myself that I should re-watch, take notes, but that only rarely happens. That’s okay though, if I recognise it for what it is i.e. entertainment, in the same way that a Netflix series rolls from one series into another. 

But that’s where I also need to be careful and where trap #1 is. Why do I chastise myself? Is it because I’m expecting more from a self-help book or podcast, and also from myself? Do I expect the content to entertain and also for it all to sink into my brain so that it changes my way of being for the better? The honest answer here is I do expect that, and that is me falling into the trap. I need to recognise that I confuse my intent with two separate modes of activity here: entertainment and study. 

Entertainment vs. study 

Entertainment I would say is done leisurely. Combining the definitions of entertainment and leisure from Google, it is the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment when one is not working or occupied; free time. For example, I read for 30 minutes before falling asleep. I listen to a podcast on my commute. There’s nothing else calling for me at that point. I am unoccupied, and e.g. reading is what I’m choosing to do in that time. Stuff comes in one ear, sounds good, and passes out the other. And that’s fine – the content entertains.

Study, I would say, is a focussed and intentional pursuit to really learn the material; to know it inside and out, top to bottom. A Google of the definition: ‘the devotion of time and attention to gaining knowledge of an academic subject, especially by means of books’. It requires really spending a lot of time with the material and deploying learning strategies. That’s just for learning the material, let alone what I would say is the next step (or at least a reinforcing step) of really learning the material through practice, in the same way you could study tennis in a book, but to be a good at tennis requires one to practice hitting the ball thousands of times, or learning maths really requires you to practice doing maths problems. Studying is when I would really want the content to sink into my brain.

The grey area and a potential solve

When putting entertainment and study side by side so starkly, the modes of activity seem very different, but I will be the first to admit that for self-help it has the ability to feel like there is grey area. My chastising is reinforced because some (disappointingly few) things from my ‘entertainment’ have stuck with me. Further, what does it mean if I read a book three times, does that count as study, or is that just entertainment three times over? 

I don’t think the anecdotes matter so much, and it’s just a way of thinking about approaching the material – entertainment and studying are just words. All the better if I read a book three times for entertainment and some of it sinks in and some of it doesn’t. I think the only way to really be clear on it though, and to avoid the trap, and reduce my chastising, is to be fully honest and transparent with myself upfront. Therefore, my potential solve is to announce my intention: I am reading for entertainment here, and that’s okay. Or vice versa. That way, I can avoid the trap of having expectations from something that I am simply doing for the pleasure of it.

And just to be clear, riffing off 4000 weeks, it’s okay to be entertained. It’s okay to have free time not spent on self-development/improvement. Leisurely entertainment isn’t a lesser activity (my take: if done in balance). At one point I was going to write that studying was the way to use self-help to improve my life, but on reflection that’s obviously wrong. Reading something I enjoy for entertainment, which makes my life better, which also functions as a reminder of big truths in that moment of reading also improves my life a lot in the moment, and life is just a series of moments – right?

So enjoy yourself, and keep it real!