I know you want to hear that you’re a “new you,” that your hair looks great, that the nuts in your have gold in them—and if they don’t, all you have to do is sign up for my 1-2-3 step program,and you too can mine your toilet for fine precious metals. Sign up today!
I know you want to hear that. Everybody wants to hear that.
But I say what you want to hear. Because let’s be honest, that’s not what you need to hear.
Because I’m a bit fed up with all that positive self-help crap. You would think that after about seven decades of this “just stay positive!” nonsense, we’d start to see some goddamn results around here. Yet, staggering rises in anxiety, depression, suicide, and hopelessness across the world and we’re all sitting in Kumbaya circles yelling, “Just believe in yourself!”
How about you go yourself? Because, really, it’s our obsession with our “self” that probably started this whole mess in the first place.
If I gave enough of a , I’d find a big stage somewhere and a fancy microphone and declare this a great day, a new day, a day that, in my great and unmatched wisdom, I declare a new genre of personal development. It will be a new approach to improving lives, an approach based not on feel-good, back rubbing nonsense, or mid-afternoon dance parties, but based on solid science, pragmatic applications, and a bit of old fashioned “go yourself” wisdom.
Don’t worry, this approach doesn’t require you to sign away your life savings. It doesn’t require you to stand in front of the mirror and repeat inane to yourself every day. It doesn’t even require you to get out of bed, you lazy .
I’m christening this new approach, “Negative Self-Help,” an approach to personal growth based not on what feels good, but rather on what feels bad. Because getting good at feeling bad is what allows us to feel good.
Whereas positive self-help believes that we’re all wonderful and destined for greatness, Negative Self-Help admits that we’re all kind and we should come to terms with that. Whereas positive self-help encourages you to create ambitious goals, to follow your dreams, to reach for the stars—*vomits*—Negative Self-Help reminds you that your dreams are probably narcissistic delusions and you should probably just shut up and get to work on something meaningful. Whereas positive self-help obsesses over “healing” old “wounds,” and “releasing” pent up emotions, Negative Self-Help gently reminds you that there’s no end to the pain in this stream called life, so you might as well get used to it.
Yes, kids, you too can get your together and live a more satisfying and meaningful life by pursuing less, by letting go of all the stupid assumptions you’ve accumulated throughout your self-absorbed life, by forgetting about happiness and accepting that everything meaningful in this world requires struggle and sacrifice. So you might as well start picking out the scars you want for your birthday, kiddos, because we’re all going to get them anyway. Negative Self-Help can completely alter your perception of life, the universe, and everything. Just sign up now for a limited time offer of…
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