The Tone Deafness of Self-help Advice

If you’ve ever found yourself up shit creek, chances are well-meaning people in your life have bombarded you with well-intentioned self-help tips. They mean well, they really do.

Then there’s those inspirational memes, but I’ll leave those for another discussion.

You access online to forums, discussion boards or support groups. You grab a self-help book from the library or bum one from a friend. You’re ready to improve your well-being, tune up your diet, get fit and reduce stress.

“Move to a better neighborhood,” “Don’t be so stressed. Try yoga,” “Make the choice to be happy,” “You CAN overcome a financial crisis!” “You can tap your full potential!”

For some people, digging out from a crisis or improving a problematic area in their life is doable. That’s not the problem. The problem lies in the implicit message that everyone has the means to access the services and activities to bring about the resolution they’re seeking.

The tone deafness of self-help authors can be shocking, but not surprising.

For someone of very limited means, most of the advice found online is nothing but wishful thinking.

Given that more than 45 million people are mired at or below the poverty line, most self-help advice and activities ring hollow. Much of the popular advice found in self-help blogs, websites and in magazines is directed at white, upper-middle class folk. The whiteness and classism of such “advice” is blinding.

Ironic, considering that the most distressed and fastest-growing group as a whole are low-income people. Chronic disease, lack of access to quality health care (Medicaid is not quality health care), lack of safe childcare, shitty wages, and sleep deprivation (having to work three jobs to stretch said shitty wages) dog the poor and marginalized, and keep them poor and marginalized.

Who has the time or money for fucking yoga or meditation classes when there are three jobs on the docket and a landlord sending “Pay rent or fuck off” notices or when someone has to choose between eating and paying the light bill?

Who can take “just an hour” for themselves when they have young kids at home and no access to safe childcare, if even for that one hour?

Who has the means to “move to a better neighborhood” when security deposits and first month/last month costs are astronomical?

POC, the elderly, queer and disabled folk also disproportionately occupy the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder here in the U.S., so the majority of self-help advice is tone-deaf bullshit that overlooks a large chunk of the U.S. population.

“But there are services for low-income people, too!” Yeah, no. Anyone who has ever tried to access low-cost services has encountered one or more roadblocks : understaffing or under-funding, not reachable by transit, limited hours, long wait lists, and inexperienced staff (most agencies are staffed by interns, at least where I live).

Self-help types love to victim-blame those who can’t afford to access their advice or suggested services. I call bullshit.

If self-help fanboys and fangirls really want to change the world, “change hearts,” help people reduce stress, and to “realize their full potential”, they would focus on addressing and correcting the structural factors that prohibit those most in need from accessing self-improvement programs in the first place.