I have to come clean about my secret addiction: Self-Help Books

I have a secret addiction that only I and most likely, my other half is aware of. It feels wrong to be admitting this. But there does come a time in every addict's life at which getting clean requires admission.

I am addicted to buying books.

Especially books on self-help.

Basically Productivity Porn.

Personally, I am thrilled with text-based addiction. One of my greatest pleasures walking into a bookshop and buying books. Sometimes I will buy five books, one of which I will read, two I will start and find they are rubbish, or I will move. and fourth and fifth ill never even open. To some, that sounds like madness, but for me, books are the foundation of all civilised life.

However, my self-help association probably is going too far. The amount of time I spend reading self-help books, self-help blogs and listening to self-help style podcasts makes me queasy even to think about. If I spent as much time reading these books as actually taking action, I would paraphrase only fools and horses "Be millionaires Rodney".

Now that I have admitted this, it is worth it for my own sanity to ask the question. Why am I addicted to the books of Covey, Robbins, Ferris and Kelsey? Why does it attract me so? This really is a puzzle that I have rewarded on. After digging into some books of the self-help kind, I realised that this river of addiction sprung from two transparent sources: search for inner meaning and procrastination.

The procrastination part was straightforward to understand. Reading a book like 'Get thing done' by Robert Kelsey made me feel productive. If I hadn't spent two workdays reading from cover to cover might have been the case. The feel-good factor of feeling productive drove this half of the addiction. Mostly it was like all other addictions: Trigger, habit, reward.

The search for meaning is a harder area to point out. This could in part be because I have, like many people, a small deep core that is searching for meaning. In today's society, where for most people in the West, the struggle is relative, not absolute, and religion has faded away, the meaning becomes more important as we have more life to dwell on our existence. My existence might be to consume self-help books.

This post is becoming heavy stuff. So heavy, I feel the need to re-read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for the rest of the day as a form of self-help procrastination.

Thank you for reading this article.

Please note that I have written these books that you might find interesting:

Recruitment Hacks - https://amzn.to/3uPdhhn

Political Careers - https://amzn.to/3fS1Cdw

My First eBay Sale - https://amzn.to/3z1S0nW