Not self help

This is not a self help book.

I'll admit there are some similarities. You might find a flow chart here or a seven step process there. You will probably read some poetry too mediocre to get published as poetry, and instead included here because it makes my point.

But this book differs from self help books in very important ways. First, it was not written by an educated man who is telling you that all he had to do to succeed was to have a good attitude. Thanks for that tip. I had no idea that all well off people needed to do to have success was to get their heads out of their asses. Maybe if the book included a copy of their diploma it would actually make me more effective.

There is no attractive picture on the flap of this book. While I suspect my fiancee actually finds me attractive, my looks have not been known to stop traffic or cure cancer patients. I do not have a finely chiseled chin, my smile does not gleam, and my hair does not do that wavy professional thing. Rather my teeth are a bit worse for wear after a childhood of stunts and my hair looks like an electrical burn victim.

Finally, and most importantly, this book is not trying to convince you that while you may have a problem you have the capacity solve your problem if only you listened to me.

It is for this reason that this is not a self help book.

Rather, this is an other help book.

Even as I write, I am trying to convince you that other people have a problem, lots of problems, actually, and that you are the one capable of solving them. This is not an equation for how to make your life better, but the lives of the people around you better.

The pages leading up to this one are stories of my life, an ongoing account of how I got to these ideas and how they changed me. But to be perfectly honest, I am basically done talking about me. From this point on, there will be a new subject.

You.

It is your life, your choices, and your actions that are now the defining drive behind this writing. See, the idea is pretty basic. I can't save the world alone. I could try my ass off, but even with the most brilliant of plans I am doomed to failure. But that is where you come in. Where WE come in. Solving world problems seems a bit out of reach for a single person. Even a few people. But what if the world tried to solve the world's problems? Seems like there would be just enough help to get it done.

My reason for writing this book: to get you to help me save the world. To that end, we need to change up the style of writing. Before, I was telling stories, stories you constructed imaginatively in order to visualize what had happened. But now your imagination needs to serve a different purpose. You need to imaginatively construct visions of what can happen.

This process involves telling you about problems in the world. It goes on to reflect on how to evaluate and solve them. And I'll be perfectly honest, I rely on some of the very same techniques used by the endless wading pool that is self help literature. Flow charts. Step by step processes. Crappy poetry. I'll never suggest that this book is better written.

But I do contend that this book has a better aim. I am not here to increase your satisfaction by making you be a better you. No, my goal, and I can only hope our goal, is to make a better world.
What could be more satisfying than that?