My love/hate relationship with advice

Is it possible to take self-help seriously?

When a good piece of advice lands in your life, it leaves you lighter, hopeful, energized. A way forward emerges from darkness. Choices appear like magic.

I, for one, love this feeling, which is second only to the feeling you get when you manage to give a decent bit of advice.

Advice comes from a lot of sources. Everyone from your parents to strangers on social media have opinions to offer, solicited or not. But what about the world of self-help, those sources we turn to on purpose, hoping for solutions to life’s conundrums, big and small?

It was only recently that I recognized, and began to embrace, my fascination with self-help. Ironic, for someone who has a career coaching business and regularly offers advice through my blog on academic life. I hadn’t connected my interests in things as diverse as home organizing and setting boundaries. But they all exist under the same umbrella.

I know I’m not alone in either craving guidance on life or being fascinated by self-help. After all, advice books regularly top non-fiction bestseller lists. Yet, it’s a genre derided from many directions.

Some dismiss it out of hand as a “fluffy” distraction from “real” life. Other critiques note the danger of false prophets, the lack of scientific evidence behind the claims, and the dubious credentials of so-called experts.

But something keeps drawing us in. Even when the cliches are obvious, the contradictions glaring, the expertise questionable, there’s an urge to keep mining in the dark for that little nugget of gold.

Perhaps it’s because it’s human nature to seek purpose, improvement, evolution, change. Maybe it’s also because sometimes you find something genuinely life-changing, and like a good drug, you can’t help wanting more.

Oh, how I love the feeling of a new habit condensing in my bones! Oh, how I revel in seeing a boundary set and held! I genuinely enjoy reading or listening to advice and I’m not afraid to say that I use a lot of it, too.

Beneath that enjoyment, however, is an uneasiness that decades of training in various forms of social critique and social research just won’t let me shake.

In other words, the feminism refuses to leave my body. Self-help: the clue to the problem is in the name. It’s about the self, singular. Most self-help steadfastly ignores systems, institutions, history, and power. It wants nothing to do with community or collective change. It’s rare to even find a nod toward the idea that the personal is political.

There are exceptions of course, but for the most part advice aims to make you happier, wealthier, or a better version of you, whatever you are. You, singular.

Capitalism, neoliberalism, ableism, fatphobia and more leave their greasy fingerprints smeared all over self-help. There’s a strong current of sexism, even though (or perhaps because) it is a genre largely targeted to women. A heteronormative, white, middle-class point of view infuses the lot.

So why do I (and lots of other smart and critical and caring people) keep reading? This is one of the key questions that animates this newsletter.

Is it possible to gain self-awareness and improve your life through a genre that fails to address basic differences between people? Can you legitimately pull a morsel of helpful guidance from a smouldering dumpster fire?

Like many writers before me, I write to figure out something about myself (good advice, isn’t that?). What pulls me to devour self-help books, podcasts, and advice columns? Can I square a structural critique of this genre with the fact that some of this work has helped me legitimately improve my life?

I also want to learn more about the world of self help: how it’s monetized in the modern economy; why weight loss always rears its ridiculous head; where common bits of advice come from; what’s dangerous about this field

Does self-help intrigue you, too? Are you addicted to “Dear [Insert Lady Name]” columns? Do you have a secret copy of Lean In tucked away on your bookshelf? Welcome, my dear reader. Even if you’re more of a casual observer of the dark art of advice, subscribe to Perfectly Cromulent and join me on this journey.