Day 13 : Favorite Book

photo courtesy of amazon.com

 

    Again with this 'favorite things' topic. Haha.. I grow to despise this kind of question nowadays because it's so limiting! Why should you choose just one? Why can't we have multiple favorites? Am I right? Hahah.. But for the sake of the challenge let's do this one as well.

 

    I must say this is one of the book that really changed me in the last two years. As someone who really considering all things before making a move or doing something or even thinking about something, this book speaks to me on another level. It is 'the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck' by Mark Manson. Like its title, it is a simple book teaching you to not give a fuck to things! Or should we say it more precisely, knows when or where to give a fuck and when/where not to. I would highly recommend this book to my fellow perfectionist out there, to have more grounded and calmer stand in day to day life. Because I understand, living with the overloaded information era like nowadays, sometimes the best pill we can take is ignorance (cue that wisdom that saying, "ignorance is a bliss"). It couldn't be more true than that.

 

    The more you read into this book, you will find that this book probably inspired by stoicism and have a similar approach of dealing with things: knows what you can control (where you should give a fuck) and knows what is outside of your control (where you should NOT give a fuck). This book is really helping me out from funk, dealing with abrupt changes in life and the loss of my parents. If nothing else, this book gave me a fresh start in stepping into another version of adult Riz. I stopped caring so much to things that doesn't matter. Being trapped in traffic? Alright then! Make sure I will leave earlier next time. My partner leave me? I am wrecked, but there's got to be something in me that my partner couldn't stand anymore. So it's not entirely their fault. So on and so forth.

 

    If you're not into that self-help-improvement stuff, at least you can take something interesting and informative from one or two stories written in this book. The story about the search for a missing Japanese soldier is really an interesting one. This book is easily readable in one sitting as well! Or you can just go to the TOC and pick which chapter you wanna read.

 

Cheers! 🍻

 

PS: when I read again this book recently, I am shocked that one of the author's story in the book is actually exactly the same as things I've just experience in real life. It Is kinda creepy of how similar it is, the more I think about it. Sometimes I feel like that book is foreboding my life in a weird way.