Book Review - Easier Than You Think (2005)

Another set of easy to digest tidbits for groovy living

Easier Than You Think...
because life doesn't have to be so hard
Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
Harper SanFrancisco, 2005
195 pages

Richard Carlson achieved notoriety from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, a blend of storytelling and therapy that offers simple advice for dealing with the complexities of modern life.  Though Carlson has no doubt been steadily working his way toward psych celebrity status for many years, I discovered Sweat in the late 90s.

Three major virtues of a Carlson book seem to be simplicity, brevity, and modularity.  He dispenses insights in manageable chunks, and many people claim his insights are as helpful as visits to a run-of-the-mill shrink.  I doubt any studies have been done in this regard.  But I recall reading the book, then recommending it to a former girlfriend who was going through a stressful period.  It helped to alleviate some alarming psychosomatic symptoms.

Or maybe it was just that I still cared enough to send her the book.

Easier Than You Think continues the tradition of bite-sized advice you can apply immediately, and I confess to feeling a bit of envy that such simplicity has yielded for Carlson a readership in the tens of millions.  It brings to mind the image of Lucy dispensing psychological advice to Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comic strip, e.g. "So you have an itch, eh?  Go scratch it.  That'll be 5 cents!"

I'm sure critics say Carlson has made millions by compiling statements of the obvious.  If that's true, he's a pioneer and we can expect a host of followers in the near term.  Perhaps an analogy to the Carlson oeuvre are books of easy-to-perform and easy-to-remember golf tips from leading PGA Tour competitors.  The tips aren't going to hurt you, and if you are otherwise committed to making the effort, you'll get better at the game.

Barring unforeseen circumstances.

That's my only caveat for any power-of-positive-thinking advocate.  And the best ones guard against Pollyannaism by stipulating a sort of stoic fallback position in case a real tragedy occurs.  The indomitable soul of William Ernst Henley's Invictus comes to mind.  Carlson doesn't shy away from considering that real tragedies occur to people, and perhaps his specialty is working around that.

For the most part, it's always best to be as positive as possible, regardless of the circumstances.  In most cases, this is going to make for a much better quality of psychic and existential life.  In Easier, for example, Carlson walks through a series of recommendations for daily thought and action:

• Be aware of negative thoughts
• Learn to think positive thoughts
• Take a psychic and physical break frequently
• Accept facts
• Set expectations to zero, but don't stop hoping and working
• Take time to be yourself
• Listen without interrupting
• Learn to say no
• Stop the blame game
• Etc.

Each of the suggestions—there are 39 of them—is accompanied by a few pages of discussion and examples from the good doctor's own life with his family and friends.  It's a very comfortable read, and you wind up thinking, "Wow, I didn't realize the number of common sense practical rules that were out there for me.  I can do this."

For my own part, I've adopted a quiet period almost every morning where I clear my mind and perform some deep breathing and simple stretches.  Carlson doesn't advocate any particular meditative practice, but one of his recommendations is to take a five-minute quiet time occasionally throughout the day to just sit and breathe and clear.  The mind-quieting is conducive to the success of all other helpful behaviors.

The one behavior I have to wrestle with constantly is anger and frustration that individuals in general are not further along toward "seeing the light" of reason and freedom.  By recognizing the reality of current life, as well as the immense potential of so many who wish to be the best they can be, I basically am able to emotionally disconnect from those who currently won't think for themselves.

I can also emotionally disconnect from those who actively work to enslave me or my fellow thinking citizens.  It is better to simply work and fight against them without the debilitating emotion of hatred or anger.  Consider them an aberration, ignore them the best one can, and strive to achieve values.  As Rand has shown, evil is parasitical by nature, and removing the motive power of the creative class from control of the political class cuts off the latter's blood supply.

That's the main reservation I have with people like Carlson, they seem to put their heads in the sand about Real Evil.  Rather than coming up with helpful ideas for defeating the tyrants and criminals of the world, and turning the masses toward the need to jump start their own brains, Carlsonites act as if everyone were self-motivated to be better.  They make no moral judgments.

Evil flourishes in an atmosphere of moral abdication.

For example, moral abdication is what has allowed the current administration to launch a war based on lies.  Few are prepared to call it evil, because a) few have understood the reasoning that makes what the president's men have done evil, and b) many are guilty, or would be guilty, of the same aggressive behavior, only in different contexts.  John Kerry, for instance, was once a vigorous prosecutor of innocent civilians who violated unConstitutional drug laws.

Sorry, I'm digressing here.  Carlson is good.  He's helpful to those of us fighting the good fight for reason and freedom, people in the RLM (reason-liberty movement).  And he's helpful to people sitting on the sidelines simply trying to live their lives in ordinary peace and benevolence.

What's that line from Irwin Corey, "You can get more with a kind word and a .45 than you can with a kind word alone."  Well, it's still nice to have the kind words.