He could be anywhere if only he could get out of his own way

May 7, 2023 5:10 PM

Looking for books about people who find themselves at a point in life where forward progress is challenged by their own self-limiting beliefs or negative thinking, self talk, defeatism.

People with an uncertain future who’ll perhaps find themselves in a precarious place as a result of continuing to think and act as they have been, but eventually they take it upon themselves to meet the challenge and make changes that help to propel life forward, even if in completely new and unexpected ways.

Fiction or non-fiction (memoir)

Thanks

posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Maybe Bright Lights, Big City (by Jay McInerney, 1984), though I'm not sure about this requirement: "eventually they take it upon themselves to meet the challenge". The ending of the book is a bit ambiguous or open-ended.
posted by JD Sockinger at 8:36 PM on May 7, 2023

I believe Maureen McHugh's "China Mountain Zhang" fits this description.
posted by brainwane at 4:26 AM on May 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Horatio Hornblower, C S Forrester's English Navy hero, is plagued by self-doubt.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:46 AM on May 8, 2023

Junior, a character in Charles Willeford's Miami Blues, says, "I can have anything I want. The problem is I don't know what I want." Yup.
posted by dobbs at 7:25 PM on May 8, 2023