I kind of hate number 2 -- doesn't it come down to "if anything makes you unhappy, it's your own fault for not being able to let it roll off your back"?
God what sanctimonious crap. Actually, the second two I find basically unobjectionable.
I think it's more "don't be buffeted around by assholes who are going to do their asshole thing, surely as a duck's gonna quack." I don't think it implies that you should be happy about making insufficient money at your three jobs to cover your expenses.
Except of course that it's impossible to think about things without making assumptions; "don't make unwarranted assumptions without ever checking" would be more apt, but of course that phrasing doesn't suit itself to pithy idiocy.
And four, in the absence of clear-eyed self criticism, is also meaningless. In general these seem to be constructed broadly enough that anybody can believe that they're following them (or failing them) at any time. Which is clever, on the author's part, certainly.
I meant to address Sifu's 2, of course.
In general these seem to be constructed broadly enough that anybody can believe that they're following them (or failing them) at any time.
Sure, but these are good places to start introspection from.
As to one: only say what you mean, never self-deprecate, and never gossip; taken literally, this advice is impossible. Speech is allusive and conceptual and indirect, and to presume that people have a clear idea of what they should or want to say at all times is robotic bullshit.
9: But whenever we're discussing things on Unfogged, the sub-goal is to say what you're trying to say as accurately as possible, (and to thoroughly check your assumptions.)
Whereas horoscopes are qualitatively flimsy bullshit which is a pure Rorscharch test. I think this is more sound.
I mean, for instance (that is, as an instance of what I find objectionable about the Ideas For Living posted): comment three is entirely unobjectionable. On the other hand, comment three is not what the original proscriptions say. They say that other people's words are projections of their own reality on to you, and you should be immune to them. Taken literally, that's an argument in favor of delusional narcissim! (And I'm sure there are those who take it that way.)
Following #1 would inevitably result in a person becoming stupid, boring, hated, and unsuccessful.
A huge amount of college-level instruction amounts to "Stop overgeneralizing. Write more specifically what you're actually trying to say." That's what I interpret that 1 is getting at.
Obviously I love to gossip and would never stop, though.
It just occured to me that the whole thing wantonly violates its own first commandment.
11.2: I don't. But I don't mean to be a jerk (to you; I'm happy to be a jerk to the inspirational sayings); your interpretation of those things seems perfectly laudable.
I'm not sure how you're supposed to fit 2 into, say, a relationship. Or raising children.
14.1 to the quoted passage (I know I pwned myself).
There's a grain of truth to #2, but as formulated here it's solipsistic. Humans are inherently social creatures. Pretty much all we do is define ourselves in relation to others. Don't see how you could get around that even if you wanted to.
These match up pretty closely to things I already tell myself, which is why it's not obvious to me how other people would abuse them. Internal narratives and all that.
Number 2 seems pretty horrible to me. No two people can ever influence each other! We are all solipsistic assholes chasing our personal dreams! Sounds a lot like the economist's view of the world, I guess.
Maybe the 5th one should be that everyone should consult with me before applying these haphazardly.
19: that makes sense; I imagine that in that context there's really nothing objectionable about this at all. But I can easily imagine somebody using this exact same list of agreements in the service of hateful, self-congratulatory selfishness.
It totally reminds me of this, my previous go-to source for "you create your own reality" style newage; if you feel like you lack agency in the world -- or that you don't belong anywhere -- it can be very powerfully positive, but it can also lead to just titanic selfishness.
I'm going to use the word "selfishness" in every comment from here on out. That's my Agreement!
This seems like an interesting companion to the D2 piece defending bankers -- it talks about integrity but it never really mentions ethics.
It seems completely compatible with the mind-set that gets you to, "just give me the bill and spare me the lecture."
(More serious and less snarky comment in a bit. In general I agree that they aren't bad.)
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
The Secret is only a step away from this, right? Moving on from not letting others get you down to projecting your own reality to end your victimhood of insufficient riches / weighing too much / not having fulfilling relationships / etc.
26: it was incredibly influential on tons of things that have come since, notably The Secret (and also including these Agreements, seemingly).
The thing is, though, that I do listen to friends who are endlessly suffering over offhand comments that other people make, and I want to say "Cut it out! Who knows what they meant, but stop over-thinking it! You're making yourself miserable. Hup two!"
titanic selfishness
Nobody ever worries about me, and I was just floating minding my own business.
Off to teach, grandly and impeccably.
The problem with telling people to not take things personally is the lack of scope conditions. If you call me at work to try to get me to refinance a mortgage, you should take every word I say to heart.
I don't take advice that doesn't come from Batman Jesus.
Or Batman.
Did some philosopher make a ton of money by pointing out that pretty much all deontological approaches are basically reiterations of the Golden Rule? Because that would be a neat way for a philosopher to make some skrilla.
