I've always enjoyed reading. But not all reading is equal. In my thirties, I found myself gravitating towards a specific type of books—those focused on personal, entrepreneurial, or some other success-driven genre. With the goal of forging a better self, I eagerly consumed these books, hoping to distill wisdom from their inflated narratives. But in the end, that's all they were. Inflated fairy tales.
Same as people who desperately try to mimic successful personalities, it's just a gimmick. Same as nobody else is going to be Steve Jobs (but many can be jailed like other imposters), nobody is going to give you an instant success guarantee. No matter how hard they try.
I have gave up on most of those fast-books. Did I become worse person? No. Started reading again only mostly literature - not even the "proper ones", like the Pulitzer winning fiction only. I just read whatever I like and most of those stories have much more substance than anything I found in the self-help ones.
But who am I to comment on this. The title of this post is actually reference to G. K. Chesterton's essay on the very same topic. Quite surprising it's over 100 years old. Guess some things never get old...
Our modern world is full of books about Success and successful people which literally contain no kind of idea, and scarcely any kind of verbal sense.
Fallacy of Success - The Project Gutenberg eBook of All Things Considered, by G. K. Chesterton