There’s no guarantees of a good life from any self help books, anybody should know that. What these books offer is a new way to see things, extra apparels in your mental toolkit so that when push comes to shove, then you’d be able to handle it psychologically. There is no definition of the good life here. There are definitions of what not to do and do with your life, but there is no straight definition. The good life is different for everybody.
I equate a lot of self help books with business books, which in some regards are also self-help books. Dobelli’s writing is less pretentious than most business writers, he is grounded with his examples, and a lot of the tools he mentioned are useful. I can agree with a lot of things that he mentions in the book. I find his writing on these paradigms useful:
• Focusing illusion — we tend to emphasise the good or bad in our memories as opposed to looking at it for what it is
• Circle of competence — Being an absolute expert and nurturing being good at what you do, but not to overreach with unfamiliar skills
• Fuck you money — Having a fallback where you can keep doing what you’re doing and to be able to leave it at a drop of a hat
• Fallacy of general knowledge — Being a trivia master isn’t very useful in life, unless you wanna be the king of trivia in the pub every Wednesday night. Specific and dedicated knowledge is much more useful.
However, some of these mental tools I can mentally debate in my mind:
• Tyranny of a calling — Dobelli argues that going after what we believe to be our calling will allow us to do more, as we do what we can and achieve more, instead of doing what we wish for and achieving less. I still think that we should hold high goals and be serious about our passions. Settling for less can make us more unhappy.
• The Secret of Persistence — “Boring” people can be more successful as they take less risks and premeditate their moves before taking action. In my view, boring people don’t really get anywhere unless they take an extra step, an extra risk that enables them to get out of their own trap.
• Managing Expectations — Expect less so you won’t get disappointed — I don’t even need to explain why this logic has holes in them.
Out of all the 52 tools, many of these overlap with each other and some even contradict each other. You can argue that the proper way of reading this book is to implement these chapters one week ata time. Take what you can out of it because there are simply just too many to remember. Dobelli takes in examples from psychological studies, business books (he puts Charlie Munger, Buffett’s partner in crime on a pedestal) and stoic philosophers.
I still think that the words of the stoic philosophers are the best source of self help. Reading Seneca, Epictetus and Aurelius for me beats any modern self-help philosopher any day of the week. Dobelli’s mental models can be useful, and he writes well compared to other new age philosophers, but I feel the substance is thin.
