Book review - 101 essays that will change the way you think (Brianna Wiest)

 When two of my closest and dearest friends gifted me "101 essays that will change the way you think", I was really excited and intrigued by the sober looking book that was infront of me. I started reading it without knowing what to expect, and to my satisfaction Brianna Wiest does not dissapoint in, what I think, is a must in everybody's book shelves (or hard drive if you are into ebooks).

In this book Brianna Wiest becomes that close friend we all need to talk with when we find ourselves in difficult times in our lives, she writes with such depth and at the same time it gives the feeling of a casual conversation with a friend.

Every time you open the book to read a couple of essays you could be surprised with just exactly the thing you needed to hear in that moment; it happened to me a couple of times and it felt like a much needed warm embrace. Brianna Wiest has a way with words that makes you feel like the answers to some really profound topics where in front of you all along.

I could ramble on and on about every essay that caught my attention, but im just going to list here 8 of the ones that gave me that "close the book slowly while your mouth is wide open" kind of feeling (there where 18 essays in this category for me).

#16 - 8 cognitive biases that are creating the way you experience your life

In this essay the author explores with us the concept of naive realism and explains why and how our perception of the world is not objective and what biases make it so.

#29 - How to know you've evolved more than you give yourself credit for

With a list of  15 statements , Wiest becomes that close friend that brings a moment of peace to your life and shows you that you've been too hard on yourself, and that actually you have accomplished a lot more of what you give yourself credit for.

#35 - The 6 pillar of self-steem; why it is not how you feel, but what you think you are capable of

6 pillar that shows us that self-steem is an active practice that we all should focus on.

 #36 -Why you should thank the people who have hurt you the most in your life

A retrospective view of those relationships that hurted us the most, and trying to focus on the positves of those experiences.

#47 - If we saw souls instead of bodies

An absolute beautiful essay that makes you think of the things that really matter in a person and the things we should thrive to project in our lives.

#50 - How we lose our minds to other people's gods

In this essay Brianna Wiest talks about money and how it has become some sort of god in our modern times.

#53 - Why does a soul want a body

This is my personal favourite (if you know me personally you've probably herd me talk about this one more than one time); in this absolute mind blowing essay, Wiest talks about the idea of why something so transcendental as a soul , needs something so finite as a body. I think the concept is so simple yet profound and beautiful that it makes entire book worth buying.

#82 - 15 little ways to deepen your relationship with anyone 

A list of actions that we often dont think about , but if we applied them to a relationship it could mean the world to the other person. In my opinion this list is a must in everybody's mind.

Those are just some of the essays that I personally loved , but there could be much more for you. With all this said I can confidently put "101 essays that will change the way you think" in my number 1 spot of favourite books (tied with "The hobbit").

I would give this book a 9/10 because it can have some essays that doesn't really resonate with you, but I think it has so much precious reflections we should all think about. with nothing else to say I would like to end with a quote from the author that was engraved in my mind.

"In fearing that happiness won't last forever, we lose it; in fearing that grief will last forever, we create it"

-Brianna Wiest

The perfection in imperfection

 We live our lives pursuing the concept of perfection, perfection in our bodies, academic life, finances, love life, work, etc. Basically, we spent the limited time we have in search of whatever notion we have of perfection… but we never stop a moment and ponder, ¿what if in this moment in time our so called “imperfection” is the true perfection? I often think about this, and every time it makes more sense to me.

It is not without reason that we often hear the phrase, “the journey is more gratifying than the goal”. Part of what makes an achievement so gratifying is the hardships we must endure to accomplish it, and what are those hardships but “imperfections” in our road towards the end goal?

We spend so much time worrying about achieving what we think is the perfect version of our lives (and that is not a bad thing unless it starts to that make you feel less or sad with yourself) that we have stopped appreciating our “imperfect” present. Don’t get me wrong, by no means I’m saying we shouldn’t try to improve ourselves, on the contrary, I think we must thrive to be the best version of ourselves, but not doing so by undervaluing our present or the things we are so lucky to have in our lives at this moment.

Nature shows us perfection in the imperfection in every fruit, plant, mountain and animal... not one is the same as the other but, nevertheless, they are all perfect.

Taking a little bit of a philosophical approach to the subject, I would like to quote Marcus Aurelius.

“Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away then, when you choose, your opinion, and like a mariner who has rounded the headland, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay”

The interpretation I give to this quote is that our opinion is powerful, so much that when we keep telling ourselves that our present situation is imperfect or that true happiness lies in the future in that new job, or that new car or that new rise or whatever we are pursuing, we are going to end up truly believing it, and thus we are not going to be able to be genuinely happy in our “imperfect” present and, more times than not, we are going to find ourselves regretting not having enjoyed those moments. Contrary to what would happen if we embraced the thought that our “imperfect” present may actually represent true perfection and, by doing so, we could achieve simple, beautiful and true happiness.

Often, we act and think like racehorses, we are blinded to everything else that happens around us and the only thing we allow ourselves to see is the finish line at the end of the racetrack.

A common scenario is people talking about how they miss “the good old days”, they get nostalgic and paint a perfect picture of those good old days whether it is high school or college or childhood … what we don’t do is stop to think that probably our future self is looking back to this moment in time and refer to it as “the good old days”. What i am trying to express, is that we live our lives trying to achieve a perfect scenario in the future, or remembering the perfection of the past but we almost never think that maybe, just maybe, the “imperfection” of our present hides perfection.

During my life I’ve been lucky enough to live a lot of “perfect” moments, but I think I haven’t been wise enough to enjoy and live the “imperfect” ones, i hope that from this moment on we can all enjoy the perfection in our imperfection. I would like to end with a quote that perfectly express the point, from one of my favorite tv shows “The office”.

“The weird thing is now I'm exactly where I want to be. I've got my dream job at Cornell, and I'm still just thinking about my old pals. I wish there was a way to know you're in 'the good old days', before you've actually left them.”

-Andy Bernard (The office)