We got a packet of books here at my office that we’re thinking of publishing –– very quirkily designed self-help books put out by Alain de Botton’s School of Life, located in London. I’m a fan of de Botton (despite never having read any book of his) and of the SoL, but I don’t have much use for most self-help as I was in therapy long enough to be bestowed an honorary PhD. Usually, if I need help, I just listen to the air, or read The Tao or Within the Context of No Context for the umpteenth time (both.) So for work, I was assigned to read Philippa Perry’s How to Stay Sane, one of a series (which includes How to Think More About Sex and How to Find Fulfilling Work) and while it was well-written, most of it just wasn’t unknown to me. There was, however, one extremely funny and soothing sentence about 3/4 of the way through:
“I sometimes look at a busy street and think: in a hundred years, we will all be dead.”
I think maybe we ought to establish a type of therapy called Radical Acceptance of Death. In this practice, the patient comes in, begins to speak about his/her dilemmas, a la CBT, and the therapist just responds to every single concern with, “What does it matter? You’ll be dead soon, anyway.” Eventually the patient will succumb to the inevitability of his/her demise and things will just seem less important, overall.
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