Self-help is a connection of two words resembling one thing – efforts. Than it comes to self-help we hear these two words a lot: magazines, books, TV programs, very personal stories of various gurus who managed suddenly to convert their life to a lasting miracle. Every second sentence (ok, this is a bit of exaggeration) is all about: ‘quit smoking in 7 days! ‘ ; ‘get rid of your alcohol addiction without professional help’; ‘how did I loose 15 kg in a month!’ and it go on and on and on. Because at the moment it seems that there is no issue you can not actually sort without self-help. But to be honest, I guess some things can not be sorted without help from outside world, because all of us still needs that push or a kick which would make us change.
But my aim here is to talk about the things that can be sorted with self-help and the way this ‘magic’ self-help thing works. If you believe that self-help is something that will change you – you are wrong. If you think it is something that will help you get rid of the old bad and nasty habits – you are wrong once again. To express my very personal point of view – people don’t change. You are a complex of different lego bricks, like the one put by hyper energetic 5 year old who says he building an airplane but than you look at the construction it more reminds of an apple to you. So there is a mix of colors and shapes, shades and sizes in your structure. Non of us were born alcoholics, smokers or naturally depressed. Non of us were struggling dealing with anxiety than we were 2 years old and non of us were obsessed by eating at that time. Just our lego structure was put in different angles at different times, so just the certain bricks you could see and some of them were just somewhere inside the structure, well hidden. Yes, you can not change your lego structure, you can not simply remove all the black and blue bricks and throw them away. But what you can do is to reconstruct. To rebuild yourself from the details you have, putting the yellow bricks on the surface and sticking the black ones somewhere inside the structure. They will still be there, but they will not bother you much as they will be pressed down by the yellow ones. And – you can always add new bricks to the structure.
So that what is self-help. It is reconstructing yourself from the features, skills and qualities you have. Make some of them more visible and leave the rest hidden inside and maybe waiting to be dragged outside than necessary. It is not changing yourself from who you are – it is simply modifying and shaping yourself to they way you want to be. It is working with yourself and for yourself in order to improve. Figuring out what of the qualities, habits and skills are the yellow bricks and which ones are black. Switching their places and figuring out than the bricks of a new color should be added. It is simply being creative.
