What Have I Ever Done for You?
Requesting a highly biased sample of anecdotes
In case it’s not obvious, I’m a vain man. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t. Whenever anyone tells me, “Your advice improved my life,” I’m all ears.
I’m most thrilled, of course, by the hundreds of people who declare that I convinced them to have more kids. (Do the math on the tweet below: Assuming honest responses, the lower bound on the effect of my natalist crusade is 279 souls!) But I appreciate almost any tale about the benefits of heeding my advice on career, romance, parenting, friendship, entertainment, or… anything really.
So in honor of the release of my Self-Help Is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better, I have a vain request. Namely: If you’ve ever found my self-help writings helpful to yourself, please share your true story in the comments. (Stay anonymous if you prefer).
In the interests of objectivity, feel free to also share anecdotes where my advice was less than ideal.
If I get good responses, I’ll highlight them in a follow-up post.
Thanks in advance!
I was convinced by your argument that reading the news doesn't meaningfully improve my life, so I mostly stopped. I still read a few things now and then out of morbid curiosity, but I'm grateful to not be doing it regularly.
How can you not get good advice from a guy named Bryan? The most concrete example is how I stooped worrying about the impact of immigration on "our way of life" when one of your posts made me realize that my grandchildren have more in common with their first- and second-generation immigant friends than they do with me.
And recognizing social confirmation bias has shown me how little some people I know truly think about the issues they seem so passionate about.