Do self-help books really helps us?

After a rewarding vacation that had stretched for two months, I was again at the airport with a stuffed bag and a heavy heart. 

With the long layovers and travelling alone, I had decided to read a book, and that book that had changed me in many ways, it helped me see the world in a new light which was what I needed at that moment.

I read my first self-help book earlier this year when I knew I had to make major changes in my life and to be fair I was physically unhealthy, mentally ill and quite pathetic.

I knew enough was enough; that I wasn’t going to allow myself to spend every night loathing myself and waking up feeling miserable.

I decided to make a change.

I watched countless videos on YouTube and listened to podcast on topics like “the best morning routine”, “5 routines that could change your life”, “The 8 habits of highly successful people” and the list could go on and one but more or less it stayed the same.

I was on the road to be a better person because those videos and podcast promised me that.

And yes indeed in the first few months of eating healthier and following a better routine I felt much better than I had done so in years.

The joy of being a better person hit me like a drug and I grabbed every opportunity to listen to advice on how I could be better

Until those words start saturating and in the dilemma of wanting to be better I had lost myself, I had forgotten how to make sound judgment without an approval from those self-help gurus, I didn’t allow myself to make mistakes because that would mean there is something wrong with me.

There is nothing incorrect with wanting to be a better person but in that process we forget to allow ourselves to be human. 

Most self-help books constantly bombard you with the idea that you always have to be happy, that you need to always have a positive outlook on life, they treat sadness, guilt, shame as though they are unnatural and having such emotions means you are failing but life has to be a mixture of all these emotions and we should seek help to deal with those unhappy emotions but not to picture them as evil or unwanted.