Books that deserve a global audience and more.
Do we judge books too much by their popularity?
The message we get from the environment affects how we perceive things. We feel a tinge of admiration when someone says ‘I studied at Harvard’, even if we claim to not be affected by worldly titles.
Sometimes, the underdogs are the real deal.
These lesser-known books will give you the wisdom that you need in your life. Let’s dive into these hidden gems!
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post features Amazon affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through these links.
People pleasing is a one-way ticket to misery.
This is a Japanese book published in 2013 which was later translated to English. It uses Alfred Adler’s theories to derive lessons for happiness and a good life. It is written in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher and a youth.
Some might find this book condescending. I’d say this gives you tough love to get back up instead of moping around.
“Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment.”
We have to take responsibility for our happiness. And we cannot outsource that responsibility.
“A way of living in which one is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centered lifestyle in which one’s sole concern is with the “I.”
Some of the important lessons from this book are as follows:
Only you have the power to change your life.
Emotions, trauma, and an inferiority complex shouldn’t be used as an excuse.
Your only competition is yourself. Don’t compare.
Make life simpler by not doing other people’s tasks.
If you keep thinking about what other people would say, you’ll never be free.
Accept yourself.
Live in the moment.
“Three things are needed at this point: “self-acceptance,” “confidence in others,” and “contribution to others.”
I’d recommend this book to everyone who wants a fresh perspective on their life. It will nudge you to take action in the right direction.
Loss of solitude is a pandemic.
Cal Newport starts by telling us the reason we are addicted to social media. It is because it is designed to keep us hooked, in order to turn profits for the big corporations. The anticipation of likes and social approval keeps us online even when we shouldn’t.
“A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”
We have to build our relationship with technology from scratch.
Digital Minimalism has three important principles:
Clutter is costly
Optimization is important
Intentionally is satisfying
Declutter your phone by getting rid of extra apps. Why is clutter costly? Because there are costs apart from money, for example, our time.
How to optimize?
View the technological services as tools to be carefully used to achieve certain values. “Intention trumps convenience”. How?
When you intentionally curate your tech tools, you gain more satisfaction than you’d get if you used all of them.
Newport goes on to tell us about the importance of solitude i.e. sitting alone with our thoughts. Solitude helps you regulate emotions, reflect on life, bring moral courage and so much more.
“…by cultivating a high-quality leisure life first, it will become easier to minimize low-quality digital diversions later.”
Improve the quality of your leisure time by doing something with your hands. Learn new skills. Build or fix something. This is ‘high-quality leisure time’.
For scrolling, and social media i.e. ‘low-quality leisure time’, schedule your time. This is about limiting their use to a confined period.
Much of our life today is governed by our digital devices. In order to reclaim our lives from the shackles of technology, this book is a must-read.
It will help you build a quality connection with technology instead of being in zombie mode.
Being a nice guy won’t take you anywhere in life.
Being abandoned at a young age makes men self-centered. They think they are the center of the universe and everything that goes wrong in their life is their fault. They suffer from toxic shame and spend their life seeking approval from others.
This is ‘Nice Guy Syndrome’.
“By trying to please everyone, Nice Guys often end up pleasing no one — including themselves.”
The solution to this is not being an unkind jerk.
It is to become an ‘integrated male’. For that, you have to build self-esteem. Learn to establish boundaries and let go of the things you cannot control. Confront anxieties and start expressing your emotions.
“In general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy.”
Glover points out that an absence of male role models in childhood leads to adult men with Nice Guy Syndrome. Due to this, many of them develop an unhealthy bond with their mothers.
To counter this, establish good and strong friendships with good male role models.
“Relationships are messy and there is no way to eliminate the bumps and potholes, but we don’t have to make them any more difficult than they already are.”
The author advises men to let go of their addiction to pornography and sexual fantasies. Instead, learn to communicate clearly.
When a man becomes an ‘integrated male’, he will be confident in his sexuality. He will choose available partners and let go of risky sexual behaviors.
This book is a must-read for every male who wants to embrace his masculinity positively. I’d go as far as to recommend this book for all boy moms as well.
Embrace the power of anger to bring about real change.
‘Angry feminist’ is a word often used to dismiss women. Chemaly tells us to use our anger for good.
From childhood, women are told to sit a certain way and act a certain way, while their male counterparts receive nowhere as much scrutiny.
“We are so busy teaching girls to be likeable that we often forget to teach them, as we do boys, that they should be respected.”
She shares an incident where her mother threw china plates to get her anger out. These china plates were one of the prized gifts her parents had gotten at their wedding.
Chemaly goes on to say that her mother was expressing anger in private, away from her marital relationship. She was not communicating it verbally.
This happens when women are taught to internalize their frustrations.
Chemaly denies the existence of inherent masculine vs feminine differences, which I slightly disagree with.
“If #MeToo has made men feel vulnerable, panicked, unsure, and fearful as a result of women finally, collectively, saying “Enough!” so be it.”
I agree and empathize with Chemaly on seeing how women have been treated in our society and the world as a whole. Women have to be perfect daughters, wives, and mothers. If they dare to step out of line and dream for themselves, they are labeled rebels or angry feminists.
Anger is generally viewed as a negative emotion. This book will help you to use your anger positively, as a tool for improving your life and this world.
Without checklists, my life would be in chaos.
My life is proof that checklists have power. I refer to them as To-Do lists. I have been making them for over a decade.
I am a forgetful person. As I place the milk to boil, I forget about it and move on. The same is true with everyday tasks. If I didn’t write them, my life would go haywire.
“Discipline is hard — harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness.”
Unknowingly, my memory flaws gave me the power of self-discipline. I update my to-do diary daily with tasks for the day. They can be as mundane as doing laundry and making dinner, or as special as meeting a friend or packing for a trip.
The author tells us to harness the power of a checklist and I cannot agree more.
“Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations.”
Gawande tells us the importance of checklists in different scenarios, for example in an ICU. When doctors and nurses make checklists, the quality of care improves, and the average length of the patients’ stays is halved.
He tells us that there are two types of checklists, “READ-DO” and “DO-CONFIRM”.
Read-do is when you read the task first and then do it. Read-confirm is when you do tasks and go over to confirm. Based on the scenario, you can choose the suitable one.
If you want to enhance your life, start by doing this one simple thing. Make checklists! You’ll see the difference yourself.
Multitasking sabotages your success.
The pathway to success is not complex. It is all about focusing on the ‘ONE’ thing.
We lie to ourselves when we say that we can do it all. We simply cannot.
Why?
Multitasking is a lie.
It’s because willpower is a finite source. Whenever we use our minds, we use up our willpower reserves. We need willpower to make better decisions.
We have to conserve our willpower by focusing on the most important things. Live by priority.
“You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.”
History is littered with examples of those who became successful by going small. Pat Mathews is an American impressionist. He made one painting a day to master his skills.
“Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls — family, health, friends, integrity — are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”
The lesson that I took from this book is as follows:
If we focus on one thing, and do it consistently, we can achieve our dreams.
If you found this article useful and want to support NovelNest, join my email list below to get notified whenever I publish something new.
If you enjoyed these book recommendations, check out the rest of my book lists on my blog- https://www.thenovelnest.com/blog
