Trends: The Beatles as self-help gurus

"4 Life Lessons from the Beatles" is the latest blog post that aims to draw wisdom from the works and career of the Beatles. I've been seeing a lot of such things over the past year or two -- not just on blogs but also various book titles, such as The Beatles Way: Fab Wisdom for Everyday Life, Life Lessons I've Learned From The Beatles and Come Together: The Business Wisdom of the Beatles.

None of these writings tend to be very imaginative, or to demonstrate a deep knowledge of the Beatles per se.

The four lessons posed by the post mentioned above are: "Never Doubt Yourself," "Take Chances/Don't Play it Safe," "Practice" and "Be Open to Possibility and Don't Be Threatened by the Talent of Others." Whoa, pretty deep.

It's only the Beatles packaging that makes these tropes "original" or somewhat fresh. Editors and publishers -- perhaps knowing the the Beatles references will attract the wandering eyes of Beatles fans and Baby Boomers -- seem to go for the Beatles angle, which makes it tempting for writers.

Remember when all we need to know we learned from Kindergartners? Now, it's moptops. It's trend not likely to last long, but it would be interesting to go deep with it. What, beyond their surface success, have the Beatles taught us about art and creativity, about relationships and spirituality, about growing up?

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