A new book by Danish psychologist Svend Brinkman will be hitting U.S. shores next week.
While you’ll probably find it in the “self-help section” at your local bookstore, it’s really a crusade against the dogged pursuit of self-improvement dogma. Titled Stand Firm, its purpose appears to be derailing the self-help movement from its tracks.
Perhaps we shouldn’t just “trust our feelings,” “focus on the positive,” or assume “that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to.”
Maybe we need to take a good hard look in the mirror and see what our shortcomings and track records say about who we’ve been in the past before we set out to make vision boards depicting the perfect person we want to become.
Perhaps we need to move on from that nationwide developmental period in which “everyone got a trophy” just for showing up or signing up?
In the current socio-political climate, our focus should be more about improving the fabric of the global “we” instead of the individual “me.”
Perhaps we need to reflect more on the past – in all its messy and inglorious nakedness – to help ensure that the future turns out differently than our history suggests it might.
While the optimist in me does not assume that our pasts necessarily dictate our futures, I do believe that putting aside the obsession with bettering ourselves in order to spend some time working to better the world might be a much more meaningful investment of energy these days.
I’m Suzanne Degges-White, and that’s my perspective
