Pandora’s box has been opened; a whole swarm of crazy has been unleashed. Only, instead of being anxious, I felt happy and giddy and excited. I could hear the swish of ideas whizzing left and right in my head. Zeal consumed me as I felt the whole world was mine for the taking.
No, I wasn’t getting high this time. Believe it or not, this euphoria came from after reading two books — ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma & ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Timothy Ferriss.
You? Read self-help books?! Surely you jest.
Yes, I know, I’m not a big fan of non-fiction & self-helps. There’s nothing more annoying than a bunch of know-it-alls (strangers at that) telling you what to do. However, these two books, bestsellers in their own right, somehow managed to penetrate my force field, and I’m glad they did.
Where were you all my life?!
Some of you may have had grandpas who lived long enough to enlighten you with life’s best secrets. Some of you may have had parents who valued spending time to make sure you had a good head on your shoulders. Looking back, I realize that though there are a few, I didn’t really have a lot of strong role models who were there to answer my insatiable ‘What now?’s. Fortunately, there are godsends who invested time in jotting down & sharing their own mistakes and epiphanies, so that we can learn from them the less painful way.
It might have been sheer dumb luck that I read these two in succession; this pair really works well together. Sharma & Ferriss basically preach the same gospel: There is absolutely no reason why you could not drop the 9-5 and start defining life on your own terms. It’s the same message, albeit their recommended approaches are almost worlds apart. Sharma is like the uncle who will take you to the fair and bestow infinite wisdom over an ice cream cone. On the other hand, Ferriss is more like his naughty brother who will sneak you off to your first porn film and tell you all the shortcuts your mom won’t tell you.
Both of them present compelling arguments.You’d think that books like these would have purists shaking their heads, chiding the authors for reckless corruption of minds. However, what’s good about these books is they don’t just dole out empty advice — they walk the talk. You’ll find that the step-by-step plans proposed to weed out all the complications that somehow made their way into your life, are actually sound, practical — and more importantly, doable. For balance, I recommend you do the same (meaning, read the 2 books together); tell me if you find the motivational-cocktail as refreshing as well.
I find self-help testimonials cheesy, so I’ll restrain myself from gushing on and on about how wildly inspired I am right now. All I’ll say is that now I feel like I have velocity (nerdspeak: speed+direction) as opposed to hurtling at lightning speed to nowhere.
I’ve always known as a child that something didn’t fit right in the RT(g)W (ready-to-grow-weary) formula for life that our parents tried to sell us (i.e. study-work-get rich-get married-have kids-repeat cycle). It thrills me to know that there’s actually a community of people out there who not only affirms my worldview, but also are living testaments to it.
.: ishcapades 