Young people in their 20s are currently facing even more future uncertainty and instability than is stereotypical of our generation. We’re graduating university degrees into a world where it is unclear which cities or countries are safest to live in. It’s not only hard but completely futile to plan for our future when the structures of society are so unstable and the rules of being a citizen fluctuate by the day.
We’ve needed something to occupy our time during these weird years, as has everyone, but most of the things that are on that list for young people have been systematically banned in the last two years which leaves only one thing left to consider: ourselves.
My friends and I have fallen deep into the self-help vortex in the last few years. After all, what else is there to do when you’re intermittently locked inside for two years? It is a bit stereotypical of young people to fall into the self-help vortex in their 20s and granted plenty of us were well into the rabbit-hole before covid, but for the last two year’s it’s been exacerbated by the drastic lack of alternate pastimes. I’m not even complaining that we can’t party (although I am a bit), but that gyms have been closed, jobs have been lost, classes have been shoved online, events and travel have been cancelled, all of which leaves many empty hours to fill each day. Substance abuse can be a fun pastime, but it really isn’t cute after six or twelve months.
The self-help genre ranges from well-researched and thought-out works written by qualified psychological professionals to the unqualified ramblings of people with a few whacky life experiences and some drug-induced epiphanies, taking the place of universally useful advice. Admittedly I’ve often said, with an air of mild intellectual superiority, that yes, I do read self-help, but only the “good stuff”, not “that garbage-y manifest your dreams crap”. Ironically, I think everyone that reads self-help makes this claim.
One of the darker reasons why I can portray falling into a self-help vortex as beneficial, is that it was – and is – the better of two horrible options, the other of which is the spiral toward ever-deteriorating mental health. While stuck in lockdown, gorging on self-help content was simply a coping mechanism, something constructive and at least partially positive to occupy the anxious mind and to buffer against the inevitable doom.
Despite the pitfalls, it has been hugely beneficial to many of us in many, many ways. I thoroughly enjoy seeing my loved ones become better versions of themselves and achieve their potential. Certainly, a great amount of personal growth has come out of the last two years, but so too has a great amount of overthinking and corrosive internal judgement. It is impossible to know the true impact of all this turbulent “self-helping”. Likewise, it’s difficult to know exactly how much of it would’ve happened without the pandemic. That is one alternate reality we’ll never get to experience.
The irony is that people do need help. At a societal level, we are starved for meaning, spirituality or whatever that thing is that people apparently used to get from following religion. This is no secret amongst our culture, but simply accepting the truth of evolution as an alternative to creationism does not automatically prescribe a sense of purpose within one’s soul. It’s clear that we’re living through a time that will one day be the subject of whole textbooks, but it can be very hard to tell from the eye of the storm which way the wind is blowing.
Born into a world without spirituality, modern individuals typically fall into one of two directions. Devotion to the ideology of the time, i.e. adhering to whatever social dogmas are most present in their society. This is the role organised religions once would have played, and indeed still does in many parts of world. For the individual that rejects this though, they are left to consider themselves in a deep and more solitary way. It takes conscious effort to stand apart from all the crowds. Hence, the self-help rabbit hole will present itself as the tool for internal review. Jordan Peterson is famous for his rule “Clean up your room”, which is a slightly unfortunate and very meme-able way of saying that individuals should first scrutinise themselves and their immediate orbit, before judging the world at large – which happens to be exactly the commandment of the current lefty post-modern ideology. Peterson’s idea is objectively better for us all because less people will be trying to deconstruct society, and we end up with more, better rounded individuals. Particularly during these pandemic years, we can see that individuals have either ramped up their ideological virtue-signalling or amplified their work on themselves. Both could be described as coping mechanisms since they seem to give a sense of purpose to the individual.
Whatever ideas we cling to get through tough times, you can be sure that they’ve been sold to us by some invisible force. It’s well established that marketing preys on the consumer’s insecurities. You need to be thinner, prettier, smarter, etc. The self-help industry is no different, though it sneakily seems to be more academic because its products are paper-bound books, long-form podcasts, respectable interviews, paid seminars, and TED talks. However, the fundamental insecurity that allows it to be so successful, is the sinister implication that there is something wrong with you and it needs to be fixed.
Judgment of oneself can be incredibly productive and is essential to human growth. Without internal judgement, we would all be bewildered as to why we keep repeating the same mistakes. However, self-judgement should not be allowed to run away without limit, and without a counterbalance. Valuing and loving yourself is equally essential, and not in the lame “you’re perfect the way you are” Tumblr sense. We must value our world, the people in it, our loved ones and ourselves. Sadly, this is all a little bit harder when everything fun seems to have been cancelled, and groupthink is more pervasive than ever. It is true that the required baseline for resilience has increased. You almost have to be a disagreeable rebellious spirit to simply allow yourself to be happy these days.
There is an especially disgusting genre of self-help that preaches self-love, and yes, in the icky Tumblr sense. Rather than genuinely loving yourself, the idea here is that nothing at all is wrong with you and you are perfect. Any friction between yourself and the external world is the fault of the world. This genre is rooted in post-modernism of course, so obviously there is a fallacy right below the surface. If the external world is made up of other individual selves, and all the issues each of them have is not their own fault, but the fault of everyone else, then who is at fault? Who will take responsibility for improving things?
What is ironic is that judgement and love are the optimal healthy combination, and perhaps consumers would be more benefitted if they were sold as a package deal, but of course that would require contradictory marketing and more space for cognitive dissonance than most entry-level self-help seekers have. Most people cannot stomach both truths – that they may be the cause of their problems, and that they should have love for themselves in order to grow. The human mind tends to one or the other, but to comfortably sit with both requires a lot of learning, patience and understanding.
So, the problems are firstly that so much of self-help is utter garbage, and even the so-called “good stuff” can be taken too far. The other major harm comes from going too far. Once you’ve picked up the basic skills of goal setting, habit building, time management and introspection, then that is about all you need. The simple maintenance of these habits over a lifetime coupled with an acceptance of who you are will surely lead to a life well lived. If at that point, you keep up the momentum of self-help, constantly seeking more ways you can fix yourself, then you’ll likely end up insecure and anxious, trying to iron out every tiny imperfection of your own character and optimise every minute of your day to get to your fictitious ideal self as fast as possible. This is the stereotype of the deeply unhappy and nervous over achiever, who sadly was brought to the forefront within many of us during these last two years, simply in an effort to survive. Even the healthiest things can be overdosed on.
Self-help is like the spark that lights a lifelong journey of growth, but not a tool that is needed consistently throughout that journey. A lighter is essential to light a cigarette, but once lit, it burns on its own. You do not hold the flame to the cigarette the whole time you smoke it. If you do, eventually, you get burned. Utilise self-help for its value, but once lit, remember, the light burns inside of you.