Sweetie had never heard of it and was quite certain that she had never requested it from the library. We checked it out any way. I had picked up a Dean Koontz novel I had not read yet and was very excited to read it.
Sometime during the day, on an impulse I picked up The Jackrabbit Factor and began to read. I hated it. I fought it. I criticized it. I complained about it. And now, less than 24 hours later, I've finished it.
I hate self help books. I mocked Stephen R. Covey's praise for the book as I read the back cover. While praising Householder, Covey seemed to reveal his own vanity. Inside the cover I feared I had found yet another purveyor of the gospel of greed.
I have a friend who often quotes his mission president,
"He who worships at the altar of self-improvement, also worships a false God."While I have no real beef with Covey's 7 Habits, I do have a good deal to say about the Korihor-esque approach to life management he has incorporated into the paper and computer systems he sells. I have become certain that success comes, not from taking control of our lives, but from giving control to God. That method has largely governed my life for the past six years and has been far more productive than the Covey method I used for so many years before that. While planning is necessary, Richard Eyre's method as described in The Three Deceivers, is far more productive, much less time consuming and tons more fun.
The Three Deceivers was not a self help book, by my definition, but rather a fresh way of looking at life. In the end, so was The Jackrabbit Factor. While I am repulsed by greed, which revulsion probably tainted my view as I began the read; I am inspired by abundant thinking, which this book fostered in a bright new way.
I harbor queasy misgivings about the rah rah approach of Anthony Robbins, Smith/Covey Inc. and others who attract wealth by promising wealth to others who'll follow their "programs." And the Householders seem to have pursued the same course. It all seems too gimmicky to me. But hey, if there is something I can glean from all the hoopla, why not. It hasn't cost me anything but a bit of time, which I'd probably have wasted any way.
The part I liked was mostly stuff I have already experienced and had previously come to believe. The fact that I've been down in the dumps is a clear indicator that I had not been living congruently with those beliefs, though. Looking back I realize my life is replete with examples of how these methods of thinking really work. I must credit the book with stimulating a more concentrated focus on the matter and thus a marked emergence from the doldrums. The fundamental things are true, powerful and available to all. But you don't need to buy the book, I'll gladly teach them to you for free.
Householder points out that the "things we want, want us." In this case the book seems to have wanted me when I didn't necessarily want it. I have to admit that it did turn up at a most opportune time.
Three Stars
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