self-help

"You can be ANYTHING you want to be, if you just put your mind to it."

That maxim is the basis of over 45,000 self-help books. What they don't tell you is that it is only half the story.

Case:

J (not his real initial) is a 20 year-old college student who is majoring in computer science. He hopes to design computer games. He already spends many hours playing these games, so much so that his grades in his programming courses are mediocre at best.

Now, it may be true, or at least possible, for J to stop playing games and study hard and get to be such a good programmer that he can get whatever job he wants. But then, as he almost had the insight to say, he wouldn't be J. A major part of being J is being a slacker who is kool and doesn't just do what he is told.

So, does he want to be a game designer?


B (not her real initial either) wants to get married. She has planned six different versions of her wedding. She loves the idea of getting married, being a princess, and living happily ever after. "Is that too much to ask for?"

It is, if you can't keep a relationship going past the second month. If you think being in love means that someone will come through the door and just adore the wonderful you, while you eat Wendy's, watch soap operas and read Bride Magazine.

You see, I often explain. If you really want to be something you have to give other things up. That's the part they don't tell you. Often, what that means, is that becoming that something isn't worth the trade-off. You won't really still be you, when you become that.

I once saw a woman, smart, social, perky, who decided that this was America, and what she wanted was to become rich. Not just have money, but be rich: rich-rich.

As she talked about she saw what she had to do. She gave up both her boyfriends. She transfer to a business college. She decided on the best business that she could go into fast. She joined an office, she worked 70 hours a week, she bought the office. She hired people to run it. She bought three other offices of the same kind of business. She lured people from other offices to work for her. If they didn't work out she politely let them go. That included her brother and mother. She was constantly contacting people, taking people to lunch, writing cards to people, making phone calls, making deals, making better deals.

Her recreation was going over the books.

Family, friends, lovers, parties, camping, cooking, shopping, all dropped away. She worked and she went to the gym. She was no longer the person she was before.

You know what, she was happy. She came back to tell me that, and to ask if I needed any of what she sold. She really didn't know what she was going to do with the money, but the numbers in her accounts were very large. She thought of it as the American game of life, and she was winning.

The intereting spin-off of that is that this is a small city. In the year since I last saw that woman I have seen four other cases of people who knew her and wanted to be like her, or in some cases they wanted their spouse to be like her.

They wanted they money. They wanted to have the money so they could spend it. They wanted to still be the people they were, and make the money she made. That wasn't working. The trade-offs were not worth it.

They were all just as smart, and maybe just as energetic, but they weren't willing to pay the price.

I am not saing they were weak or wrong or not good at it. In fact, I think they realized that for them, it wasn't worth it.

That's what they don't tell you in the self-help books. Make sure that what you want is worth the price of getting there, or else you won't get there.