Reading Wayne Dyer

I'm not sure how to feel about Wayne Dyer. On the one hand, he's the dude PBS calls on when they need to raise a lot of money very quickly. He's so popular he's kind of like Dr. Phil. And I don't have a whole lot of respect for Dr. Phil. Why? Because he's too damn popular. Anything popular must be mass market, and I generally like to travel outside of the pack, where the original people are.

Still, I have to tell you, I just finished reading Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones and I sure did highlight a lot of passages in it. An awful lot. I found some good wisdom in it. It's not wisdom nobody's thought of before, or wisdom that sounds completely original. But it is wisdom of a fairly universal nature, as in stuff I can't really argue about. Even things I find myself nodding in agreement to.

Ah, the dilemma of it all.

I started keeping a self help book journal in honor of finishing this book, so I could write down the key points. That's how much I wound up enjoying it. I know, TOTAL NERD.

But here are a few things I found:

"You are the sum total of all your choices."

Duh. But think about it. Really think. You are responsible for yourself. Your screw ups are not someone else's fault. Man, that's empowering and scary, isn't it?

"The issue here is your own ability to choose happiness, or at least not choose unhappiness, at any given moment of your life."

In other words, QUIT WHINING, LOSER!

He never used the "l" word, but I have a strong feeling he really, really wanted to.

That's tough though, isn't it? You have to give up all that satisfying whining crap and just choose to be happy. But it's way more dramatic the other way. Ugh.

"Why should you do everything well? Who's keeping score for you?"

Damn. That's true. I drive myself, and I pretty much knew that. I have a certain set of expectations for me, not that I always meet them. In fact, I hardly ever do. Do I drive myself too hard? Probably. Probably.

"Entertain yourself with a fantasy in which you allow yourself to have anything."

It's one of those "if you can dream it you can realize it" things. And yeah, I guess that's so. Theoretically. But what I'm fantasizing about now is being Oprah's next wunderkind. That leads to untold prosperity, which leads to complete security and a ticket out of the damn suburbs to someplace with more character. Can I do that?

Maybe if Wayne lends me some of his millions.

You get the idea. It's all this sort of motivational stuff, and most of it's pretty good actually. Scary to hear myself say that. I guess this Dyer guy is okay, unlike Dr. Phil who's a complete media whore. Wayne Dyer has a very Zen philosophy, in a tough love way.

I'll read more by Dyer. In fact, I own three or four of his other books already. He's okay, I've decided.