Richard Carlson (1) (1961–2006)

Dr. Richard Carlson has the best intentions in this fluff-filled little book, suggesting to people how to live a stress-free, happy life. Unfortunately, Carlson often doubles up on his suggestions and offers up some strange strategies that often conflict with his own sage advice. There are 100 little one-and-two page strategies to improve your life. The title comes from some advice Carlson was once given, that many little things in our lives are blown up into huge things. However, Carlson gives the exact same length to topics like being nice to others as he does to the joys of taking care of a house plant. It often is not enough. In one strategy, he will suggest listening to another's problems and letting them vent, and then later suggest not trying to solve everyone's problems. We should spend all of our free time with those we love, but keep time out for yourself. Cut back on your activities and reflect, yet get involved with charity and service and give something back. Carlson will often repeat topics as well, mentioning the same Mother Teresa quote twice. One of his strategies calls on the reader to write heartfelt letters telling others how much you love them. If I received a letter like this from someone I have not had much contact with lately, I would be more worried about whether that person was saying goodbye to this cruel world than anything else. I had seen Carlson on TV talk shows (he died far too young in 2006), and he came off as very knowledgeable and sincere, but after many dozen one and two page strategies, your eyes will finally glaze over as the helpful sap gets a little deep. Don't sweat the small stuff, and this book is just that. I cannot recommend it.… (mere)

I’m going to try to review this again.

Once I read this, years and years ago, and I was psychotic, so I said who knows what—probably something about World War Two. Maybe two years ago I read it again and wrote another review (an early goosecap review) that I deleted, which wasn’t offensive, really, at all, but I didn’t quite get it. I mentioned in passing not wanting to be as interesting as Hitler, and so I really chewed on the concepts, right—not quite as bad as my Brene book about Imperfection, which was Really pedantic: like I thought it was about not so much understanding life, like a well tossed salad, right, (I mean, I don’t eat salad—I get my vitamins from fruit drinks, mostly, but I needed that adjective, well-tossed, like, you kinda take that wisdom and you…. [toss, toss]), but a god-damn philosopher, right, so….

It’s pop psych. It’s easy to make fun of. In fact, maybe that’s what you’re living for…. And it’s easy to kinda raise a glass to him, tell him that you agree, that you’ll be a little boring before you start the war or, I don’t know, not so much a romance (though that, too, is a war), but actually that kinda, marshaling the books, you know; spilling your ink in battle….

Just like you would if you did Not like the book, lol.

So I don’t know exactly what the best review is; I guess if I were a famous promoter I’d just get really formal and be like, “Richard, son of Carl, is the greatest hero the West has had since Perseus, son of Jack”, right—and that is what most people kinda say, unless they say, you know, I don’t know—they find a pirate, with one leg, and one arm, and one eye, and one tooth, and they don’t know, they rob somebody right, with a slave ship, right….

Really the best response would be to tell a personal story. In place of telling a personal story of success, though, let me just say…. Was it Rumi who said, you know, We shall look again and again, and over and over again say, This is not as we had imagined it…. ~ Yeah, and Rumi wasn’t one to fuck around with the philosophers and the monks, right. Rumi was a storm. He was summer rain….

—Life is not an emergency.
—(Hermes) (eyes widen in surprise) Really….
—Yeah. It’s fine.
—I was always learning like, Life is afraid, you know. Like, with God, and everything, you know.
—People do say that.
—You know, one time, I saw a movie about an emergency. It was called World War Two: A Storm of Fire….
—I missed that one.
—Sometimes I like to feel afraid and then project the anger that I’m afraid of onto my enemy, and then I make it into a joke…. Life can be such an emergency, I feel like.
—It’s not, though.
—Oh my god…. Is that what you said before?
—Yeah.
—Wow, okay….

…..

“Your heart, the compassionate part of you, knows that it’s impossible to feel better at the expense of someone else.”

…. I read Kris Carr say in a magazine that she thought that success was dependent on having a growth mindset (which I’ve had for a long time), and, I forget the phrase she used, but like, a sense of agency; “I am enough”—which is still something I’m easing into. Richard talks about the “weatherproofing” mindset—looking for the cracks; (the ‘smiling preacher’ type talks about contentment, and not just goals, you know); he talks about it in relationships, where it can really be bad (my father and step mom still weatherproof each other, and I was miserable when I weatherproofed them), but I find I can create a low-grade sense of stress—turn it on, turn it off, turn it on again—but weatherproofing myself. Like I’m not “done” yet; I’ll never be finished—but here I am, this is me. I am enough…. I also find that we weatherproof technology a lot. I can’t prove this—nobody really understands why WiFi cuts out sometimes, etc etc—but I can’t help but speculate that the way we grouse about technology discourages it…. It makes it cut out and come back and cut out again. We can even weatherproof the critical mind itself—part of why Richard only writes a few lines at a time; eventually you just have to forget about it, which is why his other thing is telling people that you love them, etc.… (mere)