Ever since the overachievement set went mainstream, it’s been hard to
figure out when it’s a good idea to fine-tune yourself toward
physical/financial/occupational/marital/parental/spiritual betterment
and when to just embrace your flaws and get on with it. Beth Lisick, a
long-standing pillar of the San Francisco literary scene who lives in
Berkeley, is here to help. She spent a year wading through reams of
self-help literature so we don’t have to. She flew to seminars,
including a Cruise to Lose cruise with Richard Simmons, fished morsels
of good advice from oceans of self-help chaff, and grafted them onto a
funny memoir of her year-long effort to become a better person. She
does improve, but she remains endearingly, approachably imperfect. She
fumbles through the platitudes, non-sequiturs, and mind-changing
insight of self-help experts, honing her ability to know when to keep
her skepticism in check and when to let it rip, providing an invaluable
resource for lazy people who are too cool to seek self-improvement
programs but who could use a leg up in the personal-growth department.
TRENDING:
.Best East Bay Book
Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone by Beth Lisick