Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning & End of Suffering

“Self-help” has come to describe a genre of books that allow a reader to access knowledge that they can apply to their own lives without frequent interventions from some sort of expert, such as a doctor or therapist. The genre has existed in some form for thousands of years before the invention of books, often taking the form of religious texts designed to help the believer refine their daily practice of worship and morality. 

The modern term “self-help” comes from an 1859 book of that title by Samuel Smiles. The book embodied the Victorian attitude of self-reliance and dedication to constant improvement. Whereas the term now refers to the specific practice of helping oneself, Smiles turned it into a philosophical statement. Helping the self was the most genuine act. He recommended that it be applied at every level, from the individual to the community to the nation. 

The self-help genre as it’s generally understood today took root in the United States after World War II. There are many theories for why this occurred, including the growth of the publishing industry to meet a massive body of consumers, the popularization of psychological theories imported from prewar European thinkers, and an increasing sense of isolation in a rapidly expanding world that left the self as the only reliable source of help. 

Since that period, self-help can be broadly arranged into two categories. The first are texts dedicated to making a person happier in their lives, often relying on moral and particularly religious instruction. The founding example is The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) by Norman Vincent Peale, a New York City clergyman who combined biblical teachings with psychology to tell readers that they were the ultimate sources of their own success. Another variant of this category are books focused on health, most often weight loss, which offer insight into the evolution of diet trends over the past several decades. 

The other category includes texts more focused on the workplace, often with corporations purchasing large numbers of texts for their white-collar employees. The seminal example is How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) by Dale Carnegie, along with more recent works such as The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Steven Covey, Who Moved My Cheese? (1998) by Spencer Johnson, and a large number of business-focused books published by professional and Division I sports coaches. 

Don’t Believe Everything You Think belongs more to the first category than the second. However, it does try to bridge the gap by emphasizing that improved mental health can have positive effects on productivity. It reflects a trend that looks for religious and spiritual teaching outside of the Christian framework, including Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism. It avoids the mysticism of books like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret (2006), which strongly implies the power of the mind to control reality. Instead, it treats spiritual insights as practical exercises that can be beneficial to all.