33: Lots of this self help stuff seems to be "love your neighbor as yourself" minus the "your neighbor as" part.
I think agreement number one is a recipe for becoming a loser.
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So, Fresh Salt, this Saturday? Who is still up for that? Any time is fine with me.
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Could teo explain to us how the "The Four Agreements" is characteristic of Toltec thought, as opposed to Mayan or Aztec philoosophies?
In any case, I approve, because I despise all American philosophy, except for, of course, Native American philosopy.
I don't like 2 either. Substitute the Four Immeasurables, and I think you end up with a better world.
The fourth Agreement: no. Worldviews built around getting rid of "self-judgment" and "regret" as though these things were diseases are pernicious; since self-judgment and regret are big parts of how people learn to be less shitty to each other, people who are genuinely determined to live with "no regrets" are not to be trusted. (Having "no regrets" because you genuinely believe you took the correct path which others criticize is a different matter -- at least in theory -- but not what the Agreement is talking about.)
The second Agreement is awful in a related way. It basically provides an excuse to assume that in any situation you encounter where others criticize you, the problem can never be what you actually did or said, the choices you actually made. The problem can never be you. But again, a person who genuinely believed this would be an utter sociopath. Obviously in real life, there are personal issues surrounding our actions, and things that we should take personally if we want to improve as people.
The first and third Agreements are less objectionable -- partly because they're basically restatements of the same point -- but Sifu is right that whoever wrote this stuff didn't really think it through. (I also don't know what the Word business is supposed to be about, and I don't think I want to.)
I think it is extremely important not to confuse proverbial wisdom with ethical philosophy and to further recognize that people need proverbs in practical life. Lists like this fall apart quickly under logical scrutiny, but that is not their point. They are not presenting a theory with arguments. They act as reminders of things we typically forget.
I've been meaning to read the DFW essay on self help "You Are Not Too Smart for This," because it sounds like the attitude I have been moving toward.
It occurs to me that if you buy the second Agreement, there's no particular reason to pay attention to the first Agreement; if nothing others do is because of you, who cares if you behave with integrity towards them?
40: I think I started reading that one and cast the book aside, lightly and insouciantly. Still, it's a hell of a fate to have one's legacy limited to cruise ship anecdotes and sad hipsters.
40: It's also extremely important to be able to recognize that not all proverbs are created equal. Some are just bad advice that, if someone tries to remind themselves about and act upon, make for more selfish and inane people and a worse world. The self-help industry and women's and men's magazines are brimming with examples, some of them worse than the Four Agreements.
Reflecting on this a bit more I would say that, while those rules aren't bad, it's still appropriate to be sensative to and critical of the connotations because, as other people have pointed out, there's no shortage of decent rules to live by.
It isn't difficult to write guidelines for good behavior, the difficulty comes in balancing competing principles (I've mentioned before that I find the pair of, "be willing to assert and peersue your desires" and, "don't be greedy or entitled" to be an evocative set of challenges).
This list disguises the hard work by not really mentioning the idea of obligations (other than honesty).
I wonder if Heebie's going to suggest these maxims to the unfortunate janitor lady? They may just be the things that magically turn everything around for her.
41: You just don't get it, Sifu! Speaking with integrity is something you do for your Self! To speak without integrity hurts your Self!
(ouch! I hurt my Self again!)
I harbor a suspicion that I would be happier were I able to un-ironically admire vague pieties and formulaic self-help slogans.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
I was recently talking to someone not much younger than me who had never heard of Desiderata. It made quite the pop-culture splash back in the day, though - lots of posters sold, and the spoken-word version all over the radio.
Ships passing in the night, with Integrity.
"You are a child of the universe and the under-aged galaxy in the universe's English class."
It's also extremely important to be able to recognize that not all proverbs are created equal.
Yes, I agree. With that in mind, here is an alternative from Master Kong to #2.
When on my way I meet three men, there must be at least one from whom I can learn something: He who is a good example I shall follow; the bad example will make me rectify myself.
Thing with proverbs, though, is that their quality is driven largely by context. Master Kong himself gave out contradictory advice, and when called on it, explained that he was saying what the person he was talking to most needed to hear. In general in the US, we do not need to hear more "love yourself" advice, but many still do need to hear it.
I should really investigate this New Age stuff more thoroughly, as part of my project to become less ethical.
It's also extremely important to be able to recognize that not all proverbs are created equal.
DS and I are on the same page on this one.
Consider this list (off the top of my head)
1) Know yourself -- be clear about your own preferences, opinions, and goals
2) Pay Attention -- To the world and other people. Be prepared to understand other people's preferences, opinions, and goals, which will be different from yours own, without necessarily changing yours.
3) Be Good -- Attempt, on balance, to make other people's lives better for having interacted with you, and to leave the world better than it would have been without your presence.
