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Wow! A great book (aside from all the religion which doesn't add anything in my opinion). Actually some chapters are better than others. The one about how to bring up kids is superb and I want to apply it to my family in some measure. I have found the best bits of each other chapter. Meanwhile here is a quote from the Foreword by Norman Doidge which I liked:
"On Facebook and other forms of social media...you signal your so-called virtue, telling everyone how tolerant, open and compassionate you are, and wait for likes to accumulate. (Leave aside that telling people you're virtuous isn't a virtue, it's self-promotion. Virtue signalling is not a virtue...it's quite possibly our commonest vice.
Intolerance of others' views (no matter how ignorant or incoherent they may be) is not simply wrong; in a world where there is no right and wrong, it is worse : it is a sign you are embarrassingly unsophisticated or, possibly, dangerous."
RULE 1 : STAND UP STRAIGHT WITH YOUR SHOULDERS BACK
If you slump around people will assign you a lower status and your brain will give you a low dominance number and not produce as much serotonin. This will make you less happy, more anxious and sad, and likely to slump even more.
Standing up means voluntarily accepting the burden of BEING. And it is a burden, make no mistake. Life is hard, man!
Attend carefully to your posture. Quite drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward. Dare to be dangerous. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.
Waking up at a consistent hour is a necessity. Anxiety and depression cannot be easily treated if the sufferer has unpredictable daily routines.
I counsel my clients to eat a protein-heavy breakfast as soon as possible after they awaken.
DRINKING ALCOHOL : Imagine a person who likes a drink. He has a quick three drinks and his blood alcohol level rises sharply which can be extremely exhilarating for this kind of person. But this good feeling only occurs when blood alcohol levels are actively rising and that only continues if the drinker keeps drinking. When he stops, the levels plateau and start to drop, and his body begins to produce a number of toxins. He starts to experience alcohol withdrawal, as the anxiety systems that were suppressed during intoxication start to hyper-respond. A hangover is alcohol withdrawal and it starts all too soon after drinking ceases. To continue the warm glow, and stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the booze in his house is consumed, the bars are closed and his money is spent. Sober up!
Too-agreeable people bend over backwards for other people and they do not stand up properly for themselves. The dark side of their character (we all have one) emerges, because of their subjugation, and they become resentful of their wife, kids, and people in general.
You must keep the promises you make to yourself, and reward yourself, so that you can trust and motivate yourself.
RULE 2 : TREAT YOURSELF LIKE SOMEONE YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING
It is far better to make your children competent than to protect them. The too-cautious, too-caring parent merely substitutes herself for the other terrible problems in life.
Do you want to make your children safe or strong?
RULE 3 : MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT THE BEST FOR YOU
If you have a friend (e.g. Simon Hookway) whose friendship you wouldn't recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why on earth would you have such a friend for yourself?
RULE 4 : COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY.
Five hundred small decisions and tiny actions compose your day, today and every day. Could you aim one or two of those at a better result? Better, in your own private opinion, by your own individual standards? Could you compare your specific personal tomorrow with your specific person yesterday? Could you use your own judgment and ask yourself what that better tomorrow might be?
RULE 5 : DON'T LET YOUR KIDS DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU DISLIKE THEM.
Dogs need to be trained - and children are a lot more complex than dogs. This means that they are much more likely to go completely astray if they are not trained, disciplined and properly encouraged.
Children are damaged when those charged with their care, afraid of any conflict or upset, no longer dare to correct them, and leave them without any guidance.
Modern parents are simply paralyzed by the fear that they will no longer be liked or even loved by their children if they chastise them for any reason. They want their children's friendship above all, and are willing to sacrifice respect to get it. This is not good! This method is lazy, cruel and inexcusable.
Scared parents think that a crying child is either sad or hurt. This is simply not true. Anger is one of the most common reasons for crying. An angry child should sit by herself until she calms down. Then she should be allowed to return to normal life.
You wish your daughter would talk more to you. That's the target - a more communicative daughter. One morning, over breakfast, she shares an anecdote about school. That's an excellent time to pay attention. That's the reward. Stop texting and scrolling and listen. Unless you don't want her to tell you anything ever again.
Parents should understand their own capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry and deceitful.
And Finally : A properly socialized three-year-old is polite and engaging. She's also no pushover. She evokes interest from other children and appreciation from adults. She exists in a world where other kids welcome her and compete for her attention, and where adults are happy to see her, instead of hiding behind false smiles. She will be introduced to the world by people who are pleased to do so. This will do more for her eventual individuality than any cowardly parental attempt to avoid day-to-day conflicy and discipline. REMEMBER THIS!
RULES FOR KIDS:
(1) Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defense.
(2) Do not torture or bully other children, so you don't end up in jail.
(3) Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you.
(4) Lean to share, so other kids will play with you.
(5) Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don't hate you and might therefore decide to teach you something.
(6) Go to sleep properly, and peacefully, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence.
(7) Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you are lucky to have them.
(8) Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you're invited for the fun.
