[beat]

It's not "self help", but anything by Alan Watts will help you think of "self" in a very different way.

And again, not self-help, but I love recommending Shop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B Crawford, for reconsidering your relationship with work and finding joy in your career. The full book is worth reading, but this essay link gets the gist of it.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so...

[stinkytaco]

I'll offer a dissenting opinion on the book. I read it, enjoyed it, but thought "this should just be an essay". Then I found the essay and feel it communicates the essential point.

[skrebbel]

I mostly stopped reading non-fiction books because of this. You have to wrestle through seven chapters of introductory bullshit because the author gets to the point, just because a blog post doesn't sell for $20.

I wish there was a culture where good essays would actually sell for $20. Something with a "perceived value per word" review score maybe.

[mziel]

I find the same thing even with critically acclaimed "Thinking Fast and Slow" or "Power of habit". On the other hand sometimes blogposts may not be exhaustive enough. IMO roughly 60-100 pages is the perfect format – you don't need to overly simplify the topic (like in blogpost, newspaper article) but you don't need to repeat yourself 10 times over (like in 300-400 page book).