Passage of the Day: G.K. Chesterton on Self-Help Books

There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever known among men... these things are about nothing; they are about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey... I really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back...

If you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book about whist; you may want a book about cheating at whist. But you cannot want a book about Success... You may want to jump or to play cards; but you do not want to read wandering statements to the effect that jumping is jumping, or that games are won by winners...

Or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the philosopher of Success dropped upon our other case, that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run--"In playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to win the game...

Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example. There is an article called "The Instinct that Makes People Rich." It is decorated in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only "instinct" I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as "the sin of avarice." That, however, is beside the present point.

-From All Things Considered by G.K. Chesterton

Scientist Discovers the Procrastination Equation

Ok, so he published this in 2007, I meant to get around to posting it, but...

What causes a person to procrastinate? Dr. Piers Steel, University of Calgary professor in the Haskayne School of Business, came up with a formula he's dubbed Temporal Motivational Theory. That is, an equation that predicts how likely a person is to put off a task.

It takes into account factors such as the expectancy a person has of succeeding with a given task (E), the value of completing the task (V), the desirability of the task (Utility), its immediacy or availability (Ã) and the person's sensitivity to delay (D).

It looks like this and uses the Greek letter Ã: Utility = E x V/ÃD

Here's the full article from Eurekalert if you'd like to know more.

By the way, if you hope to break through your stalling by stating your intentions to the world (self-help books love to suggest this) think again. (You were kind of wanting to think again anyway, right, oh, and check Facebook a few times.)

Turns out that a number of studies show, announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed. In other words, you get enough of an ego boost by stating your intention to start working out, that you don't really need to go to all the trouble of working out physically.