4) Care -- about the tasks you do, the challenges you chose to take on, and the people you are close to. It will make a difference.
I could clean up the language for those four, but my point is that it isn't that difficult to come up with a list, and those have a noticeably different emphasis than the one's quoted in the OP (with some significant overlap).
The Second Agreement is obviously false as written (i.e. as a universal generalisation) but has true instances in enough cases to be valuable (see 40). Also, it's useful to distinguish some sub-varieties of the phenomenon. Firstly, haters gonna hate (see 3). Secondly, the criticism you're worrying people are making is often not the one they're actually thinking of (cf. projection). Thirdly, when people are giving you a hard time they're often slightly hungry. Which is why I make a habit of carrying around a Snickers bar to seemingly spontaneously offer them. One could go on.
45, 53 -- If she takes 2 to heart, she won't listen. And if she takes 1 to heart, HG will never hear how it all turns out.
I agree with the list in #54, plus one addition:
5) Burritos -- maximize the consumption thereof.
In any event, it seems unobjectionable to come up with a series of "I should" credos, whereas many "you should" statements are quite obnoxious.
2 seems incompatible with my desire to wreak terrible violent vengeance.
Firstly, haters gonna hate
I think this is the wisest thing said so far.
55 last -- My wife returned from her weekend photo class and brought me a bag of huckleberry macaroons from the Merc. I'm not saying I'd give one to someone who was casually irritating, but in an emergency situation (aka some gal you're interested in has begun to resemble Don Rickles), they probably work better than a Snickers bar.
Self-satisfied bourgeois that I am, I think that the Four-Way Test beloved of Rotarians is superior as a practical guide to everyday behavior. The two systems overlap on point one. After that, the Rotarian code becomes more outwardly directed and consequentialist. The fourth part of the four-way test always seemed the most problematic to me (you would find yourself paralyzed if you applied it too literally), but at least it's unlikely to tempt you into solipsism or sociopathy.
51: Thing with proverbs, though, is that their quality is driven largely by context.
Context is important, but a badly-formulated proverb isn't necessarily going to be rescued by it. If the proverb as written is an out-and-out falsehood or largely a falsehood, the overall likelihood of its functioning "in context" as bad advice goes way up.
A friend and mentor in grad school told me once that he tried to live by the rule "don't be an asshole." He wasn't suggesting it as a single rule to make one's guiding principle, but as far as that goes, it wouldn't be such a bad one.
(I guess partly I liked it because it was a funny pronouncement coming from U of C institution, Freud scholar, etc.--someone whose name comes up in biographies of Bettelheim.)
36.2: I'm going to be out of town
62 -- Those Rotary principles point to me sharing those macaroons. The OP agreements do not. I'm sticking with Heebie on this.
I did like the comment on the D^2 arsefest that shorterised him to "don't hate the player, hate the game". D^2 as a rapper amuses me.
Invoking the custodian is an asshole move.
Regarding #4 in the OP, some of the best advice I ever received -- from a more senior colleague one morning walking in from the parking lot after I confessed to being super-stressed about not being fully prepared for class that day -- was "not everythng worth doing is worth doing well." She (now a dean) advised me to simply go to my files and take out some material where I was fully prepared, and explain to the class that we had changed the topic for that day because [bullshit excuse]. Worked like a charm.
67: Well, more pointing out that these aren't something that can be applied universally. This sort of self-helpy stuff often works okay, if you interpret it in a nonsociopathic manner, for people who don't have concrete problems. But it breaks down, mostly, when you think of whether they'd be any use to someone who's poor, or sick, or in danger somehow.
not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
In fact, as one Pterry character points out, anything worth doing is worth doing badly; even an imperfect attempt at something laudable is probably better than no attempt at all. (The character is actually referring to folk music, which may be one of the exceptions.)
"not everythng worth doing is worth doing well."
Now those are some words to live by.
67 gets it right.
I like that a lot of the comments are, essentially, "Why, if I programmed a robot with nothing but these four rules, it'd be a monster.".
I'd go a little further than LB: if proverbial advice being offered as a guide to life would be so obviously worthless to someone with concrete problems that even mentioning them in the same frame is a dick move... then the advice as stated is itself a waste of time.
72: I like that a lot of the comments are, essentially, "Why, if I programmed a robot with nothing but these four rules, it'd be a monster."
No they aren't. A lot of the comments are: "if someone tried earnestly to apply these rules, they'd be a worse person."
Well, more pointing out that these aren't something that can be applied universally.
These are appropriate jumping off points for introspection. The custodian's stories are something that is deeply bothering me. Mockingly saying I should share this with her is a total dick move.
Fortunately I'm both speaking accurately and not taking it personally.
Well, more pointing out in the most assholish manner possible that these aren't something that can be applied universally.
I do agree with 68. Whole-heartedly. In fact, I generally consider "doing my best" to mean "giving 80%, 80% of the time."
