This is the problem with the self help industry. It has become, by and large, a massive money making machine. Nowadays anyone can become a self help guru. With the littlest of effort, anyone can begin to make money telling other people how to live their life.
It's a system that works brilliantly for the self help gurus. But, I'm increasingly beginning to realise. It doesn't work so well for the rest of us. For example I've been a fan of Dumb Little Man and Stepcase Lifehack for sometime, but increasingly find their articles to be unreliable. They have articles urging me to drink 8 glasses of water a day, or Feng shui my office. When they have that kind of information on them how can I believe anything they say?
How do you tell the good advice from the bad? How do you know what works and what doesn't? For someone like me, struggling to start their own journey to self-improvement, the choices are overwhelming.
And so I plan set about to separate the plausible from the ridiculous, the stupid from the successful, the rich-in-quality from the morally bankrupt.
I will be looking to review all the self help techniques I can and find the hard evidence. Do they really work? Or are they just ways of distracting yourself until you feel better? I want to make this blog the place to go to find life changing techniques that really work. From now I hope to not only find the spirit in a spiritless world, but track down the self-help success stories from the Snake oil Salesmen.
And then, when I have tracked them all down, and I know they all work, maybe then I can put them in book form, and sell them to people for $19.95 a go...
Monday, February 14
A Scientific Self-Help Guru
Wednesday, July 28
Does Skepticism take the fun out of life?
Part of me has always been a skeptic. Even as a Christian I used to experiment. Being told that I couldn't do things I would try them to find out why. I borrowed a book on self-hypnosis from the library, burnt joss sticks in my room and practised yoga. I was somewhat disappointed that I never ended up being possessed by a demon.
Recently though, in my quest to find spirituality, I decided to try it again. Realising a DVD may not have been the best way to learn a marshal art, I attended a free taster session at a local park instead. And watched as my skepticism took all the fun out of it.
The teacher, dressed all in black in the 28° heat, began to teach to us about Chi.
The problem is that I already know about Chi. And I know that Chi doesn't exist. No evidence has ever been found to support it. No working medicine is based on it. No laws of physics allow for it.
And just like that the session was ruined for me. I'd hoped to try Tai Chi as a moving form of meditation: a way to clear my mind. Instead I spent the rest of the session trying to ignore the fact that the energy meant to be moving through me didn't exist. Far from being relaxed I felt like a fraud. At any moment I my mask might slip and I'd be revealed as the James Kirk fan at the Star Wars convention
This is where my skepticism had brought me. I had gone to the class looking to experience some peace, and instead experienced a deep desire to sit everyone down and explain basic biology to them.
This isn't the first time my skepticism has done this. It's ruined films and TV shows, made me doubt my friends harmless stories and anecdotes, and even put me on guard whilst someone is pouring out their heart to me and asking me for help. My critical thinking has trained me to doubt everything. And it's making me more of a cynic than I want to be!
I love my skepticism. I love being able to apply critical thinking to the world around me. But I still want to be able to get lost in some of the mysteries of the planet. I still want to able to indulge in some of the benefits of the spiritual world without needing to believe the lies that are behind it. But my skepticism doesn't have an off switch!
How do you stop your skepticism from taking over your life? Is it possible to be a skeptic and still enjoy new, mysterious, experiences?