Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: How To Be Terrific

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Mike Peterson Published: September 10, 2011 1 minute 1 comment

You kind of know that a strip called "It's All About You" isn't going to miss the target on this topic.

I don't read a lot of self-help books. The concept seems a bit of an oxymoron and Tony Murphy points out exactly why: Self-help experts are apostles of the ancient wisdom embodied by that paragon of Eastern philosophy, Yum-Yum, in "The Mikado":

Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world. Can this be vanity? No! Nature is lovely and rejoices in her loveliness. I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.

I may not read a lot of self-help books but, between attending various functions as a reporter and attending them at conferences, I've sure heard a lot of inspiration messages about setting goals and saying them out loud and writing them on the bathroom mirror and giving the person next to you a hug.

I've been divided into groups, I've put my thoughts on Post-It Notes, I've stood up and taken a deep, deep breath and then exhaled slowly.

I've had my personal space invaded by people so smiley and chipper and perky they made Jim and Tammy Faye Baaker seem like Ted Kaczyinski and Greta Garbo.

And I've wished that, instead of improving my life, they'd simply sell me a damn kitchen knife so I could at least come away with the ability to cut tin cans in half and still slice a tomato wafer-thin.

I mean, we're all here to make a buck. Go for it.

But when I give a panhandler a buck, it's not because I believed his story. It's because I enjoyed his rap.

So, sure, give me a good rap. Show me your stuff.

But don't break out the glue sticks, construction paper, glitter and fuzzy yarn and make me create a portrait of how I feel. If I do the work, I should get the money. That's only fair.

I was pleasantly surprised one time at a conference by a woman who was supposed to tell us how to keep from being overwhelmed by our email. I was prepared for yet another "why I'm so perfect" lecture to improve my soul, but she simply threw her laptop up on the screen and showed how to create file folders, and she didn't even tell us what categories or labels we should use.

Turned out it wasn't self-improvement after all. It was technical assistance.

However, hers wasn't the only "how to get organized" lecture I'd sat through, which is why it came as such a pleasant surprise. Most of them have felt more like this: