Books that taught me something
A good book always tells a good story and a good story always teaches a lesson. These transformative book list are definitely worth reading.
Reading used to be something people do to fill up free time. Now however, with the rise of social media and short form content, people don't seem to read anymore. Everyone seem to have shorter attention span. It's hard to justify why people even want to read anymore.
A good book always tells a good story and a good story always teaches a lesson. The list I'm sharing today are the ones that taught me stuff and I've manage to incorporate these wisdom in my life. I plan to use this as an evergreen list and will keep adding to it if I find something worth adding. These books are not rank in any particular order.
Atomic Habits
I love this brilliant book written by James Clear. It's one of those timeless book you can re-read again in a few years. This book provides a lot of practical advices on how to build up a lasting habit which can potentially be life changing. The key is to take small steps to reach your grandiose goal.
Show your work
This short book written by Austin Kleon explain why you should toot your own horn and share your own work. The old days of "let your work speak for itself" is long gone with the rise of social media and content creators nowadays. It's full of amazing quotes and it definitely had spark my inspiration to own a little corner on the internet to share my thoughts - this blog.
Thinking fast and slow
This scientific book by Daniel Kahneman explains how our brain works with 2 characters "System 1" which is the fast part and "System 2" which does the slow thinking. It's an eye opening book on how we operate and think daily. Personally, this is one of the hardest book for me to finish because it contains a lot of information. It took some time for me to digest all those interesting findings. It's not the type of book that you skim through and understand it.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Our lives are short – it's merely 4000 weeks. This thought provoking book by Oliver Burkeman explains productivity in a different light. Time is indeed finite and limited. In the grand scheme of things, being productive is choosing what matters to you the most and accept that most our problems stems from the brevity of our lives. Here's one of my favorite quote:
We recoil from the notion that this is it - that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we'll get a shot at.
What happened to you?
This book is a collaboration between Oprah Winfrey and Dr Bruce Perry where they discuss and share the impact of trauma and how it affects us. To begin the healing process, instead of asking "What's wrong with you?", we should shift the question to "What happened to you?". This book gave me a deeper understanding of how and why we react to certain things in a certain way. As well as the process of healing takes time which is made up of countless safe moments.