Self-Help in Schools??

In response to this:

Why don´t schools teach people to LIVE?

Instead of teaching people the things they will actually USE in their lives, such as getting a job, dating and marrying, getting a divorce, pension plan, etc. they ONLY teach biology, physics, etc. Shouldn´t they teach BOTH instead?

It´s no wonder self-help books abound and their writers become millionaires.

I penned this:

The job of a school is to teach facts and figures, history and literature -- and in my opinion, how to think and solve problems.

For all of recorded history humans did not require organized education to learn how to get a job, find a spouse, etc. Why NOW do you suppose that anyone needs such help -- or, indeed, self-help books?

In my never-so-humble opinion, the self-help book industry is booming because --
wait for it
-- people feel they need help. Seriously. Dig a little deeper, though. These books, by and large, focus on two discrete areas: How to treat yourself better (or make yourself feel better), and how to understand the opposite gender.

What both of these topics begin to imply, but fall short of saying (or indeed, realizing), is this: We do NOT make ourselves 'feel better' and we do NOT 'understand the other gender' by looking WITHIN for the answers.

We can ONLY do so by looking, and acting, withOUT.

Very few of these books say this, and so people buy the books, try the 'inward-centric' solutions, fall short, and buy new books to try again... all the while not realizing that the approach is completely wrong on its face, and that no 'inward-centric' solution will ever help them to meet their goals.

Why? Because we're all SELF-CENTERED.
We're already so focused on the SELF that no one else exists; not their needs, their personas, their desires, their personalities. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

You want to have a better marriage? Treat your spouse with kindness. ACT in a loving way, every day and in every way. Try it for 2 weeks and see how much better YOU feel, and how much better a marriage you have.

Not married, but feeling blue? Go work in a soup kitchen for an hour or two a day. Donate your time to a battered-women's shelter. Work with underpriviledged children.

The point is to do something outside yourself -- to give of yourself to another, in ACTION and not word, and you will feel better.

But... that would make a really small book, wouldn't it?