I didn't simply wake up one day and decide I was interested in self-help. My journey began more than forty years ago, albeit subliminally.
Books, books, and more books...
My late father was a voracious reader. Victim, like many of his generation to the laws of apartheid, he was forced to leave high school in his second-to-last year to help provide for his parents and family. And, for much of his life, that is what he did – provide for his family. But, boy, did he love to read. Everything from South African author Wilbur Smith to philosophical texts, the newspaper and magazines to best sellers and, of course, self-help books. One of my clearest childhood memories is standing in front of a bookshelf in our living room and scanning the titles, some of which I eventually picked up and read. My Dad owned a copy of Dianetics long before Hollywood made it famous. L. Ron Hubbard’s book sat alongside Nancy Ross’ Hinduism, Buddhism and Zen: An Introduction to Their Meaning and Their Arts but was also in the company of Harold Robbins, Jeffrey Archer and the Bible. Dad spoke so passionately of Archer’s Kane and Abel that I read it in 1981 at the tender age of 11. I remember thinking that if my 14-year-old brother, Raoul, is reading it, so should I.
"Thy will be done this day! Today is a day of completion; I give thanks for this perfect day, miracle shall follow miracle and wonders shall never cease."
In terms of self-help, while I didn’t realise it at the time, I first came to know about the concept in the early 1980s when my Dad talked about a man called Og Mandino and two of his seminal books, The Greatest Salesman in the World and The Greatest Miracle in the World. A few years later, he introduced me to Florence Scovel Schinn, who, via her book The Game of Life and How to Play It introduced me to my first affirmation – the one that appears above. More about these authors (Mandino and Scovel Schinn) will appear in later posts.
This is my Dad's copy of Og Mandino's book, The Greatest Miracle In The World. It travelled with him from Cape Town, South Africa, to Harare, Zimbabwe (1980) and back to Cape Town (1984). The book is now mine, and it holds pride of place on my bookshelf across the seas in Auckland, New Zealand. It is one of my most treasured possessions, and I look forward to revisiting this book in a dedicated post on the aspects that matter to me.
Dad also had a copy of Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World, but it was lost somewhere along the way. Said book preceded The Greatest Miracle In The World by seven years and I eventually bought my copy circa 2008. It's pretty old now, too, but it looks less battered and bruised than this one.
Here's my Dad doing two things he loved most: reading and camping (or, more accurately, being in [or close to] the ocean). Reader, you would be forgiven if you deduced from this post that my father was an instrumental figure in my life and my love of reading. He was. He still is. I will likely mention him several times during this journey, for he was wise, funny, ambitious, troubled, and loving. I had a relatively good, well-adjusted childhood thanks to him, my beloved mother Zaide, and my siblings Shereen, Raoul, and Devon. Until I understood that there was no single cause for depression and that brain structures could play a part, given this solid foundation, I used to wonder, why me? Why have I struggled? As I detail this path, I'll examine these questions and try to find answers for myself. For now, perhaps it is best to begin with the elephant in the room - or, more accurately, the 'black dog'. It has been baying for a long time, and maybe if I give it a voice, it will eventually stop.
WORKS CITED
Scovel Schinn, Florence. "The Game of Life and How To Play It". Hay House Inc. 2005 (p.26)
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