New Year, self-help and a tiny bit of philosophy

It's that time between Christmas and Valentine's Day when the media are full of New Year Resolution campaigns. My favourite is the "Turn over a new leaf" campaign for Clipper Teas. And I liked this excellent summary of Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry, which popped up on LinkedIn again.

But I'm quickly getting bored by all the self-help advice.

We're very familiar with life-style advice that talks of making the most of the present moment in order to maximise our potential.  Concepts such as Mindfulness or Emotional Intelligence echo what Classical philosophers such as the Stoics taught about living 'in the moment'.  Here is Seneca on the subject: "Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life. He who has thus prepared himself, he whose daily life has been a rounded whole, is easy in his mind"

But ancient philosophy (like, I suppose, the more transcendental religious traditions) teaches the importance of self-improvement without much reference to the people around us. Nowadays, looking at how much we seek validation by our social media habits, our happiness is probably far more reliant on what others think of us.