The Best Self-Help is Free: Introduction

This is the introduction to The Best Self-Help is Free, a treatise by Mr. Stolyarov. You can read all chapters of this freely available work here.

The commercial self-help industry has a reputation for scamming its customers and for further undermining the well-being of those whose lives it purports to improve. I believe that this reputation is well-deserved. But the purpose of this work is not to attack those who are wrong. Although I do not unconditionally embrace "the power of positive thinking" as preached by the sensationalist self-help gurus, I do believe that creating something positive ought to occupy the highest place in a person's life - followed closely by a constant internal battle against fallacies, prejudices, superstitions, hasty judgments, and collective delusions to which one might have fallen prey.

I aim to create a different approach to self-help, one free from the vices of the conventional self-help industry. Here are a few essential differences between my approach and the mainstream approach.

You do not have to pay me anything. I do not offer this work to take money out of the pockets of my readers and put it in my own. I say this upfront: I do not have other products to sell you or programs to which I will encourage you to pay me exorbitant amounts of money to subscribe. You will not need to pay me $20 for a paperback full of platitudes, or $40 for a hardcover book full of the same platitudes. You will not need to pay me $5000 for attending a seminar where I strut around the stage mouthing those very same platitudes.

I do not and I never plan to make my living off of giving philosophical or emotional advice to others. I have an excellent actuarial career waiting for me, which will more than suffice to accomplish my financial objectives. Of course, all other things equal, more money is better, and I do plan to make a slight amount of money off of this work - in proportion to its readership. But you will not be paying me that money. Rather, I will be paid by Associated Content - the site hosting this work - in direct proportion to the number of page views it receives.