Secular self-help focuses on ways to attempt force yourself to manage to handle all of life's problems, by yourself, as if it were ever truly possible for us to "win" at life without support, when those who deny the Son of God are going to lose at the end anyway. They play the game on hardmode, and then at the end, they only have one possible ending - regardless of any accolades, currency, or completionist goals they met along the way.
I read these secular self-help articles out of nothing more than morbid curiosity. Of course, certain advice is useful, but the possibility of actual success in either application or positive results is muted heavily by the lack of focus on the fact that God has your life in His hands. For all the advice that is actually good, and (somewhat hilariously) rooted deeply in an obvious truth of our world that is found within the Word of God (but just manages to not mention that fact), there is just as much advice that is actually poison, and the ability to discern between these is also easily found within the Word of God.
I've read some secular self-help articles that read exactly like a Christian devotional, just minus the Bible quotes. "Helping others actually makes us more joyful," "learn to be content with what you have," "be honest about your faults," and so on. The problem with speaking Biblical truths without the mention of the Bible is that there is no foundation upon which to establish the application of these truths.
You'd think "well, as long as some of the advice has Biblical backing, it's not bad that people would follow it!" If only that were true. Imagine someone giving quite generously to charity because it makes them feel good - because it does, as would be obvious to anyone who has realized the Truth of creation - but they shout it loudly from the rooftops and tell everyone they meet how much of a philanthropist they are. Without the foundations found within the Bible, this obvious truth that we should donate time and money to the least of our society, we quite easily perform them in a poisoned way that ends up not helping us. Big oof.
This is to say nothing of advice poisoned from the get go, advice that tends to read in any other words as "you're your own god and have complete control over your life" (spoiler: you aren't, and you don't). I don't feel like I need to explain this any further. Advice that insists to you that you could somehow manage to stay in control of your life ignores not just Biblical truth, but very obvious lived experiences of the vast majority of human beings.
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
People who manage to ignore this truth are destined for failure. And even when secular self-help advice falls in line with the painfully obvious reality that we have very little control over what happens to us, it inexplicably fails to comfort anyone in any real way. They will say things like, "accept that things will happen out of your control," with no substantial advice on how to actually do this. We are to simply wake up each day and somehow relax about the fact that any number of cataclysmic things could occur to us or our loved ones today, that we may then fall into oblivion or perish without anyone paying us a single thought, destined to nothing and with no hope for us, or anyone, all of human civilization drifting aimlessly, suffering without purpose, to no end.
There is no answer to this other than leaning on the support of the Lord our God, knowing that whatever calamity does fall upon us, we have a Creator who loves us and that His will and His plans are greater than ours, whether or not we can comprehend these things at any given time.
Perhaps I tend to bring things to their ultimate conclusion too quickly when putting things into perspective, but it is truly foolish to even attempt to contextualize your existence without a Creator. Regardless of what you do or how you live your life, you will die one day and nothing you've ever done will matter. "But what if I cure cancer or make the world a better place!" you shout. Excellent, I suppose - for now. Our world, too will end. "What if we make it to other planets, spread human civilization throughout the galaxy!" you insist. That, too, will pass away - in fact, our galaxy, and all of the universe, and all of existence, will one day face oblivion - whether you believe in a religiously-inspired worldview or not. If you're an adherent to science, you would have to face the reality that every single outlet, every worldview in existence, declares that all of existence will end. Scientific evidence points extensively to the fact that the universe will eventually expand beyond the capacity of its own power and cease - everything will end.
Nothing you do will ultimately matter. And yet I have said this to people, only to have them say "well, that's not for a long time." This is a shallow and infantile outlook. They do not deny it, but simply disallow themselves to reconcile with the fact that nothing we do matters. Whether we are rich or poor, whether we help or harm others, we will pass away, they will pass away, and any impact - good or bad - that we've made on this planet or any other planets will pass away. It is all - ultimately - meaningless. There is no point in a worldview that does anything other than focus on making your short, dust in the wind life enjoyable if that worldview lacks a foundation higher than our basic, physical human existence.
And that is the failure of secular self-help - at the end of the day, it's blind to the final conclusions of its logical thought process. Why even improve your life when it's so meaningless and temporary? Secular self help is a poor band-aid over the secularist's lack of deeper understanding for the world and all the implications therein.
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