Internet Self-Improvement: We Already Know the Answers We Seek

I was originally going to title this post "The Pointlessness of the Self-Improvement Internet", but decided that was too harsh, since I still think the idea of self-improvement is worthwhile. But it struck me the other day that a lot of the advice we seek is kind of pointless, because, as my actual title suggests, we already know what we need to do.

Someone on the Tim Ferriss Show - it might have been internet finance guru Ramit Sethi - once said that advice on the internet boils down to three questions:

• How do I get skinny?
• How do I get rich?
• How do I get laid?

To these I'd add a fourth, which is "How do I get published?"

(As a quick aside, it struck me a long time ago that these mapped pretty perfectly onto how I described my own goals)

The problem is that people looking for answers to these questions on the internet are actually looking for a shortcut - in each case, there are long-term and deeply unsexy ways of achieving all of these goals:

• How do I get skinny? Don't eat crap, eat less of it, and move around every day
• How do I get rich? Don't blow your money on stuff you don't want/need, and learn how money works
• How do I get laid? Scrub up, dress nice and cultivate an interesting life (this is relevant if you're looking for a relationship or just a hookup)
• How do I get published? Read a lot, write a lot, send out what you write (and revise intelligently)

In fact, as someone who's read a fair amount of self-improvement, self-help and productivity literature, I can attest that the best books on any of these subjects are clear on how slow and unsexy the best ways of achieving these goals are. There aren't really magic diets that will let you eat pizza every day and magically shred your belly fat, and there aren't scripts that will get you laid every time.

You can even go a step further and point out that almost all questions to advice columns have a simple answer. I read Dan Savage's Savage Love column each week, and whenever he gives the letter-writer the answer to DTMFA, you have to imagine the letter-writer already knows that they should be dumping the person who's caused them to write in. This goes equally well for Miss Manners and other types of advice columns - at some level you know what you should do in a given situation.

Though I'll say that it's not a bad thing that people are asking an impartial and knowledgeable third party to weigh in sometimes - someone's circumstances may have taught them all kinds of inappropriate ways of dealing with diet, relationships or money, so sometimes it is good to get a second opinion.

My objection, by the way, isn't to self-help or advice columns. I just get frustrated (with myself, because I do it all the time) when a situation gets over-complicated and over-thought, even though there's a pretty simple answer that's staring me in the face. To wit, if I want to slim down, I should take care of my body and be careful what I put in it; repeat as necessary for the other categories.

Still, it's also useful to find different approaches to all these questions - with fitness in particular, the things to do can change as you get into shape, so that what worked before just brings you to a plateau. Biggie Smalls put it wisely when he said, "Mo' money, mo' problems."

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's cheat day, so I need to go eat a donut. I'll worry tomorrow about how best to work it off!