Perfect is as perfect does
Okay, fine. I checked out "Practically Perfect in Every Way" so I could make fun of self-help books, and if I'm being really honest I also checked it out hoping to make fun of the author. I only wanted to make fun of the author because I had her confused with someone who I'd met in passing a couple of times back in the People's Republic (and couldn't stand), so it's not like I'm a total asshole...right? Within ten seconds of opening the book (I'm a fast reader), I'd figured out that the author was definitely not someone I'd ever met before, but I stuck with it anyway. I'm glad I did.
Quick premise recap--the author (a co-founder of Brain, Child magazine, which is alt enough that I'm aware of it), vaguely bored and dissatisfied, but admitting that she has it pretty good, decides to identify a list of major areas in her life and attack them with self-help books. It is somewhat unclear how she chose the particular set of self-help books chronicled, but whatever. Over the course of a somewhat unclear timeline, our author works through these books and these issues. Somewhere along the way, she realizes how to take advice with a grain of salt, and mixes her own sense of self with other people's good ideas to end up a little happier. And it's not at all sappy and you only want to hit her a couple of times.
In the beginning, I'm pretty sure, the author really, really, was hoping that she'd end up making fun of a lot of self-help books. I did too, actually, and the early chapters have this great tension to them--is this self-help stuff crap, or utter crap? Minor lessons are learned, but then there's a chapter where she works on what sounds like a highly functional and fulfilling marriage...I mean, I realize relationships are a huge part of the self-help market, but it just seemed really weird to try to fix something that even the author admitted was not slightly broken. It's an awkward and uncomfortable chapter, but I urge you to keep reading, because the next section delivers the epiphany.
In the next chapter, the author decides to work on some very real issues with her son (issues that are more standard-kid annoying-quirky-ness), and the advice of the experts doesn’t work. It’s what seems to be a chance comment from her husband that resonates with the kid, and she comes to the realization that self-help is unlikely to work if it involves changing other people…and that she’s unlikely to benefit from any suggestion that sounds counter to her values.
For the rest of the book (I’m not sure whether this is chronology or writerly design), the author sticks to self improvements. In the next chapter (delightfully titled “The Attempt to Screw My Head on Straight”) she reads one of Seligman’s works on positive psychology and embraces an idea that makes perfect sense to me: the distinction between pleasure and gratification. She quotes Seligman on the harm in choosing easy-to-capture pleasures over the more difficult but more fulfilling gratifications: “When an entire lifetime is taken up in the pursuit of the positive emotions…authenticity and meaning are nowhere to be found.” Personally, I find it easier to grasp the concept in her words: “you can have one giant [org45m] for seventy years straight, but you’re not going to be living the good life.” (p. 213, SpamGuard spelling mine)
We talk a lot about pleasure versus gratification around the NerdFlat. One of us actively avoids gratification and chooses pleasure; the other is having trouble finding the gratifying things these past few years and is generally suspicious of the concept of pleasure. (No prizes for guessing who is who.) Both lead to unhappiness, in case you’re curious, but one kind is a hell of a lot more fun to be around. In the book, this search for gratification…or more gratification…leads to other types of self-help investigation.
The author goes on to discover a workout that works for her (not enough, she acknowledges, but it’s something…and possibly something gratifying?), that other people are hard work (and it seems that most other people don’t think so),…and a few other things I’ll leave out, mostly to encourage you to read the book and because I can’t say nice things about one storyline, and that’s mostly me being a bitch. One thread I will reveal is that the author consistently finds that self-help diagnostics find her to be caustic and a bit mean-spirited. She decides to be okay with that, in moderation and mostly privately, which is why I’ve decided to forgive the annoying storyline. I like people to have personality. I like people who most people describe as “difficult.” I don’t know what that says about me, exactly.
In the end, you have to conclude that you could be better, but probably only if you’re already okay. Not a bad way to think about life. This was a fun read, and I’m going to be exploring the pleasure vs. gratification concept a lot more in the coming weeks.
Quick premise recap--the author (a co-founder of Brain, Child magazine, which is alt enough that I'm aware of it), vaguely bored and dissatisfied, but admitting that she has it pretty good, decides to identify a list of major areas in her life and attack them with self-help books. It is somewhat unclear how she chose the particular set of self-help books chronicled, but whatever. Over the course of a somewhat unclear timeline, our author works through these books and these issues. Somewhere along the way, she realizes how to take advice with a grain of salt, and mixes her own sense of self with other people's good ideas to end up a little happier. And it's not at all sappy and you only want to hit her a couple of times.
In the beginning, I'm pretty sure, the author really, really, was hoping that she'd end up making fun of a lot of self-help books. I did too, actually, and the early chapters have this great tension to them--is this self-help stuff crap, or utter crap? Minor lessons are learned, but then there's a chapter where she works on what sounds like a highly functional and fulfilling marriage...I mean, I realize relationships are a huge part of the self-help market, but it just seemed really weird to try to fix something that even the author admitted was not slightly broken. It's an awkward and uncomfortable chapter, but I urge you to keep reading, because the next section delivers the epiphany.
In the next chapter, the author decides to work on some very real issues with her son (issues that are more standard-kid annoying-quirky-ness), and the advice of the experts doesn’t work. It’s what seems to be a chance comment from her husband that resonates with the kid, and she comes to the realization that self-help is unlikely to work if it involves changing other people…and that she’s unlikely to benefit from any suggestion that sounds counter to her values.
For the rest of the book (I’m not sure whether this is chronology or writerly design), the author sticks to self improvements. In the next chapter (delightfully titled “The Attempt to Screw My Head on Straight”) she reads one of Seligman’s works on positive psychology and embraces an idea that makes perfect sense to me: the distinction between pleasure and gratification. She quotes Seligman on the harm in choosing easy-to-capture pleasures over the more difficult but more fulfilling gratifications: “When an entire lifetime is taken up in the pursuit of the positive emotions…authenticity and meaning are nowhere to be found.” Personally, I find it easier to grasp the concept in her words: “you can have one giant [org45m] for seventy years straight, but you’re not going to be living the good life.” (p. 213, SpamGuard spelling mine)
We talk a lot about pleasure versus gratification around the NerdFlat. One of us actively avoids gratification and chooses pleasure; the other is having trouble finding the gratifying things these past few years and is generally suspicious of the concept of pleasure. (No prizes for guessing who is who.) Both lead to unhappiness, in case you’re curious, but one kind is a hell of a lot more fun to be around. In the book, this search for gratification…or more gratification…leads to other types of self-help investigation.
The author goes on to discover a workout that works for her (not enough, she acknowledges, but it’s something…and possibly something gratifying?), that other people are hard work (and it seems that most other people don’t think so),…and a few other things I’ll leave out, mostly to encourage you to read the book and because I can’t say nice things about one storyline, and that’s mostly me being a bitch. One thread I will reveal is that the author consistently finds that self-help diagnostics find her to be caustic and a bit mean-spirited. She decides to be okay with that, in moderation and mostly privately, which is why I’ve decided to forgive the annoying storyline. I like people to have personality. I like people who most people describe as “difficult.” I don’t know what that says about me, exactly.
In the end, you have to conclude that you could be better, but probably only if you’re already okay. Not a bad way to think about life. This was a fun read, and I’m going to be exploring the pleasure vs. gratification concept a lot more in the coming weeks.