Is the Self Help Industry Helping Anyone?

Is the self-help industry really helping anyone? I finally wake up and ask myself. It’s an industry fueled by the perceived void that exists within humanity as a whole. Those of us who have taken an interest in becoming the best possible versions of ourselves are well versed with many of the materials and groups out there. As I paused to question my intentions for this project, I realized I didn’t want to become someone who capitalizes off people’s perceived lack when my goal is to help them realize that there is nothing lacking. The whole world operates this way (I help you for money because I don’t “give my time away”), but Jesus states,

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
– Matthew 6:24 NLT

Capitalism is built off need (aka desire). I make you believe that you need to be “more something” and convince you that you need my product or service in order to remedy that desire. So often we want to be healthier, happier, smarter, well-liked, successful, more acceptable, more beautiful, etc. That’s how this whole thing works in a nutshell. Sometimes I question whether there are many businesses left that truly operate out of the genuine desire to help people. Although I do think many start out with good intentions, I also think the general human traits of desire and greed often take over and money unfortunately ends up taking precedence over serving from a genuine good heart. The responsibility therefore lies with you, the consumer. To ensure you are not being taken advantage of, you need to ask yourself, “When is it enough? When are you enough? When do you have enough? What is enough?”

I understand that many who charge substantial amounts reinvest in the community or in charity, but I wonder if it’s very much at all or if that is the excuse they use for making themselves feel better about not doing more to help others rise up. “To whom much is given, much is expected.” There are so many living well above their means while others go without for lack of opportunity or ability due to the environment they were born into. Many have not seen another way of life, or state of mind than what they’ve grown accustomed to as normalcy. I’m not talking about people who have a rough start in the U.S. because we all have heard the success stories of “project” to “professional” as a result of the ability we have to access educational resources, learn, and seize opportunities that present themselves in this country. I’m talking about children who are born in impoverished places who don’t really stand a chance because all that they will ever know is poverty passed down from one generation to the next… from mindsets, to daily living, from birth until death. It is harder to rise when you are surrounded by people who have always been poor, whether that be in Spirit or monetary wealth. To grow we need exposure to “the light”… the light of a different way of being that brings more joy, more resources, and more love.

Does anyone really need excessive amounts of clothing, jewelry, furniture, homes with square footage over 400x the size of the ground they take up while standing? Again, what is enough? Does anyone ever even ask this question for themselves? When will you have enough to be happy? When will you be enough to be happy? When will you have “grown” enough personally or professionally to be happy? We’re all on this journey through life for an undetermined period of time and somewhere along the line we’ve developed this idea that we must have, do, or become more to make it all worthwhile.

What if none of it is true? What if you already are enough because you exist? What if the whole point is just to fully take in the experience of being alive, which can only be done when contrast exists? What if the point isn’t to give anything to life, but to solely be exceedingly grateful for the gift of life that’s been given to us and to enjoy each moment of it? What if the point is only to be happy, joyful, experience, and learn more about who we are in relation to it all?

When I think about what it means for me to serve God, I’m starting to realize that it is more about being. It’s about being exactly who I was created to be, being thankful for it, and loving it. It’s about embracing all of God’s other creations, being thankful for them, and loving them because their existence allows me to experience who I am. Without space and form, nothing separate from me could exist and I would not know who “I” was, which brings me to the idea of “ubuntu” a term that I believe I first learned of in a book by Mark Nepo.

Wikipedia excerpt:
According to Michael Onyebuchi Eze, the core of ubuntu can best be summarized as follows:

“A person is a person through other people’ strikes an affirmation of one’s humanity through recognition of an ‘other’ in his or her uniqueness and difference. It is a demand for a creative intersubjective formation in which the ‘other’ becomes a mirror (but only a mirror) for my subjectivity. This idealism suggests to us that humanity is not embedded in my person solely as an individual; my humanity is co-substantively bestowed upon the other and me. Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am. The ‘I am’ is not a rigid subject, but a dynamic self-constitution dependent on this otherness creation of relation and distance.”

What if our only purpose is to live in awe of all of the miraculous phenomenon’s that we are surrounded by daily but have stopped noticing? What if it is solely about discovery, joy, and acceptance and love for all that is? If that is the case, this whole world is “sinning” a.k.a. missing the mark with regard to what we are “supposed to be” doing here? Imagine the dismay of the creator sitting back and watching this hot mess of a society like, “I gave you a gift to enjoy and here you are stressing, worrying, and fearing what was meant to be enjoyed. Some of you even feel like you have to give me back what I have freely given you as though you believe you have to pay off a debt for this gift of life I’ve given you. Your only job was to receive. That is it… just receive life and experience and love.”

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

– John 16:33

Sidenotes/Afterthoughts: I chose the forget-me-not photo as the image for this post because these truths are so important that you should “forget-it-not.”
YOU ARE NOT BROKEN!
YOU DO NOT NEED ANYTHING MORE TO BE COMPLETE!
YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO VOMIT UP THE GARBAGE THE WORLD HAS BEEN FEEDING YOU…
Let me help you purge…

OK, that created a gross mental image. But seriously, let me help you find what’s true! (there that’s better)