I have just been looking at the top 20 bestselling books on Amazon.com. Several of these books are what used to be called "self-help": how to live your life successfully. There are also a few books on diet and nutrition.
I remember reading somewhere that when Dale Carnegie started his evening classes for salesmen, he discovered that many of his students had basic problems with getting along with their fellow humans. Listening to the stories told in class, he identified key areas where many people go wrong. And he wrote his book How to make friends and influence people.
The next thing that Carnegie discovered was that his students had lots of worries. Again, listening to their problems and interviewing prominent people to get their experiences of coping with worry, he published How to stop worrying and start living.
The point I am making here is that nothing has really changed. Apparently we still need books to help us. Every year there are new theories about what to eat and when and how to eat it. And there are, as I said at the beginning, all these works on how to manage your life. So, have we learned anything, despite all these tomes of wisdom? Are we all still looking for some magic formula for living? And if we are, will we ever find it?
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