45 certainly wasn't kindly put. But I think the point it made is valid.
The point is not valid. These are not advice you ought to give someone else. If she wanted to know how to change her outlook, fine, then yes, these are places to start. But her outlook isn't out of step with the facts around her.
78: huh, I generally try to give 85 to 90%. I think of myself as a B+ person. Maybe I'm riding myself too hard.
These are nice principles for people who are too nice, who usually assume the best about others and have a hard time saying no.
The rhetoric is badly chosen for this; the overgeneral tone is wrong for the purpose.
For aphorisms, I like la Rochefoucauld myself. He's interested in people's motivations. We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.
Aphorisms and ethical systems aren't going to do much for people who are genuinely distressed or who have real deficits.
And I'm not saying 80% casually. I really do think back "Was I on time 4 out of 5 classes?" If so, great. If not, I'll try to figure out a strategy to get me there more often on time.
72: contrariwise, let me rewrite the four agreements for you, sentence by sentence:
1. Tell people what you think of them. Don't say it unless you can back it up. Don't indulge in talking shit about yourself or talk behind people's backs; talk shit about people to their faces. When you think people aren't behaving in a truthful, loving way, make sure to tell them that.
2. Don't Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is irrelevant to your actions. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless meddling in your desires.
3. Don't Make Assumptions: if you want something, ask for it. Tell people exactly what you think, and what you want, so they give it to you.
4. Always Do Your Best: sometimes, you won't be able to do anything; sometimes you might not feel like it. Do what you want to, and don't feel bad about not doing anything else.
Now, I tried to be sort of fair, there. Obviously it's not totally fair. But a reading of this Agreement For Living that leads to somebody acting like an insufferable asshole is easily available without recourse to uncomprehending literalism.
And, of course, you couldn't program a robot according to these rules, because they're impossibly vague.
79: These are not advice you ought to give someone else.
They're certainly being framed and advertised as advice to be given to someone else, as the author is in fact giving it to the readers of his awful pseudo-Toltec self-help book. Transmission is after all a pretty necessary step: someone has to "give" someone else this advice before they can start "domesticating" it or whatever. I don't think anyone genuinely believes you would be insensitive enough to give it to the custodian.
76: you seem to have a paucity of imagination for the most assholish way possible.
79: These are not advice you ought to give someone else.
Come on, the dude wrote a book handing them out as advice, presumably expecting other people would read it. If they weren't advice to be handed out to other people, you'd never have heard of them.
If they only make sense for people who are unhappy solely because of their outlook, rather than because they have any concrete problems, they seem awfully limited in scope.
They're certainly being framed and advertised as advice to be given to someone else, as the author is in fact giving it to the readers of his awful pseudo-Toltec self-help book.
The nature of self-help is that the only one allowed to tell anyone else what to do is the author. Everyone else is supposed to buy-in and help themselves. It is called self-help.
Ok, here's how I'd phrase them:
1. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
2. Don't be buffeted around by assholes who are going to do their asshole thing, surely as a duck's gonna quack.
3. Consider the context.
4. Give 80% effort, 80% of the time.
87: I don't understand that. Someone told you about this book, presumably approvingly, and therefore implied that if you took the advice therein you'd be better off. Whether or not you have to buy-in and help yourself, whoever told you about the book joined with the author in giving you the advice therein.
89: Those sound like pretty good advice.
The nature of self-help is that the only one allowed to tell anyone else what to do is the author.
Not so. A good "self-help" author generates followers who attempt to transmit to other people what passes for their wisdom. (Preferably by helping advertise their books and videos.) The "self-help" part comes in whether one chooses to buy into the advice, not in who is or isn't giving it.
If a set of "self-help" maxims is so vacuous and subpar that they're defensible only via rewriting, and the mere insinuation that you might offer them up to someone with real problems is offensive and assholish, then you simply shouldn't defend the maxims. There is something obviously wrong with them.
89, 91: those do sound like good advice! I don't think they have anything to do with the agreements in the post.
90: I wasn't unloading my problems, and then the person gave me this advice. The student was telling me some background stuff she's dealt with, and this was part of her story and her approach to life. It's the same as if someone was describing their religion without proselytizing.
Self-help authors are generally noxious scammers, I'll agree with that. Nevertheless, using these guidelines does not imply that you're supposed to tell other people to use these guidelines.
Was this post handing out advice? It's not intended as such. (It was intended as something to argue about. I assumed a good-faith reading of something cheesy would piss everyone off. I'm so clever.)
I'm going to start applying the DS filter to all advice I hear.
Does "I wonder if Heebie's going to suggest the Golden Rule to the unfortunate janitor lady? They may just be the things that magically turn everything around for her." sound dickish?
Was this post handing out advice? It's not intended as such.
meet
But as far as boiler plate guidelines to life go, I think this is otherwise pretty sound. On the whole, I approve.
