A phycologist made me read Jordan Peterson's 12 rule of life. It didn't help. But who knows, it may help some kinds of people.

>>24086
As someone who hasn't read any in their life (though I did get one a month ago for Christmas; I'll probably have to at least page them in case I get confronted about the contents and stuff): I don't think they're supposed to magically fix your life the moment you read them. Rather they probably point out how some of your negative thinking habits make you miserable and what you should do to get rid of them. In the end, as the name implies, you'll need to help yourself.

>>24087
it made me wash my penis

>>24086
They help a lot, but only if you're the author.

Probably a waste of money to buy any, check em out at the library first if they have any.

Post edited on 2nd Feb 2019, 1:18am

>>24092
>>24093
I download everything from Library Genesis so it should be fine, I haven’t spent money on a book in a very long time although they don’t have newer stuff these days so I may have to resort to that

I think I may have read a self-help book some time ago. I can't remember the title nor the content, so no. Most of self-help book are actually circumlocutions around a simple idea or concept like deep work or ego depletion or habit formation. It's better to read a summary somewhere, I know there are a lot of self-help youtube videos that summed up the important points quite briefly. Self-help books aren't panacea pills but they could provide an inspiration for a model that works for you, especially the ones with valid research or philosophical grounding. The idea that works the best is the one you put together yourself from combining different ideas, customizing it to your personality and views, and testing it against your personal experience.

>>24095
Given the book OP posted he probably DOESN'T want to use pills. That's good advice though.

>>24095
The only one I've skimmed is the supposedly legendary "How to make friends" book by Carnegie and all I found was a bunch of sleazy tricks for car salesman such as "use the person's name frequently" – I don't see how that's supposed to help when even holding a conversation is mentally taxing, let alone weaving in these fabrications.

If instead your goal is to get some light philosophy out of it ("how to live you life" kind of advice) then these books might be more suited, although in that case you'd be better off reading some of the great Russian authors like Dostoevsky. Or even some of the very early jordan peterson videos where he actually focused on philosophical frameworks of the bible instead of going off the rails with his newfound fame.

>>24098
That book is severely outdated. The problem is most people live in a defined bubble by high school. With the advent of smartphones, it's nearly impossible to break into one of these circles without someone from within shilling for you.

As you go by the mall or local college campus, you will notice that everybody is self-absorbed into their smartphone. Before this invention, this was an easy way to strike up a conversation with someone.

The best way to get friends is through sheer luck. However, you can make some friends in college but you have to be the aggressive and it will probably fail 75% of the time.

I've tried several of them and there's a lot of books stuffed with feel good bullshit like 'just be yourself'. Some offer actual good advice and some are a mixed bag. That goes without saying and of course there's the usual 'none of it matters if you don't take action' thing.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading them but be prepared to wade through lots of bullshit to find things that are both true and actually applicable to you. A lot of these books seem to be written with middle managers in mind who don't have a clue how the average person actually lives.

>>24115
>A lot of these books seem to be written with middle managers in mind
Carnegie's "How to make friends" book was in fact written with a target audience of white collar businessmen/salesmen in mind.