My Books

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

By: Mark Manson

This book does not encourage readers not to care about anything. Rather, Mark challenges his readers to search within themselves to determine what they should give a f*ck about. My son Dante described Mark Manson's book as a simplified version of Marcus Aurelius' theory of Stoicism. I still need to read Marcus' book Meditations; but from the brief amount Dante has told me about Stoicism, I can see some similarities. 

Through stories from his own life and many examples pulled from the lives of others, Mark gives us a fresh perspective on how to appreciate the important things in our lives. Tho he is only in his mid 30s, he has spent time living and traveling to 55 different countries. He shared an interesting view of the tendency we as Americans have towards a desire to be overly polite. Rather than stating this is how we should behave as humans, Mark presents the idea that we sacrifice authenticity in an effort to never hurt anyone's feelings. That by being overly polite, we lose honesty. This same communication style does not exist in all other countries. In fact, he shared that his favorite country was Russia where he quickly learned that the habit of those that live there to be forthright is not an attempt at them being rude. They would rather share how they really feel in a matter of fact fashion than to lead those around them to think that they feel something else entirely. Because everyone there is this way, it is accepted as a sign of authenticity and not a lack of kindness.

The story I most identified with was when he shared about his relationship with his brother and how he wish the two of them were closer. He describes what he defines as closeness and how he measures the fact that they are not close enough. He also shares stories of two different band players who ended up in different places in their lives: one becoming a professional musician and the other getting married and having a family. The description of how they viewed whether or not they felt they were successful and how they measured success was fascinating. My favorite quote from this book stemmed from these stories and goes like this. "You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences". 

This book walks the line between providing a philosophical view of the world and falling under the category of self-help. One key difference between this book and most self-help books out there today is that he doesn't place tremendous focus on the act of self-validation and verbally convincing yourself that you are good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it people should like you. Instead, he challenges the reader to take a good look at who you are, what you are capable of, and what you truly want to focus on in life as opposed to what you think you should want or what others want out of you. Regardless of how you classify it, I felt it was inspiring and gave a wonderful perspective that how you view and measure events in your life make all the difference in determining your happiness.

This Naked Mind

By: Annie Grace

Did you know that the latest research shows that dopamine isn't directly responsible for those feel good feelings you get in your brain's reward center? But rather dopamine release is responsible for learning how to most quickly seek out actions and things that will get you those rewards you are looking for? Mind blown!!!

I have so many new thoughts from reading this book about addiction, alcohol in general, and how the approach Annie Grace takes towards stopping drinking could also be applied to so many other positive changes we want to make in our lives. 

Her approach is both incredibly empowering and freeing. And it came at just the right time in my life. About a week ago, I had this sudden unexplained revelation that I can be whomever I want to be and do whatever I want to do. Why did it take me almost two years after separating from my ex-husband to finally realize this and feel free to be the person I always wanted to be?! Then this book literally fell in my lap, or rather in my open browser, calling out to me. I can't even remember what I was searching on amazon when this title caught my eye. 

It's been a journey and this is just another step along the way. But damn. I'm finally thrilled about where I am in my life and excited to see where life takes me! Some salient points of this book include:

1. To moderate or not to moderate drinking - Decision-making takes a considerable amount of mental energy - even the smallest of decisions such as those surrounding moderation of drinking . When it comes to whether or not to moderate, it is easier to just make one decision once, that one is a non-drinker, than it is to have regular, consistent decision making around whether or not to drink and how much to drink
2. Marketing manipulation - Annie Grace discusses the sheer amount of money that goes into marketing alcohol. Her discussion surrounding marketing of wine to women, particularly mothers, really put a bad taste in my mouth and quite honestly made me feel manipulated as tho I had fallen right into the hands of the alcohol industry's best marketing strategies.
3. "Benefits of drinking" - Annie delves into every item we as a society consider to be a benefit of drinking and debunks these benefits with stone cold scientific and neurobiological facts.

If you are interested in the interconnections of drugs, brain and behavior and more specifically, alcohol, or if you are open to exploring your own relationship with alcohol, this is a fantastic read.