If you take the post as sincere, you're advising people that you approve of the quoted guidelines and believe that they're sound. It may not have been sincere advice, but it was advice.
96.2: Oh, I think your intent was clear. (As was 45's intent, which obviously was part of the arguing and not a serious contention about something you would do.) But it is of course perfectly commonplace for self-help to function as advice given and, to whatever degree convenience permits, taken. And therefore perfectly permissible to argue about it as something meant to function in this way.
If you take the post as sincere, you're advising people that you approve of the quoted guidelines and believe that they're sound.
Well, being obnoxious is an intrinsic part of riling people up. Don't shoot the messenger.
100 is just Sifu projecting his reality on you, Eggplant. FWIW, you seem to me to be giving about 80%.
101: Okay, so, um, 45 shows that the system works?
FWIW, you seem to me to be giving about 80%.
A personal best!
I feel like I should be sharing more anecdotes in this thread; part of the reason I jumped right in about how stupid the Agreements are is that I've known more than a few people who used very similar, new-age-y sentiments like these to justify being abysmally self-obsessed. I'm sure they can be helpful aphorisms for somebody who is used to taking shit and never standing up for themselves, but if you ever meet somebody who takes them as words to live by, boy, watch out.
No, no, it's different when people try to rile me up.
But seriously, I stand by calling 45 an asshole move, in a way that the original post isn't. The OP would have been a much better post if it had included the rewrites in 89. As written, it's antagonistic but not such an asshole move.
What makes 45 asshole is that the custodian's stories are really upsetting to me, and it makes you vulnerable when you share something upsetting. So a cheap shot in that direction is a dick move.
1. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
Well, being obnoxious is an intrinsic part of riling people up. Don't shoot the messenger.
Just saying.
Perhaps the OP is my other 20%.
As the author of the much ballyhooed 45: Eh, I gave about as much respect to what I think are really bad ideas as is generally given in this forum. My point, as others have already articulated, is that these sorts of things don't generally solve problems that are really worth solving.
I'll confess that I hear a lot of this kind of crap in my facebook newsfeed, from people with materially secure lives but lots of bullshit internal 'problems', so I have little patience and charity left over for it.
60: I think it's one of those lessons that can be harder for some genuinely smart people to learn than for many who are less intellectual. If you're a certain sort of person who's good at reasoning, who therefore sometimes manages to persuade people with good-faith arguments, you'll end up seeing things through the lens of respect for intellectual objectivity. If you're less good at reasoning, or for some other reason less intellectually-oriented, you're more likely to rely on pure rhetoric in your own offerings and so, given that familiarity with one's own bullshit, more likely to be able to identify bad-faith criticisms as such. This dynamic might have had something to do with Obama's seeming inability to realise that giving Republicans what they said they wanted wouldn't stop them from deploying their ridiculous attack-memes. (Actually, I lean more towards the `Obama: closet Republican' explanation these days but, you know, anything's possible.)
61: Sure, but you go to war with the office snack-machine you have...
I knew a woman who would frequently offer up new-age feel good aphorisms. She often had a wide-eyed, scared look about her, as if she had to keep repeating these things or she would burst into tears on the spot. She had seven or eight kids and lived way out in the middle of the woods.
I'm picturing Jane who channels Seth, in 23.
Thing with proverbs, though, is that their quality is driven largely by context.
Have I mentioned that my favorite part of the passover Haggadah (at least the version I've seen) is the section where it gives examples about how you would tell the story of passover to different people depending on how much they're willing to listen.
That always impresses me as en example of practical wisdom which has obviously been distilled over time -- it's so clear.
you go to war with the office snack-machine you have...
Canonically, one goes to war with the laser printer one has, no?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5orss3fAEU
Though that wasn't so much war as slaughter.
111: The worst offender on my aforementioned fb newsfeed is a girl I dated very briefly about 10 years ago. It's a constant stream of this stuff, and there's a sort of frenzy to it that makes me think it's the only thing holding her together, to whatever extent she's held together. Unbelievably narcissistic. She never steps outside her own head.
I take no position on these aphorisms qua aphorisms, but I have a hard time believing anyone could click through the link in the OP and not quickly reach the conclusion that these are just empty pablum.
Why Living the Four Agreements Is Such a Challenge
We have out of years of habit not paid attention to how we express our self. The responses that come out of our mouth are often automatic. They were learned from years of habit living by the agreements we learned. We do not consciously choose our words, or the emotion, tone, and attitude that we express.
Over years our mind has filled with beliefs that generate incessant thinking. In all that thinking we have many assumptions that we are not aware of. We even make the assumption that what we think is true. We imagine and assume what others think of us and how they will react. We also assume that the judgments and self criticisms we have are true. We have learned to make so many assumptions that we aren't aware of. These assumptions are not the truth. These assumptions and the faith we express in them is just one way that we are not impeccable with our word.
