iv e never read a self help book of any sort in my entire life, other than "Getting Things Done"
if you peruse that book, you'll see it is more of an actual storage and time/calendar method to organize things better, nothing more
i also share a similar view about people into "Self help" all the time.......i guess im just sort of curious about "books that changed your life/perspective", as i rarely read anything other than periodicals and articles....i generally dont read books at all
i always hear people talk about some shit like thoreau and how it gave them a diff perspective, etc.....maybe i chose the wrong term in "self help"
i just want some suggestions on any sort of book, where people have gleaned some sort of "philosophy" or perspective in life
Ah ok, i see where you're coming from now. It's a shame you don't read books because i think literature and 'serious writers' are much more satisfying that the often glib and poorly written selfhelp type of book (they're usually written by some arsehole that just wants to profit off of people's confusions and hang-ups, without offering anything of substance).
But, like, the big existential writers such as Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, Albert Camus, and also the renowned psychoanalysts, the big thinkers and classic philosophers - those were smart men and women who dedicated their lives to the study of the profound stuff, and consequently have much to offer. I'd really look to them before anything else.
2 books (small-ish, less than 100 pages each) that i have found super interesting and inspiring are
Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke - roughly speaking it's about the immensity of life and some suggestions about how to hone in on what is valuable in life and how to deal with the profound stuff (life, death, love, art and beauty) - and
The Myth Of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, roughly speaking it's a small philosophical treaty about the banality of life and how to deal with mind-numbing routine, predictability, mediocrity, mortality and so on. Each are written in a language befitting of their topics; Rilke's is lyrical, spectacular, nuanced and just beautiful - Camus' is blunt, plain, merciless and to the point.
Between them they cover a lot of ground, i feel.
