Word: self-help
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...think there is a kind of self-help payoff to my work, but it takes almost the opposite form of the love calculator. I spend a lot of my time trying to de-idealize love, to undermine the criterion of “success” in love. I have always been drawn to really tragic accounts of impossible love. I know lots of people find this really depressing, but somehow for me it’s sustaining. I guess it’s partly the solace of shared misery, but also I think it takes the pressure...
...Sigmund Freud! You reported that his understanding of the complexity and mystery of the human mind has been unsurpassed. He insisted that the human condition is more than mental health or illness, that it is both tragic and majestic in scope. We have better living through chemistry and self-help bromides for happiness. As a no-longer-practicing therapist, I have seen the rise of the so-called dramatic cluster of personality disorders. Have you noticed an increase in such disorders in our political and corporate leaders as we witness their unbridled narcissism and antisocial traits? LIBBY WEIN Los Angeles...
...past two weeks, we'll bet 150 people have wished you happy New Year. And at the supermarket or dry cleaner, someone wanted you to "have a nice day." The Democrats used to chorus, "Happy days are here again." The noted self-help guru Bobby McFerrin counseled, "Don't worry, be happy." Other pop singers tell us that happiness is "a thing called Joe" (Judy Garland), "what my life's about" (Vanessa Williams), "when you feel really good with somebody" (Al Green), "a warm gun" (John Lennon), "an option" (Pet Shop Boys). The old saloon singer Ted Lewis used...
...result is something more than the usual self-help guff. What Should I Do with My Life? is closer to the oral histories of Studs Terkel or This American Life than to Tony Robbins. What ties Bronson's subjects together is that most of them never got that Pauline postcard, that mystical memo telling them what they were here for. They had to figure it out the hard way. Many pulled courageous, tire-screeching, midcareer 180s, like the miserable marine biologist who threw away his Ph.D. to become a deliriously happy dentist, or the hard-charging vice president at First...
...this? Quit school? Go back to school? Walk away from our comfy, high-paying job? Run away to a Caribbean island? Bronson's subjects try all these solutions and more, but he has the good grace to spare us easy answers. The fact is, we already know from self-help gurus what to do. Follow your dreams. Never give up. Believe in yourself. The answers to the ultimate question are often cliches, and that doesn't mean they're wrong--they're just not very helpful. What's helpful is seeing that other people are trying too, even if they...