Summary: what all self-help books have in common is the view that we can change by taking control of our interactions with the world. In this article, I flesh out what this means and how to do it.
Caring for ourselves is one of our highest priorities. What you are is what you offer to the world. What you are is what you have to live with. What you are is what will enable you to accomplish anything and enjoy anything. Because of this, there are millions of books on the subject of caring for yourself. That is a good thing. We have the most direct responsibility for ourselves, and what we make of ourselves is one of the most important gifts we give to the world.
I have read many of these books through the years from Aristotle to Cicero to Seneca to Carnegie to Covey to Ramsey to Ferriss. Each has its own angle, but there is one thing that they have in common. There is one thing that they all agree will help us be the best we can be and do the most we can do.
What is it? Take control of how we interact with the world. Taking control of how we interact with the world is the one thing that we can do for ourselves that no one can do for us. In our relationship systems, we can’t make others take control of their reactions and interactions, but we can work on taking control of our own.
Most of us do not take control of many things that we could take control of. We assume that our emotions are what they are. We assume that money and time will go where they go. We assume that the things that hurt have to hurt. We assume that relationship interactions just are the way they are. The self-help books counter this narrative and offer an alternative path. They suggest that things can be different and have been different. People can take control of the way they interact with the world.
Let me suggest five areas where we can take control of our interaction with the world. Then, I will explain the model they use for taking control of these interactions.
Five Interactions to Control
1. Our emotional reactions to the world. Our emotions are loud and feel like they are completely natural. But they are not. They are based to a significant degree on the stories we tell ourselves and the way we think about the world. Emotions are often based on false stories and impressions. We should not assume that what we are mad about is really an injustice, that what we fear is a real threat, that what we are sad about is a real loss, or that what we are happy about is really good. It may be, but it may not be. We should analyze it. Aristotle explained how fear could be a virtue or a vice, “The man who fears what, nor when, nor as he ought is foolhardy; the man who fears what he ought not, and on the wrong occasions, and in the wrong manner is cowardly” (Eudemian Ethics,2.3). Analyze your fears and your other emotions to see if you are feeling them in accord with reality and in the time and in the way that you should.
2. Our reaction to hurt and disappointment. This is really not that different from #1, but it is important because the hurts and disappointments of the past can easily debilitate us in the present and keep us from productive work in the future. Hurts hurt, but they can be put to productive uses. The things we suffer can build in us a passion for the good. The Bible says that these tests produce character, so we can actually look at suffering with a sort of joy, even while suffering. “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope . . .” (Romans 5:3–4). We can work through our sufferings in such a way that they actually bring us hope. That is a powerful motivation to rethink our reactions to hurt and disappointment.
3. Our reactions to other people. Our reactions to other people are deeply ingrained and powerful. So, they are difficult to change. In addition, part of the equation is what other people do. We have little power to change that. Fortunately, we are also part of the relationship equation. We can change that. We can learn how we interact and begin to interact differently. Consider one simple example from Dale Carnegie: smile. It makes a huge difference. Greet people warmly, like a dog, he said. This is the most surface of examples to a complex and deep problem. However, it illustrates that we can control our interactions with people.
4. Our interaction with time and money. Retired people find that they are just as busy as when they were not retired. The reason is that time has a way of filling up. Money is the same way. Without a plan, money will flow out the door. However, if you take control of your time and money, you can use them effectively. This is especially true of your non-work time. It’s easy to just putter it away. You’ve got to take control it, if you really want it to be effective for what you want to accomplish. Dave Ramsey’s Money Makeover is an example. What he is saying is that you don’t just handle your money randomly. You take control of it, and you decide what you will do with it. He has one specific plan, but it is just one of many.
5. Our interaction with the future. What are our goals? We want to move beyond just managing our lives day to day. In addition, what we do today will be based on a vision for the future. What is that vision? What are we trying to be and accomplish? In many ways, this is the key to all of the above. This is the idea behind Jordan Peterson’s program Self-Authoring. He encourages people to gain motivation by getting a vision for how things could go really well in the future and how they could really go badly. His plan is about thinking about the future and taking control of how we interact with it.
These are five areas where we can take control of our interactions with the world. We don’t have control of everything, but we have control of how we interact with the world. All of these authors indicate that we don’t have to think and interact in the way we have done so in the past. We can think differently now and in the future. So, how do we do it?
How to Do It
1. Work on it. We start by recognizing that we can work on our relationships, emotions, time management, etc. We don’t have to do it the way we have done it before. We can ask, how have we done it? How could we do it differently? What would be a better way to think about it? What would be a better way to approach things?
2. Implement it. When we know the better way to interact with the world, we can implement it. For example, when we see our bank account dwindling, we may have one way of reacting. We can start to think differently about losing savings. This gets harder the more emotional intensity is in the mix. We are not going to change things overnight.
3. Evaluate it. We should ask ourselves, especially in difficult circumstances, how did we do interacting with the world? Did we follow our time management plan? Did we interact well with our children? How was our emotional response? What went wrong and when? How could we have done it differently? We can evaluate what we have done and practice mentally doing it differently.
4. Repeat it. We keep doing it. We keep thinking about it. We keep growing. We gain new insight. We keep implementing it. We keep working on our interactions with the world.
All of these self-help books also give us hope. These things can make a difference. Humans don’t have to stay the way they are. They can change. It’s not easy, but it can happen. As American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times” (The Conduct of Life, cited in Essays and Lectures [Library of America], 943 ). We can’t change a lot of things about our world, but we can change how we live. That’s what all self-help books, ancient and modern, agree on.
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