self-help and improving ourselves to death

• “Self-help advice tends to reflect the beliefs and priorities of the era that spawns it.”
• […] we are tribal creatures, evolved during our hunter-gatherer years to value cooperation and, at the same time, to respect hierarchy and covet status—“to get along AND get ahead.”
• […] Survival in the hypercompetitive, globalized economy, where workers have fewer protections and are more disposable than ever, requires that we try to become faster, smarter, and more creative. (To this list of marketable qualities I’d add one with a softer edge: niceness.)
• […] If the ideal of the optimized self isn’t simply a fad, or even a preference, but an economic necessity, how can any of us choose to live otherwise?