Self-help is self-delusion (Day 3)

I used to think that I could be one of those people who made everything neat and tidy, stayed within budget, cooked from scratch, and generally made everyone happy--all while saving the world--and if I wasn't getting all of that done it was because there was something wrong with me. But every time I got really into some modality that was supposed to help with even some of that, my ears would always prick up just a little bit when someone critiqued whatever I had stumbled into. Macrobiotic cooking, mind body fitness, meditation, tidying (but I do still love it), minimalism (I have never loved it), bullet journaling, Martha Stewart, raw foods--all of it. I always put it down to being a little self-thwarting, but in reality, my BS-meter just wouldn't stop working.

The books I've been drawn to, while ostensibly trying to answer the question "How do I...?" as a body finally helped me understand that I had been asking the wrong question of the wrong parties. The issue isn't that I need to hack my way through The Game of Life, but that life should not be a game. Life is, in fact, reality. 

This will do nothing for you...

The reason people have trouble managing their money isn't because they haven't found the perfect tracking system, but because wages were stagnated for decades while labor protections were gutted, and the things we're all told we should be willing to pay for--education, housing--have risen so much that they are out of reach for many without debt. The reason people are chronically, debilitatingly stressed isn't because they haven't found the meditation technique that will take them to nirvana, but because the modern world--as was the pre-modern world--is filled with stressors that reflect both immediate, life-threatening events like frequent mass shootings and slow burning but ultimately traumatic problems like a lack of access to healthy food, chronic poverty, and systemic racism and classism. The reason so many of us struggle with health problems isn't because we're idiots that don't know how to cook, but because the food industry has been trying to make us the most productive workers we can be since the end of World War II by feeding us high calorie foods...that mean we don't need to take a break from work to eat. (I am not making this up; Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken discusses this.) The reason we don't get exercise is because, if we're not working the kinds of hours that prevent us from doing anything other than working and sleeping, the majority of us live in places that have been designed specifically for cars, not people. The reason you can't put down junk food, marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes, video games, porn, or your smart phone isn't because you lack morals, character, or discipline, but because those things have been optimized to be habit forming. The reason your email is overflowing isn't because you don't know how to prioritize, but because everyone thinks they're entitled to a piece of you. The reason you have too many possessions is because you have been told, implicitly and explicitly, that you will be judged if you don't have enough stuff, and it has to be the right kind of stuff, your needs, finances, and space constraints be damned. The reason we experience prejudice and inequality isn't because we don't know how to put our best selves forward, but because we live in a prejudiced, unequal civilization.

Do you really think you're going to change any of that with a Bullet Journal, a kakeibo, time-saving recipes, efficient workouts, meditation, or self-actualization techniques? You can help manage some circumstances better with certain tools, but you can't change the underlying causes. And while there are some behaviors you can change that can sometimes make a difference, there's a limit. My financial circumstances improved not because I wasn't spending money (you have no idea how little I spend on clothing, and my housing costs are low compared to other people in my state), but because 1) I could refinance my mortgage when interest rates dropped and 2) my husband got a raise. Being parsimonious meant those advantages didn't evaporate, but it would be ridiculous to say that I somehow manifested the raise itself by being "good with money".  

...but this will

The time we are spending reading self-help blogs, newsletters, and books, watching self-improvement videos, and perfecting the practice of coping systems is keeping us from the actual work we need to do. If we want to improve our lives, we have to change the systems we live in. Sure, that starts with questions about why something is the way it is, but then it's *work*. It's different for everything, it's messy, and it doesn't fit in a pithy book an eighth-grader could write. It's what you find when you study history, because shockingly, people have been able to make necessary changes, and under less promising circumstances. It's scary--and boy, can those books be long--but somehow I prefer that to the fairy-tale complacency of self-help.

Deb in the City