My name is Eliza and I am a self-help-aholic.
There, I've said it, made my confession. Despite all rational thoughts to the contrary (and my husband's silent despair) I am a sucker for self-help.
A look at my bookshelf gives this away. How to be more organised, Feeling Good, 10 Steps to Positive Living, How to Stop Worying - there they all sit, a testament to various tried and abandoned attempts at self improvement over the last couple of decades.
Fortunately I've been happily married for most of that time so I've skipped the Men are From Mars, Women who love too much section. But motherhood brings its own neuroses so I've been able to add How to raise happy children, The Baby Whisperer et al. Throw in a few Christian titles and I've got quite a collection.
I have tried to give it up before. A purge of my bookshelves a few years ago saw a number of happiness manuals bite the dust.
But I noticed this week, when trying to clear out the paper rack, that I seem to have moved on to what you might call "self-help lite". I have a backlog of magazines that I've saved because of a tempting headline of the "transform your life in 5 minutes" variety. From weight loss, to happiness, to decluttering the house, I've hung on to a whole stack of publications in the hope that those few glossy pages are going to make all the difference.
A small part of my brain knows just throwing those magazines away would be a good move towards the "simplyfying my life" that the articles promise. And I am going to. Honestly. When I've just read this one more...
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