VIDEO: The Lie of Self Help | C.S. Lewis

The Lie of Self Help | C.S. Lewis – powered by Happy Scribe

Now here I’ve got a rather difficult thing to say. On the one hand, it isn’t true that we shall lose our personal differences by letting Christ take us over. On the other hand, I don’t think Christ can take us is over as long as we’re bothering about what will happen to our personality. Can I take the first point first? If a person didn’t know about salt, wouldn’t he think that anything with such a strong taste would kill the taste of all the other things in any dish you put it into?

We know that, as a matter of fact, it brings out their real taste. Well, it’s rather like that with Christ. When you’ve completely given up yourself to his personality, you will then for the first time in your life be developing into a real person. He made the whole world. He invented as an author, invents characters, in a book.

All the different men that you and I were intended to be our royal selves are, so to speak, all waiting for us in Him. What I call myself now is hardly a person at all. It’s mainly a meeting place for various natural forces, desires and fears, etc. Some of which come from my ancestors and some from my education, some perhaps from devils. The self you are rarely intended to be is something that lives not from nature, but from God.

At the beginning of these talks, I said there were personalities in God will. I go further now there are no real personalities anywhere else. I mean, no full, complete personality. It’s only when you allow yourself to be drawn into his life if you turn into a true person. But on the other hand, it’s just no good at all going to Christ for the sake of developing a fuller personality.

As long as that’s what you’re bothering about, you haven’t begun. Because the very first step towards getting a real self is to forget about the self. It will come only if you’re looking for something else that holds. You know, even for us in atoms, even in literatureial, art no man who cares about originality will ever be original. It’s the man who’s only thinking about doing a good job or telling the truth who becomes really original and doesn’t notice it.

Even in social life, you’ll never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking what sort of impression you make. That principle runs all through life, from the top to the bottom. Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, submit with every fiber of your being and you’ll find eternal life.

Look for Christ and you will get Him and with Him everything else thrown in. Look for yourself and you’ll get only hatred, loneliness, despair and ruin.

The concept of self-help has become increasingly popular in recent years, with an entire industry built around the idea that individuals have the power to improve their own lives through personal development and self-improvement. This idea is not new, however, and has been around for centuries in various forms. C.S. Lewis, the famous Christian writer and theologian, had a critical view of the self-help movement and its underlying premise.

In his book, “Mere Christianity,” Lewis argues that the idea of self-help is based on a lie, one that is deeply rooted in our modern culture. He points out that our society is obsessed with the idea of personal growth and self-improvement, and that we are constantly bombarded with messages telling us that we can be better, happier, and more successful if we just try harder.

According to Lewis, this obsession with self-improvement is based on the belief that we are inherently flawed and that we must constantly strive to be better in order to be happy and fulfilled. This belief, he argues, is fundamentally flawed and sets us up for failure.

Lewis contends that the lie of self-help is rooted in the belief that we are self-sufficient and that we can achieve happiness and success on our own. This belief, he says, is a fundamentally selfish one, as it assumes that our own happiness and well-being are the most important things in the world.

However, Lewis argues that this belief is ultimately flawed, as it ignores the fact that we are all interconnected and that our happiness and well-being are deeply tied to the happiness and well-being of others. He points out that true happiness and fulfillment come not from striving for personal growth and self-improvement, but from loving and serving others.

Furthermore, Lewis argues that the self-help industry is built on the premise that we are all fundamentally flawed and that we need to constantly work on ourselves in order to be happy and successful. This, he says, is a dangerous and damaging message, as it implies that we are not good enough as we are and that we need to constantly work on ourselves in order to be worthy of love and acceptance.

In contrast, Lewis argues that we are all created in the image of God and that we are all worthy of love and acceptance just as we are. He points out that our worth and value do not come from our achievements or our ability to improve ourselves, but from the fact that we are loved and valued by God.

In conclusion, C.S. Lewis argues that the lie of self-help is rooted in the belief that we are self-sufficient and that we can achieve happiness and success on our own. He points out that this belief is fundamentally flawed and sets us up for failure, as it ignores the fact that we are all interconnected and that our happiness and well-being are deeply tied to the happiness and well-being of others. Instead of striving for personal growth and self-improvement, Lewis argues that we should focus on loving and serving others, as this is the key to true happiness and fulfillment. So, the lie of self help is just a way to distract us from the real purpose of our lives which is to love and serve others.