Platitudes And Other Advice

Language is sometimes quite confusing. “Help yourself,” means I can go to the buffet table and pile my plate as high as I want with food that someone else has prepared. “Self Help,” means I have to figure out how to wheedle myself an invitation to the party.

As far as I know, there aren’t any books written about helping myself to food except maybe a few etiquette books which advise: “Spilling red beets on your host’s white carpet is not acceptable.”

However, “Self Help” books abound. They give all kinds of advice about how you can improve the person you happen to be. I stumbled across a website which gave “Everyday Life Lessons.” Here are a few suggestions they offered:

“Don’t think of cost. Think of value.” That is really good advice until the repo man comes a’ knocking on your door.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Albert Einstein.” Common! Albert Einstein! Maybe you can derive some satisfaction from that advice if you remember that those timekeepers removed his brain after he died. I prefer Albert’s advice, “Science=1 part work+1 part play+1 part keep your mouth shut.”

“Cultivate friendship like you cultivate a garden.” If I did that, my friends would die from overwatering.

“You don’t drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.” There is a difference between falling and jumping. One is a mishap, and the other comes from one beer too many.

“Negative feedback is love in disguise.” Or it just may be a mean person tap dancing on your self-image.

“It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.” What if you are a really rotten person?

“Some people are poor because the only thing they have is money.” Yes, but I am guessing that makes being poor a lot easier.

I prefer suggestions from people who really know what they are talking about:

Mae West said, “Between two evils, I always pick the one I’ve never tried.”

George Carlin suggested, “If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

And, my favorite comes from Stephen Fry. “An original idea? That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said, if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”) Steven Wright