Through our domestication we have also learned to take things personally. We assume that when someone has an opinion about us that their opinion is valid. Their opinion becomes our belief about our self. We end up having an emotional reaction to our own belief because we assumed their opinion it is true. We can also take personally our own opinions. We take personally our own self judgments. These self judgments are nothing more than an assumption. Over years the mind has developed many habits of making assumptions and taking them personally.
Just because you adopt the Four Agreements doesn't mean that all these habits in the mind will stop with that commitment.
When you decide to change your life and adopt the Four Agreements you are challenging the beliefs you learned and the habits you practiced since your childhood domestication.
Adopting the Four Agreements creates a conflict in the mind between expressing your self Impeccably with love and your existing fear based beliefs.
The How To Meditate guide, linked at some point here, drove me up the wall because it asserted that we were all fuzzy-brained, massively unhappy sheep, and I got really defensive.
but I have a hard time believing anyone could click through the link in the OP and not quickly reach the conclusion that these are just empty pablum.
Isn't it remarkable that such near-wisdom arose from such gobbledy-gook!
The person I am thinking of has never struck me as a narcissist. And honestly, I don't know her well enough to make any deep judgments at all. She did make me think that there are probably a lot of people out there who have real serious problems, for whom new age tripe is the only thing standing between them and total mental collapse.
89 also allows me to eat all the macaroons myself, and I therefore approve.
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," -
Which I know was very clever; but I didn't understand it.
Yeah, there are probably people who get a lot of help from advice that, if read with attention, is fairly foolish.
117: The Matrix prequels were totally station.
Oh jeez. I can't believe this thread is going today when I have to run into a meeting.
I know the Ru/iz family pretty well.
This just popped up in my Twitter feed: "If you go home with someone and they don't have books, don't f**k them." -- John Waters
126: Allowances ought to be made for those of us who move every 9-12 months and strive for paperless existence.
127: Right. Fucking in the cloud is permissible.
125: Oooh! I think you've mentioned this (obliquely).
Now I'm desperately curious to hear what JM would say.
126-129: Ebooks are going to complicate this sort of thing terribly.
Also, if a person has a whole lot of books, you should fuck them extra.
Also, scientists don't fuck around with books. All the actions in the journals, baby.
How did we get to more than 130 comments with no one complaining about how #4 encourages the avoidance of self-abuse? Who are you people?
One of those self help guys gives people copies of the "letters from Seneca". People have used things like the 4 agreements for a long time.
136: I threaten to write "The Business Secrets of Hesiod" all the time. Always bring a lawyer! Plow naked!
Why is "show a little humility" never on these lists?
132 -- I believe that my daughter has blazed a trail to the solution, having a line from a novel tattooed across her chest.
137: And never lounge before the hearth with your genitals bespattered with semen. I'm still unclear on why he thought to mention this. Perhaps it was more of an issue back in the day.
138: Why does "humility" never occur to self-help authors?
Isn't it remarkable that such near-wisdom arose from such gobbledy-gook!
There's some sort of Stoic element in:
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
The Stoic idea is that suffering comes from a lack of fit between your desires and the world, and that (i) what we normally do is try to get the world to conform to our desires, but that (ii) the sensible thing to do is to realise that the world is outside of our control, but that our desires are not, and so to try to conform our desires to the world as we find it.
Epictetus: Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
In the same annoying vein, the extremely learned author of the Second Agreement tells us to accept the motivations and impressions of others as just given, outside of our control. The guy's a genius!
And this from my Facebook feed: "There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." -Denis Waitley
Combining the two, I think anyone hoping for a romantic interlude with a stranger should carry a box of book with them.
Self-help books! That'll work, right?
should carry a box of book
Thereby demonstrating not just intellectual but physical prowess. On the veldt, people carrying around giant sacks of books all the time were capable of beating up people who only had a Kindle.
139: well, you can't just leave it like that. What's the line?
What's the line?
Was it "We're a silver gleaming death machine"?
"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip"?
I assume that on a Kindle, etc., you can see a list of all the books on there? So the trick would be to casually leave that screen visible anytime you're trying to impress someone.
Now that I think about it, the dedicated seducer would create a series of sublists, each designed to attract a particular type. (If e-readers don't currently have this capability, it's got product differentiation written all over it.)
That's better than 'we're a gleaming silver death machine'.
Oh, how I wish my mother-in-law would internalize #2. Her default setting is to assume that something is wrong. Most of the time she concludes that it is her fault. Since she's also hard-of-hearing, she further determines that everyone is audibly blaming her.
"To give an idea of the maturity of my illustrations for this book, here is my picture of an asshole."
Though you'd probably want it on your lower back rather than across your chest. Or just above your bellybutton, perhaps.
