How to be Happy Though Human by W. Beran Wolfe

Okay. I admit it. I have read many, many, many self-help books.

Around age 28 or so I realized I had some "issues"  as a friend placed her therapists' business card in my hand.  It took me a while to call the therapist, but I did seek out help in books.

Back in the 1980's the whole self-help book industry was just getting going. Which is right around the time I realized that I might want to go on a quest to find myself. In other words opportunity was knocking for the newly-minted gurus of personal greatness just waiting to share their experience and wisdom. I was an eager audience seeking enlightenment.  And in order to buy a book you had to actually go to a bookstore.  No internet, no Amazon.

The first "self-help" book I ever read was actually published in 1931 in New York.   How to be Happy Though Human an out of print title that sells today for around $90.00 and up if you can find it. I have a copy on my bookshelf and I am not telling you where I live.

At the time I was a temporary administrative assistant at Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in the newly completed World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan right across from the World Trade Center, I occupied myself during my downtime with outlining  How to be Happy Though Human, onto 5x7 index cards with many colored felt-tip pens. Here is an example of two cards in the deck I created.

I made myself flash cards while answering the phones.

Here's the thing about self-help books is they help you more if you:

1. Read the book.
2. Take notes.
3. Put the ideas into action.

This is a quote...

"If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert.  He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.  He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself.  He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day."  ~W. Beran Wolfe

Thank you, Mr. Wolfe. 

Books Make the Home

This blog is about some of the books I read, some I meant to read, plan to read and others that have been sitting on bookshelves just waiting for me to actually open them and learn something. 

The untouchables of my childhood

I grew up in a home that had over 5000 books, most of which I was afraid to touch. The books were rare, collectible treasures from my grandfather. Books were everywhere. In big glass enclosed book cases lining the walls of the living room, bedrooms and hallways.  Great literature.  Books by Virginia Woolf such as first editions with dustjacket of Night and Day, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own.  Even if I wanted to read them, they were untouchable.   I got the paperback versions.

There were some good books here.

With all those books around, I became a reader.

While I may not have always chose the books my mother thought I should read, books actually saved me from the grown-up angst and chaos that swirled around me in my young life.