A book changed my life.

It’s no exaggeration when I tell my friends that a book changed my life. On the front of it, it sounds like people can read this book and fix their life too. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t but I’d like to share a few lessons I’ve learned.

This goes back to 2019 where I decided to take a break from work. There’s something pleasing about taking a leave during the week. I fire up my scooter, ride all the way to Brigade Road and eventually ditch my scooter as it begins to rain.

So here I am, in a book store on a rainy day with a good hour or so to kill. When I visit a bookstore it’s normally without a book in mind. Browsing through bookshelves and trying to find something that piques my interest is one of my favorite things to do. As I browse through the ‘Non-Fiction’ shelf, a book titled ‘366 meditations …’ catches my eye. I was also trying to resume my reading habits so the idea of 366 pages (read one page a day) seemed perfect.

I buy the book on an impulse and go back home. I start reading and within a few minutes I feel like I was smacked with a wave of common sense. Here’s the thing about common sense - it’s not so common these days.

I used to be quite anxious and little things would bother me, so what I read helped put a lot of things into perspective.

“You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it.”

This was my first lesson from the book. In a world that thrives on having us react to everything, this made a lot of difference. It seems very obvious but it’s a tricky lesson to apply. Simplicity doesn’t equate to easy.

“What happened yesterday—what happened five minutes ago—is the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like. Why not do it right now?”

The past can’t be undone but you can always work on the present. These two lessons were key drivers in channeling anxious thoughts and being less reactionary. It’s far from perfect, but if you’re true to yourself you know how far you’ve come.

The more I read about the Stoics, the more convinced I am that this philosophy adds value to my life. That’s not to say you should read books on Stoicism but I felt that sharing these two lessons would add some value to your life. If they don’t that’s okay. It’s up to you, not me 😉.

We all have our philosophies. It can be Stoicism, Buddhism or anything else that we choose to pursue. We’re a result of different circumstances and there is no ‘one size fits all’. By accepting our flaws and trying our best to work on them, we’re giving ourselves more control over our attitude and actions. At the end of the day, I find comfort in knowing that ‘I tried’.