Books that have changed my life

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

The Four Agreements was one of the first books that I came across on my self-improvement and discovery journey. It is a short book with quick excerpts that are straight forward and to the point. In it, Don Miguel Ruiz uses ancient Toltec wisdom to cut through the thousands of contradicting beliefs that we have that prevent us from living simple and meaningful lives. According to the ancient leaders of Mexico, there are only four rules to live by:

1. be impeccable with your word: words are our most powerful tool and can plant seeds of positivity and self-love in our lives. It’s about speaking with integrity and not putting others or ourselves down. Our words make or break our reality and two people living identical lives can have completely different perceptions of their surroundings based on the words they choose to use.

2. don’t take anything personally: this is a challenging one. We so often take things to heart when someone mistreats us, intentionally or unintentionally. However, the most important thing to remember is that whatever is said to us, is always just a reflection of how the speaker feels about him or herself. Therefore, how one treats others is just a projection of the speaker's insecurities or securities. Harnessing this rule can establish a remarkable sense of confidence and power in our daily lives and actions.

3. don’t make assumptions: assumptions get us into trouble and are almost always wrong. So frequently, we stop pursuing a goal or spending time with a friend or lover because we assume something is wrong. We make assumptions about ourselves; we overestimate or underestimate ourselves because we have not taken the time to ask ourselves questions and answer them!

4. do your best: It is hard to have any regrets in life if we do our best. Also, our best gets better and better with time, work, and determination

These rules are easier said than done, but they have been the perfect rubric and foundation for going forward and have been solid markers for determining whether other self-improvement books are worth reading. Despite listing out the rules in this review, I still highly recommend reading the book, since Don Miguel Ruiz gives great examples and metaphors relating to each rule, which makes them extremely relatable and understandable. I often find myself breaking one of the rules, but I can gladly say that in the past year I have largely improved in all four aspects and my life has been largely moving in a positive trajectory.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

This book blew my mind. Dr. Joe Dispenza is an absolute legend. Despite being a doctor of neuroscience, he writes like a magician who is constantly revealing the bunny under the hat which is his optimistic wisdom and immense knowledge. We are not doomed in any way by genetics or past circumstances and we all posses the potential to create and transform the world around us into our own dream realities.

The key according to Dispenza is shaking off negativity. As humans, we are largely creatures of habit. But unfortunately, these habits have extended not only to physical activities, but also emotional habits that plague our daily existences. By shedding these habits through meditation exercises, we can create wealth and abundance, heal our bodies in times of illness, and attract love/our dream relationships. Of course, this sounds too good to be true, but via neurological research and various studies, he creates a masterful portfolio of evidence and beautiful metaphors that by the end of the book, he had me and most others saying “what do I have to lose? Let’s give it a shot!”

The Alchemist

This is potentially one of my favorite books ever. This fiction story, translated from Portuguese to English, is one of the best adventure novels out there and genuinely had me smiling from the first page to the last. There is so much wisdom shared throughout that truly motivates the reader to follow their dreams, no matter the costs.

On top of the writing, there are also beautifully illustrated pictures throughout the text. Any age group can read this, and I even gave this book to my Mom and Dad and they both loved it.

I am tempted to reread this book because it is that good!

Ishmael

This philosophical novel explores various themes of ethics, sustainability, and potential global catastrophe. It takes a conversation between a student and an unlikely teacher and embarks on a journey to unmask a lot of the false assumptions that have been made by western thinkers on the optimal way to live. By doing so, the reader unlocks an entirely new window of perception into life, meaning, and preservation of our planet.

This is a book that does not really make much sense at first, but comes to be quite beautiful and masterfully written. I would recommend this to logical thinkers who possess that inner feeling that something is quite unnatural about modern civilization.

Psychology of the Unconscious

Carl Jung is truly a genius and reading this book was certainly a challenge. However, as I got further into this incredible text, I found my reading skills and comprehension greatly improving. Given that the book is translated from German to English, some parts do not translate precisely. One should expect a lot of big words and complex sentences, but this will only improve our abilities as readers and writers. On top of this, there are some excerpts in the book that are in Latin and French, but mostly their translations are in the footnotes.

In this work, Carl Jung breaks from traditional psychoanalytic tradition by focusing on dreams, mythology, symbolism, and diary entries from patients to define the psyche, rather than focusing on psychopathology and its symptoms, which was established by his mentor, Sigmund Freud. I found this piece of work important to my development and confirmed my interest into the field of psychology, human behavior, and the unconscious’s remarkable effects on our beliefs and perceptions. This book is a great preface to his other works and to religious texts, and most certainly should be required reading for anyone pursuing to deepen their understanding of psychology and other forms of critical theory or research analyses.

Jung on Evil

This book is filled with just as many gems as Jung’s Psych of the Unconscious. In it, Murray Stein takes a collection of excerpts from various Jung books, letters, and articles and answers four important questions on evil:

1. Is the unconscious evil?

2. What is the source of evil?

3. What is the relation between good and evil?

4. How should human beings deal with evil?

In classic Jungian style, he analyzes religious text as well as patient’s dreams to symbolically uncover the unconscious’s role in projecting it’s “shadow” and inner beliefs onto reality itself. One of my favorite passages from the book:

“Everything possible has been done for the outside world: science has been refined to an unimaginable extent, technical achievement has reached an almost uncanny degree of perfection. But what of man, who is expected to administer all these blessings in a reasonable way? He has simply been taken for granted. No one has stopped to consider that neither morally nor psychologically is he in any way adapted to such changes. As blithely as any child of nature he sets about enjoying these dangerous playthings, completely oblivious of the shadow lurking behind him, ready to seize them in its greedy grasp and turn them against a still infantile and unconscious humanity. And who has had a more immediate experience of this feeling of helplessness and abandonment to the powers of darkness than the German who fell into the clutches of the Germans?”

Beyond Good and Evil

One will be inspired by this legendary work from a legendary mind. I will not attempt to summarize the text and instead leave you with a few quotes that stood out to me:

“It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men!”

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”

Can't Hurt Me

David Goggins went from being overweight, depressed, and afraid to swim to becoming a Navy Seal, one of the toughest human conditioning and military training tests in the world. I tend to stay away from motivational speaker type books, but Goggins had me ready to run through a brick wall on about every page.

After sharing with vivid detail his dark childhood filled with trauma and turmoil, he goes on to share valuable life lessons that will undoubtedly make us stronger mentally and capable of accomplishing everything we want in life.

His 40% rule represents our bodies unmatched ability to keep going even when our minds are telling us that we have nothing left in the tank. According to Goggins, when that inner voice says I’m gassed and can’t keep going, we are only 40% done! Goggins embraces challenges and believes that they can only make us stronger. Regardless of any obstacle we face, we can always overcome and grow from it. Ultimately, he tells us that most of us are not giving life our maximum effort and we need to start giving life 100%! This is an incredible book regardless of your background and applicable to so many out there who are searching for that extra bit of motivation and drive to get to that next level. I absolutely love this book and I can accredit a lot of my journey to picking this book up in one of the lowest points in my life. We all have that Navy Seal within us that is capable of so much more than the limits that we have placed on ourselves.