"Self Help" in air quotes

​I have come to consider most of what passes for “self help” literature today as obscene because it ignores the complexities of life, glosses over the ardor and commitment required for change and promises panaceas not likely to happen.  These banal insults to the depth of our souls will almost always end with disappointment, disillusionment, or further self-castigation, for they ignore the immense power of fate, which is to say, the sovereignty of the gods.

                                                                                        James Hollis, What Matters Most