137: I read a summary of, oh, The Douchebag Principle or whatever once, and what I took from it is that management books are basically an un-overstateably simple and obvious idea tarted up with some kind of random bullshit you can use to fill up space with cartoon illustrations of. (Honestly, I'm pretty sure Who Moved my Cheese is a book length statement of the fact that when things change, you have to adapt.)
I feel like I could look at my desk, pick two items, pick an obvious idea, and make a fortune. The Banana-Scissors Principle: How Being Friendly Can Make Business Colleagues Like You More.
Maybe this isn't true or everyone would already be rich from their idiotic books.
(If e-readers don't currently have this capability, it's got product differentiation written all over it.)
On the Kindle, the front-page list is whatever's been opened most recently, so manipulable in about 60 seconds.
Honestly, I'm pretty sure Who Moved my Cheese is a book length statement of the fact that when things change, you have to adaptwhen you get downsized, you have to take it with a smile.
Pretty near-directly.
137: DO IT. How about If Hesiod Ran General Motors?
Meanwhile, I'll be writing The Tippling Point: How a Little Drink Can Make a Big Difference.
(Google informs me that I am far from the first to make that joke, but fuck it.)
From the aging DIY Internet world, a review of WMMC accompanied by a theme week noting, among other things, that it adds up to about 10,000 words.
158: Oh wow. So the message additionally has to be in service of the worst. Mutatis mutandis: The Banana-Scissors Principle: Authority is Always Right!
How about If Hesiod Ran General Motors?
I have mapped out a sure-fire business best-seller with an even more outrageous premise, but I won't be revealing it here because it's deeply embarassing I don't want you lot to steal it.
Or Pindar on investment opportunities:
"Water is best, but gold, shining like fire, is a good recourse when the market is in the shitter."
Management Secrets of High School Principals? Things You Didn't Learn at Harvard Business School But Can Learn from the Inside Flap of This Book Between Flights? Bear Needs Hunny: Badly! Winnie the Pooh's Guide to 1980s Videogame Wisdom for Managers? If It Burns, Call the Doctor: What I Learned at Madame Claude's? That's Not Working, That's Typing: How I Got Paid for Not Paying Writers by Arianna Huffington?
It is funny how many secrets of transformational life fit just fine in the margin.
165: Bowling in the Gutters: Management Secrets from the Sidelines, the Margins, the Not-Quite-Suburbs and Swing States Like Ohio?
At an airport I overheard a conversaton between 2 guys that were each reading Biblical management books. "I really thinking I'm learning from Moses's example" "Yeah! Moses was a great Manager!"
I semi-seriously have thought about writing a self-help book. I have the title finished anyway -- Power Waiting: How To Make the Most of the In-Between Times That Are Most of our Lives
So the trick would be to casually leave that screen visible anytime you're trying to impress someone.
Except that it goes to the standby screen pretty quickly, and some of the pictures are pretty ugly. Eew, do not want John Steinbeck staring at me while I try to seduce someone!
I have mapped out a sure-fire business best-seller with an even more outrageous premise
As long as you aren't stealing my idea.
As long as you aren't stealing my idea.
No, no. I said this would be a sure-fire best seller. I mean in a Lincoln's Doctor's Dog sort of way.
169 -- Wouldn't that get a little confusing? And no, I'm not giving you any of the macaroons.
fb likes instead of actual device screen. Or you could just ask if your prospective partner can name a single living painter.
167. The Angry Birds team beat you to it.
173: It took me a moment to understand 173.2, but I guess you're right. Just as well...I've never managed to write anything much longer than an Unfogged comment anyway.
Didn't ogged float "What blogs do you read?"
A sure-fire winner.
Didn't ogged float
I don't know. He was awfully skinny.
Not so much. Still, I'd freeze at "What blogs do you read" and thought it was pretty hilarious. How do things go down during pre-coital relations if you have to suppress a smile, find yourself unsuccessful, and wind up laughing? With genuine appreciation, mind: this is a test of my mental whateverness, isn't it?
I've known more than a few people who used very similar, new-age-y sentiments like these to justify being abysmally self-obsessed. I'm sure they can be helpful aphorisms for somebody who is used to taking shit and never standing up for themselves, but if you ever meet somebody who takes them as words to live by, boy, watch out.
I do feel like Landmark training is the reason a good friend of mine is willing to be unbelievably self-absorbed sometime.
good friend of mine blog I read is willing to be unbelievably self-absorbed sometime
165: You've discovered a truly marvelous transformational life principle which this margin is perfectly adequate to contain?
How do things go down during pre-coital relations/
Your fruit: so low it hangs.
170, 171: I think the secret to business success is stealing other people's ideas. I shall write a book about it if nobody steals the idea first. My other business book is going to be called Fuck You Clown: Contempt-Based Management for the Jackass Generation.
I saw that. I let it stand. There are standards to be upkept here, after all.
