Book-Review

Raising Mentally Strong Kids (affiliate link) is one of the better parenting books I have read recently. Highly recommended, 5/5. A lot of parenting books have the same concepts, but it is good to re-read the same ideas with different perspectives from various authors. It helps reinforce those ideas. The main ideas are: Focus on yourself first. Fix your issues, get good sleep, handle stress, do hard things, be a good example. Physical activity is very important for brain development. Fight Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANT). Give kids chores, give them hard things to do, let them fail when stakes are low. Choose authoritative parenting style. But don't nag, let kids learn from their mistakes and be there for them when they fail.

Just finished listening to The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi. The book is in the form of a dialogue between a philosopher and a youth. It discusses Adlerian philosophy. The book seems to be written from a Japanese perspective. It talks about “shut-ins”, NEET, and other terms for young people who prefer to isolate themselves. I had never heard of these terms; after some research, I learned that it is a huge problem in Asian countries. ...

Could you be a highly sensitive person? A highly sensitive person is someone who can get overwhelmed by various stimuli such as noise, smells, or clutter that would not bother most people. I have two kids, and sometimes they are both crying and screaming at the same time. Their screams cause my neck, shoulders, and arms to get stiff, and I feel tingling or pins all over my arms. This sounds like a heart attack, and I am going to the doctor to have it checked, but a quick search showed that this might be due to high sensitivity to noises or screams. And that’s when I learned about Highly Sensitive People aka HSP. ...

“It’s What I Do” by Lynsey Addario is probably in my top 10 favorite books. As someone who always wanted to be a serious photographer who would use images to make the world a better place, I felt a real connection while reading this book. While reading it, I imagined myself being in the situations that Lynsey was in and I really don’t know if I would have been able to handle those situations. ...

Saw this post on Hacker News. A lot of interesting books to read. Book Links The Stormlight Archive (series) by Brandon Sanderson https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30739083 Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolf https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thatjoeoverthr Dune Man’s Search For Meaning How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life - the Dalai Lama Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Debt: The First 5000 Years Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

I am not sure how I found this book by Erik Dietrich. Maybe Google or Amazon recommended it. But I found it very inspiring. There are so many things in it that I agree with and so many new things that I am still having a hard time believing. As a developer, who is having a hard time figuring out his career, this book provided an interesting perspective. The basic idea in it is that in any big corporation, developers are unlikely to find fulfilment. They may truly believe in their employer’s mission and try to climb the corporate ladder. When they do that, they will get stuck in middle management. They will keep working hard, hoping to move on to executive roles, but very few do so through belief and hard work alone. ...

My biggest takeaway from this book was that most people start a business to create a job for themselves. For example, a person who enjoys baking may start a cake shop. The problem with this approach is that one is working in the business, not on it. The right way to start a business is with a goal of eliminating one’s job. For example, the person above should figure out a way to hire someone else to do baking. ...

I learned of Mark Manson through his blog, especially this post, 7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Purpose. Since then I have been on and off following his blog. He usually has a lot of good advice, so finally I decided to get his book. It makes it easier to have all the information in one place. I had no idea what The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck was about. It was an impulse purchase, perhaps to support his blog. It turned out to be a really good book. As a semi-regular reader of his blog, I sort of knew what his philosophies were. Still, it was good to read everything in one place. ...

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. It shows up on Hacker News and other entrepreneurs’ forums regularly as recommended reading. Steven Pressfield is a novelist, but this book is popular reading for anyone who is pursuing a goal. The author’s main point is that the most important and the hardest thing is doing. Whether that be sitting down at a desk to write a novel or software. Once you are at your desk, or at your office, the hard part is done. This can apply to anything: fitness, painting, photography, etc. ...

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams (affiliate link) comes up on Hacker News a lot. Finally, I had a chance to read it. This is a little different kind of book compared to my regular reads about ultra-successful business titans. I had no idea who Scott Adams was until I heard about this book. He created the Dilbert comic. He gave a very down-to-earth perspective on how he achieved success in this book. ...