I'm reading a motivational book called Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis so that I can review it for the school newspaper. It's basically about how to overcome all the identity issues that come along after you have graduated college. At one point in the book a person is quoted as saying "Maybe you will go to Costa Rica and find that you have a passion for saving the gorillas." I could be wrong, but the last time I checked there weren't silverbacks running around San Jose. This just goes to show why motivational speakers always intentionally keep their speeches vague: they risk making themselves look like complete morons. If they become too specific, some perceptive college student is going to tear them to shreds on his blog. These speakers always seem to have their shit figured out, but in reality they are just morons who look in the mirror and say "I've got hair implants and a cheap suit, I'll write a book telling dudes like me how to get chicks." You can't really blame these motivational authors/speakers, because the real morons are the people who walk by these books in the store and say "Oh shit! I thought I would never be able to figure out how to turn my life around in 10 easy steps, but now Dr. Dick has written this great book on how to do exactly that. Where's my credit card?"
Take Dr. Phil for example. Oprah made Dr. Phil famous, and now he's like a freakin' guru for anyone who watches daytime TV. Stay at home mothers in the Midwest tune in to this guy every day and listen to him give vague advice like "Happiness comes from within. If you aren't happy with yourself, you won't ever be happy with your life." I just made that shit up but I bet Dr. Phil wrote that in a book or has said it on TV at least once. Am I going to go publish that? Hell no, because it doesn't mean anything. I was Dr. Phil's nephew's camp counselor last summer and this kid was freakin' psychotic. Sometimes his eyes would widen and he would just start screaming and bouncing off the walls. If Dr. Phil can't even ensure that his own family isn't going nuts, how can he go around giving advice to people on how to fix their shit?
I will give you some good advice now, and you don't even have to pay for it: shit tends to work out more often than not. Problems in your life are temporary, even though they might not always work out how you want them to. You will never worry about one thing for your entire life; everything will be resolved, and you will be able to move on. (Unless you're scared of dying every day, then I don't know what to tell you except maybe try to take some pills to cut down your anxiety.) Stop looking to other people for good advice, just find something that chills you out and use it.
i once dated in high school the daughter of John Gray who wrote Men are From Mars Women are From Venus which is like a relationship book and this family was so dysfunctional, the mom and dad still lived together for hte daughters sake but slept in separate bedrooms and shit.
ReplyDeleteI once dated the Son of God's daughter. She was really sweet and quite pretty with kind of an exotic touch. Anyway, home life was anything but happy. As far as I could tell, her parents weren't on good terms. Stranger more, her mom did a lot of volunteer work, but was never given any credit by her husband or any other for that matter. It seemed like the Son of God did most of the cooking too, preferring his own bread and wine to Safeway's or Costco's. Well, I don't know what happened between us, but I just wanted to add my own personal anecdote.
ReplyDelete~Dan