Self development Bookshelf
Yellow everyone!
I hope you are doing well from wherever you are reading this.
Recently I started inventorying my books, because a friend of mine suggested that, I was looking for one of my books among my friends, I couldn’t remember to whom I lent and unfortunately never got it back. During the time I was inventorying, I had couple of thoughts around books as a result of reflections, conversations with friends, podcasts, etc which I would like to share with you.
I can’t remember when I read my first book, apart from books from school, and what it was about, although I have three most likely options: a child’s bible or one from collections Sherlock Holmes or a romance from those collections “Bianca/ Júlia”. Although, as I child didn’t have much access to many books I was curious about them and read it avidly, I enjoyed the idea of feeling lost in the narrative and learning.
As an adult I started buying and exchanging books, from technical areas, to romances and self development. Unfortunately my “skills” for eat up books are not the same as it use to be, but I personally think it’s just related with being an adult with some other daily demanding tasks. Because when I read I still feel the same way, as I use to feel.
Because I was a “social door”, before I got to college -16 years old -, I remember the first self development Book I read was “How to make friends and influence people”, and even today I apply learning’s from that book. Because I liked so much self development books, I also remember that for a lot people it was a weird category to read or at least to admit reading. But today, I believe this category is one of the most popular “sold”.
Particularly, I find very useful that there are so many options to guide us people for self awareness and development, but at the same time, lately, sometimes I feel like is too tricky and overwhelming to have so many “How to…”, “Be…”, “X ways of”, “Become..” and so on. The reason I feel tricky is because we can get lost in the frenzy of buying books, reading the books, absorb the message rationally but not necessarily critically analyzing the content, making a in depth reflection and giving us time to really apply all the learning’s in our life, before going to the next book and repeating what we read to others.
I have few questions I asked myself too:
– How many books have you purchased and you didn’t have time to read in 6 months?
– How many book you purchase or read just because is trending?
– How many times you read the same book?
– How many time you stopped reading a book because you were not enjoying, or did not make sense for you or yourself it was too much to be processed at the moment?
– From the books you read how much you actually recall and apply in your life because it’s aligned with who you are or want to become and not just because someone said it should be done?
Based on my answers to the questions above and After finalizing my inventory, I made a few commitments with myself: i) not buying a new book before I finish the latest I bought; ii) if for some reason I don’t feel like it, I won’t finish a book; iii) if I don’t read a book after 6 months I should lend or considering giving it, instead of holding on to something that clearly is not being useful to me at the moment; iv) read some chosen books again.
Indeed it is important to read self development books, but it also important to do the internal work and shifts inside us, which can include therapy, whatever type you use. Yes, therapy, I know most people get tense when they hear about therapy, but let have this conversation another day, shall we?
Share with me your thoughts around the above questions of self development books in case you read them.
Sending love and healing to you all.
Be brave. Be you. Be happy.
P