Lifestyles

Attaining happiness should be a breeze these days. After all, we can choose from a veritable Oprahsphere of help and advice from therapists, psychologists, self-help authors, talk-show hosts, psychics, life coaches, meditation, motivational speakers, and, of course, the pharmaceutical companies.

The help just keeps coming. In February, "The Secret" ($23.99 Atria/Beyond Words) vaulted onto the best seller list after being featured on "Oprah." Author Rhonda Bryne, a former reality-show producer from Australia, assures readers that they can obtain wealth, happiness and love by exerting the power of the mind. It touts "the law of attraction": If you think about positive things, they'll come to you -- whether it's a soulmate or a gym membership.

Robert Thompson, professor of media and culture at Syracuse University, struggles to control his sarcasm when "The Secret" is mentioned.

"It hijacks traditional religion," he says. "I've talked to a lot of people who are professional, perfectly intelligent people who are fully convinced that they get better parking spaces because they discovered 'The Secret.' "

Its popularity is hardly surprising, however, in a country where one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, dispensed self-improvement advice in his autobiography. "One could argue that it was the first self-help book," Thompson says. "I think it's built into the whole notion of how this nation is founded. ... Those immigrants were all people who kind of bought into a very powerful idea: You would annihilate your history. You would erase your path. You would cross an ocean to come to the new world."

And, it could be added, a new self.

The pursuit-of-happiness industry appeals to many people disenchanted with organized religion. It can be said to have begun in earnest in the late '60s and '70s, when young people sought answers in communes and Eastern religion. The '90s gave us the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise.

"I think people are just looking for answers," says Barbara Schwarck, life and executive coach and owner of Clear Intentions in Shadyside. "Most people have a tough life. They're trying to figure it out. How can I understand myself better? How can I cope with what's happening to me? "

Schwarck teaches clients to purge their negative emotions by practicing a mind-body therapy called neuro-emotional technique.

"There's people that want to make money from anything," she says. "Yes, of course the self-help industry is a great way for some people to make money. ... Yes, I make money with it, but it's not the reason I got into it. At heart, I'm doing it because I believe I can assist people with their goals and dreams."

"We live in a society that has more and more access and availability to material things, and we live in a society with a great deal of advertisement because we're capitalists and we want to sell things," says Gary Schadle, lead therapist at the outpatient behavioral-health center at Westmoreland Excela Health. "Capitalism is good. But because we want to sell people things, we connect the acquisition of material goods with happiness and fulfillment. I think that goes for cars and boats and houses and beer and also self-help books. I think what happens is that people find that they are less satisfied than they thought they would be when they acquire these things."

Dr. Micki McGee, a visiting scholar at New York University, took the self-help industry to task in her 2005 book, "Self Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life" (Oxford University Press).

"I think you could say anecdotally that people tend to get a little boost from them," she says. "People read a self-help book, and they can cheer themselves up in the short term. They can go to a workshop, and they'll feel better for a week or so."

She traces the rise of the industry to the decline of American's earning power and uncertainty about the economy.

"Job instability and downsizing and restructuring and all of those factors in the labor market has radically revamped people's sense of what a life will be," she says. "It is now imperative to invent and reinvent yourself. It's not optional anymore. You're not going to have one career. You're going to have five. ... The self-improvement industry responded to this increased anxiety among people by burgeoning. It's an enormous marketing opportunity. ... There was no such thing as life coach 10 years ago."

Between 1972 and 2000, the number of self-help books more than doubled, from 1.1 percent of all books in print to 2.4 percent of all books in print, says McGee, citing research by Oxford doctoral student Christine Whelan.

The expansion of cable television, which needed programs to fill the time, led to the culture of infomercials, she says, providing electronic pulpits for Susan Powter, with her platinum-blonde crew cut and "Stop the Insanity!" mantra, as well as the fire-walking workshops of motivational speaker Anthony Robbins.

The Rev. James Wehner, rector of St. Paul Seminary in Crafton and director of priestly formation for the Archdiocese of Pittsburgh, empathizes with the search for happiness and fulfillment. To a point.

"I think medicine, counseling, -- those have become necessary parts of our lives," he says. "However, my statement would be they should not replace faith, replace worship and God, replace for Catholics the sacrament of the church. That's the danger, where I would rather go to my counselor than the priest, would rather read my self-help book than the scriptures."

"I think people can get addicted to advice," says Carol Briney, a professional speaker and organizer who owns Universal Order in Aspinwall. She describes herself as a professional speaker and organizer who helps people simplify their lives by reducing clutter. "None of us are truly broken. We just need to evolve a bit. I hear some self-help gurus are coming from an end where the person is broken and need to be fixed. I don't believe that. I believe that we have to evolve into kindlier, gentler people that love ourselves. It's the old adage. When mama's happy, everybody's happy. When she's a crazy person, she's giving out crazy."

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What does it take to be happy?

Consider this advice:

Micki McGee, visiting scholar at New York University and the author of "Self Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life" (Oxford University Press):

"The emphasis on this cheerfulness, it's just very destructive. It's also very beneficial for the pharmaceutical industry. ... Being sad is not a bad thing. It's inevitable. It's not really a goal, happiness. A goal is making a good life in the old sense of what makes a good life.

"You need to have friends with whom you can talk. Close relationships. Those things are very, very important. Most self-help books will always tell you that. You need communities of support. You need to build communities for yourself by being that kind of supportive person for other people."

Carol Briney, professional organizer, owner of Universal Order, Aspinwall:

"You cannot give away what you do not have. So many people are taught that it is selfish to take care of themselves. To take quiet time to meditate, to pray, to do whatever it is to free their soul. We're taught that's selfish. I believe with all my heart that is truly self-ful. If you're not at peace, you can't give peace. If you don't love yourself, you can't give love."

Peter Machamer, professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh:

"The question is, how do you figure out what are the dimensions to really leading the happy life. That goes back to the Greeks, Aristotle in particular: 'All men desire happiness but each man has a different idea of it.' "

Barbara Schwarck, life and executive coach, Clear Intentions, Shadyside:

"I don't know that you can control your thoughts. But once you're aware of what your thought is, you can decide what direction you want it to go in. I can decide if I want to continue with this thought or that I want to change it."

Robert Thompson, professor of media and culture at Syracuse University:

"Plato struggles with this a lot. One of his ideas is the finish line keeps moving. Therefore, you never actually get there. There's time, at certain ages, when you think that, 'If I could only have what X has, then I could be happy.' Then you get to that stage, but then you're simply operating in another arena where the bar has been raised again. ... The notion of bliss, waking up without a care in the world, seems to be something more under the definition of heaven than it is to life on Earth."

Gary Schadle, lead therapist at the outpatient behavioral-health center at Westmoreland Excela Health:

"Happiness is actually a product of the way you live your life. If you have a consistent set of moral and ethical values, and you try to adhere to those, and you take your time and invest it in people and relationships that are good for you, and you have ways to spend your time that you feel are productive, then happiness results from that."

Siddhartha Guatama, Indian prince and founder of Buddhism, 563 B.C. to 483 B.C.:

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without."

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