(9) Act so that other people are happy you're around, so that people will want you around.
(10) A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere!
RULE 6 : SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE THE WORLD.
Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong. You know what is wrong! Right? Start stopping today.
RULE 7 : PURSUE WHAT IS MEANINGFUL (NOT WHAT IS EXPEDIENT).
The true motivation of socialism is hatred of the rich and successful rather than true regard for the poor. The socialists were more capitalist than the capitalists! They believed just as strongly in money. They just thought that if different people had the money, the problems of humanity would vanish. This is simply untrue. There are many problems that money doesn't solve, and others that it makes worse. Rich people still divorce each other, and alienate themselves from their children, and suffer from existential angst (belief that life lacks meaning- which leads to anxiety and despair), and develop cancer and dementia, and die alone and unloved. Recovering addicts cursed with money blow it all in a frenzy of snorting and drunkenness. And boredom weighs heavily on people who have nothing to do.
RULE 8 : TELL THE TRUTH - OR, AT LEAST, DON'T LIE.
If life is not what it could be, try telling the truth. If you cling desperately to an ideology, or wallow in nihilism, try telling the truth. If you feel weak and rejected, and desperate, and confused, try telling the truth.
RULE 9 : ASSUME THAT THE PERSON YOU ARE LISTENING TO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING YOU DO NOT.
Conduct a short experiment the next time you find yourself in a dispute or argument. Stop the discussion for a moment and institute this rule:
"Each person can speak up for himself only after he has first restated the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker accurately, and to that speaker's satisfaction."
You will find this technique extremely useful. Summarize what people say to you, and ask them if you have understood properly. Sometimes they will accept your summary. Sometimes they will offer a small correction. Now and then you will be wrong completely. Either way, it is good to know.
RULE 10 : BE PRECISE IN YOUR SPEECH
In a marriage it is worth fighting, even about the little things. Do you really want the same petty annoyance tormenting you every single day of your marriage, for the decades of its existence?
For example in a marriage, maybe every conversation between husband and wife had deteriorated into boring routine, as no shared adventure animated the couple. Maybe that deterioration was easier, moment by moment, day by day, than bearing the responsibility of keeping the relationship alive. Living things die, after all, without attention. No one finds a match so perfect that the need for continued attention and work vanishes (and besides, if you found the perfect person, he or she would run away from the ever-so-imperfect you in justifiable horror). In truth, what you need - what you deserve, after all - is someone exactly as imperfect as you!
Couples cease communicating and every argument degenerates into every problem that ever emerged in the past, every problem that exists now, and every terrible thing that is likely to happen in the future. No one can have a discussion about "everything."
Instead, you can say, "This exact, precise thing - that is what is making me unhappy. This exact, precise thing - that is what I want, as an alternative (although I am open to suggestions if they are specific). This exact, precise thing - that is what you could deliver, so that I will stop making your life and mine miserable." But to do that you have to THINK : What is wrong EXACTLY? What do I want EXACTLY?
If you shirk the responsibility of confronting the unexpected, even when it appears in manageable doses, reality itself will become unsustainably disorganized and chaotic. Don't hide baby monsters under the carpet. They will jump out and devour you when you least expect it, ten times the size they were before. You will descend into an indeterminate, confusing hell, instead of ascending into the heaven of virtue and clarity. Courageous and truthful words will render your reality simple, pristine, well-defined and habitable.
RULE 11 : DO NOT BOTHER CHILDREN WHEN THEY ARE SKATEBOARDING
Excessively agreeable people have a moral obligation to change and stand up for themselves. This might mean confronting your boss, or your wife, or your child, or your parents. It might mean gathering some evidence, strategically, so that when you confront that person, you can give them several examples of their misbehaviour (at least three), so they can't easily weasel out of your accusations. It might mean failing to concede when they offer their counterarguments to your three examples. People rarely have more than FOUR counterarguments at hand.
If you remain unmoved, they get angry, or cry or run away. This is designed to make you feel guilty. With luck however, you will gain your target's attention - and perhaps, eventually, their respect. This is geuine conflict, however, and is unpleasant and hard.
It's a good idea to tell the person you are confronting exactly what you would like them to do instead of what they have done or currently are doing. Make your request as small and reasonable as possible.
ME : Agreeable, compassionate, empathetic, conflict-averse people (all those traits group together) let people walk on them, and they get bitter. Agreeable people are compliant, and this robs them of their independence. They will go along with whoever makes a suggestion, instead of insisting, at least sometimes, on their own way. This is the pathway to dependent personality disorder, or unhealthy co-dependence.
Men have to toughen up. Men demand it, and women want it, even though they may not approve of the harsh and contemptuous attitude that is part and parcel of the socially demanding process that fosters and then enforces that toughness. Some women don't like losing their baby boys. But if they are healthy, women don't want boys. They want men. They want someone to contend with; someone to grapple with.
RULE 12 : PET A CAT WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER ONE ON THE STREET.
That's all folks!
Overall rating 4* out of 5
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