We should’ve known everything was going to hell the moment R. Holden became a bestseller with Happiness Now, a book whose subtitle sounded more like a snake oil pitch than a respectable author’s work: “Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast.” Think about it: if it’s truly wisdom, and the well-being is instant — what could possibly go wrong, Holden?
The self-help genre went off the rails in the ‘90s. Back in 1936, when businessman Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People, he had no idea he was launching a whole literary genre destined to live for decades on bestseller shelves. The formula was already there: practical advice for readers, lots of cheerful examples. Still, Carnegie’s work had a solid and visible foundation in the tradition of Christian philosophy.
Byrne entangles her readers in a seductive little feedback loop of greed: if you’re happy, you’ll attract money. To be happy, you need The Secret. Flawless logic.
That’s no longer the case. Today’s self-help books are united by two central themes: attaining happiness and gagging guilt. The genre includes some worthwhile works, but they coexist with others whose quotes serve as raw material for a new trend: the rise of “other-help” TikTokers — the latest mutation in the decline of pop psychology, before reaching total destruction, namely using ChatGPT as your therapist.
It’s a stew of intellectual snake-oil salesmen. Eckhart Tolle promises spiritual enlightenment while cursing religion. In Meditations to Heal Your Life, Louise L. Hay denies original sin, then offers auto-recitable maxims like “I am a wonderful person, right now.” A lovely sentiment, unless the reader happens to be, say, a devoted follower of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader blown to bits in 2019.
Then there’s Paulo Coelho — boring and dumb even before he discovered Twitter. His entire sect-leader-meets-Summer-of-Love narrative can be boiled down to one of his cherished lines: “When you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” The entire universe, Paulo! What a scoop! I feel like a fool thinking of all the things I’ve failed to achieve — with the whole damn universe supposedly conspiring in my favor. I must be a special kind of idiot.
Let’s not forget Robin S. Sharma, author of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. What he really sold — brilliantly — was his book, along with a vague mix of ancient religious teachings he never bothers to explore. Feeling good matters more than truth. And maybe that’s the key to this self-help fever: it seeks immediate relief from symptoms without addressing deeper causes. In other words, it prioritizes feeling happy over being happy. Try feeling like a millionaire for a week. Do what real millionaires do. You’ll quickly discover the gaping chasm between feeling and being.
Remember 2006? The year self-help was reborn in a blaze of consumer frenzy, thanks to the mega-bestseller The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. This Australian writer and huckster discovered her own secret to happiness — striking it rich through publishing. That’s less of a secret than a miracle. She pulled it off by performing the time-tested trick of telling people exactly what they want to hear. “I’m going to tell you a secret about The Secret,” Byrne writes, always with the tone of someone on leave from a spy agency, “the shortcut to anything you want in life is to be and feel happy now! That’s the fastest way to attract money.”
Byrne entangles her readers in a seductive little feedback loop of greed: if you’re happy, you’ll attract money. To be happy, you need The Secret. Flawless logic. Perfect business. As a capitalist, I admire her. As a therapist, I’d be horrified.
The same people who used to binge-read emergency self-help now get their fix on social media, because 15 seconds of TikTok is faster than 300 pages of Paulo Coelho. And TikTokers, in turn, feed off the garbage published in self-help books over the decades — only more condensed. Most of it boils down to this: be happy now. Why? Because it’s better than being unhappy now. Unbeatable logic. We’re in the Golden Age of Fast-Food Psychology.
In the end, all these platitudes aimed at people desperate to hear them remind me of that brilliant line from humorist Dave Barry: “You can say any fool thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, ‘My God, you’re RIGHT! I NEVER would’ve thought of that!’” I’m sure you’re picturing that look right now. And you recognize it. When it comes to chasing happiness through all the wrong methods, we’re all a little bit like that dog.
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