I was recently in an all too familiar predicament of having finished a novel on the first leg of a flight to some destination for business.  I try to use my travel time to relax a bit as most of what I work on is semi competition sensitive so why risk it?  Anyway, not my point. The point is I had to find an airport book shop to grab  something to entertain my mind - mind candy I like to call it.  I had a while before my next lfight so I began to browse the store, looking at books of various genres on the tables and shelves.

I was struck by the volume of "self help" books in this little airport store and it caused me to pause for a moment and wonder.  I had recently attended a luncheon speaker event as part of a professional network I belong to and the speaker was a life coach.  Everytime I attend one of these I hope to hear something revolutionary.  Everytime I am disappointed.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the message is always valid, always spot on.  But always a variation on something I have heard before. All of these self help books reminded me of the same concept.

Women are overworked, don't ask for help enough, need to be encouraged to form strong support systems and USE them, stand up for ourselves, don't trod on our sisters and don't feel like we have to be superwomen.  Certainly not an all inclusive list of themes, but I think I hit the biggies.  As I browsed the titles in the bookstore, they were all variants of the same.  So my thoughts ranged from "well, heck, I could write one of these!"  to "we are a screwed up people" to "I guess there is a message format for everyone" to "when will we just get that it is simple - we make it so difficult". 

So I guess I'll just keep reading looking for the answers