Earnestness is a characteristic of our time. People seem to be serious concerning just about anything and everything. Books guaranteeing success for the single-minded are all over the place. There is a guru in almost every area of human interest, offering enlightenment to those who really want it. Even the life of the spirit is not exempt from the pursuit of self-improvement.
Books purporting to give easy enlightenment for only the cost of a volume fill the shelves.
Most of them are simple-minded, some are downright harmful. There is a paradox in our age's pursuit of self-improvement. We seem to be looking for easy earnestness, armchair earnestness, if you will. If I can read the right book, find the right physical or psychic trainer, attend the right seminar, watch the right video or meet the right person, I will be enlightened. I need not make too much effort myself the reading or the encounter should suffice.