182 is brilliant and the wave of the future. It's so late 20th century for managers to have to pretend they have respect for their workers.
As for recommendation 1, it's probably impossible to follow and hopelessly sententious but it's true that most people (me included!) would benefit by talking a lot less than they do.
182 is the first good laugh I've had all day.
I really do think back "Was I on time 4 out of 5 classes?" If so, great. If not, I'll try to figure out a strategy to get me there more often on time.
You're the math professor, not me, but that sounds like giving 100%, 80% of the time, not giving 80%, 80% of the time. If you're only holding yourself to a standard of 80%, 80% of the time, I think you've satisfied that standard if you miss not more than 20% of the class for at least 4 out of 5 classes. So: you're being too hard on yourself.
If you give 80% 80% of the time then, depending how much you give the other 20%, you could be giving an overall average of as little as 64%.
Okay, I've known the eldest son of this guy for 10-12 years, so when he asked me a couple of weeks ago to be a first critical reader of his first book, I could not say no. If he sells half of the books his father did, he'll be set for many years. He's certainly twice the man his father is, but unfortunately, that's not what sells books in the self-help market. You've got to have a schtick, and a spooky Toltec-wisdom-spouting grandma is a pretty good authenticity guarantor. (I met her once or twice: seriously creepy lady.)
I just realized the First Agreement is both more coherent and more practical if you interpret the use of the capitalized "Word" as a reference to MS Word.
If my friend wants me to reread it at a later stage for grammar and whatnot, I will have strong suggestions about the random capitalization thing.
I'm not really the audience for this kind of thing, but it already seems to be better than that awful stuff quoted in 116.
I don't think I ever got through the Four Agreements or the followup book on love. The dad didn't seem like a bad guy, but, damn, did he basically make some weird parenting decisions. His current girlfriend is an ex of his son.
Re the OP, if you skip the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer and the other stuff that mentions "the Father," the Sermon on the Mount provides some OK aspirational life guidelines. Unrealistically strict and less touchy-feely than Desiderata etc, but hey - the guy was in the building trades.
I give 110% 110% of the time. "What about time for relaxing?", you might ask. Well, the other -10% of the time, I give -110%, for a grand total of 132% given. Details in my forthcoming self-help management book.
I like K. Pattabhi Jois' version of #1: Don't talk so much.
re: 194
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl4QMS0Zh_w
His current girlfriend is an ex of his son.
That's... pretty fucked up.
But at least he's not self-abusing.
196: That's terrific, especially the part with the calculator.
I just realized the First Agreement is both more coherent and more practical if you interpret the use of the capitalized "Word" as a reference to MS Word.
Also true of the Book of Genesis.
199: I'm not sure, but I think you mean the Gospel of John.
I like the idea of reading a Bible with Microsoft's annoying little Clippy helper bot.
"It looks like you're making a shrimp salad. About that..."
201 is funny. Also, I've come to read "First Agreement" in this thread as "First Amendment." Hilarity all 'round.
Wait, did people say Don't talk so much?
But you see, I poked a Q-Tip in my ear this morning after shower a little too inattentively -- I swear that is the first time that's ever happened -- and it hurts a bit. In the ear. Huh. Dummy.
Don't blow up at 45's suggestion. The only thing this sort of smug vacuous crap is good for is getting into a mindset where you can blow off other people's problems by pretending that if only they followed the right sort of self-help philosophy they'd be allright, so it's their own fault they're unhappy.
AA's 12 steps combine being weird pseudo-religious pablum with being effective tools to change your attitudes towards life and become a happier, more stable person. I think it's mostly free CBT with your sponsor. you consider what your particular character flaws are, and some time when they fucked you up, and then practice being aware of them so you won't do it so often. if you hurt people and you feel bad about it, you make a serious attempt to right the situation (rather than mutter "I'm sorry" when they've already heard that shit 100 times.)
plus stoicism. change yourself to meet the world since you are unable to change the world to meet you. not to project and imagine what other people are thinking is good advice and one must be repeatedly reminded that most of the time, no one's thinking about you at all.
the hesiod guide to life would be really useful for when you need to build some kind of wagon or plough equipment and don't know how much wood you need. that shit can get confusing.
What about Stick It Up Your Arse - They Can't Fire Me For It. A Guide to Managing the Managers?
i can't believe people are discussing this "book". enter youtube, type george carlin and you'll probably get the same shit but with vulgar language and a more friendly and non "DO THIS" "DON'T DO THIS" "ALWAYS THIS" "NEVER THAT" kind of attitude. mexican :)) funneh
i can't believe people are discussing this "book". enter youtube, type george carlin and you'll probably get the same shit but with vulgar language and a more friendly and non "DO THIS" "DON'T DO THIS" "ALWAYS THIS" "NEVER THAT" kind of attitude. mexican :)) funneh