This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever recommend products that I have personally used and loved. Thank you for your support!
I’ve finally come around to reading the highly recommended “101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think,” and here is my book review.
Read also: 7 Mindset Changes You Need To Make This Year
Read also: Rich As F*ck Book Review | 11 Lessons + Quotes
Book Review
101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think by Brianna Wiest is basically like a collection of high-quality personal development blog posts. It was a nice and thought-provoking read full of great lessons. The main ones repeatedly appeared throughout the book, so they were really made to stick.
Lessons
1. Truly living means feeling all feelings to their fullest
If you were always happy, you wouldn’t feel happy at all because you wouldn’t be having the necessary contrast to sadness or any other negative emotion.
Being happy would just be normal. It would feel good but a bit ‘meh.’ Just like rich people get used to spending insane amounts of money without blinking an eye, you wouldn’t even see yourself as particularly happy if you didn’t experience the alternative.
Furthermore, your life would stagnate.
After all, besides chasing pleasure, the biggest motivator for many people is to escape the pain.
We don’t want to worry about money anymore, so we study hard to get a good job; we don’t want to feel restricted by a 9-to-5 lifestyle anymore, so we build a business, and we are sick of feeling ugly take care of our appearance.
Previously unimaginable amazing things have resulted from humans wanting a better life.
None of us would ever live life with our full potential if we always were happy.
So embrace your negative emotions as well!
2. You’re not meant to be happy all the time
“Negative emotions are good for you. In fact, maintaining a consistent experience of only “happiness”—or any emotion, really—would be a sign of mental illness.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“The goal is not to feel “good” all the time, it’s to be able to express a healthy range of emotion without suppressing or suffering.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“Happy people are not people who “feel good” all the time; they are the people who are able to be guided by their negative emotions rather than paralyzed by them.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“Pain is a signal that something’s wrong, suffering is what happens when we don’t heed it.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
There is a lot of talk in the online world about being a high vibe all the time. Some gurus sell their formula to a high vibe life to hopeful customers.
And many of those high vibe tips work … until they don’t.
You can’t avoid negative feelings forever.
Beyond the previously mentioned point that truly living includes feeling all emotions to the fullest, there is also another reason you shouldn’t suppress negative emotions.
They are making you aware of a problem you need to deal with.
The more you suppress your negative emotions instead of dealing with the root of them, the more issues will pop up in your life: anger management issues, anxiety, stress-induced health issues, etc.
Those negative feelings will persist the more you resist them. Instead, healthily deal with them, and if necessary, don’t hesitate to take advantage of professional help.
3. Life isn’t about goals but the person you become through the pursuit of them
“The point of hard work is to recognize the person it makes you, not what it “gets” you”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“Accomplishing goals is not success. How much you expand in the process is.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“The point of anything is not what you get from having done it; it’s who you become from having gone through it. It’s all about growth at the end of the day. “
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Our society has become very goal-oriented. The internet is full of content that’s supposed to help you hustle towards your next big goal.
However, it’s actually not the actual achievement of the goal that makes the biggest difference in your life. It’s more about who you become during the journey.
If you learn to see the benefit in work in between and actually enjoy it, you will lead a happier life and be more at peace.
You won’t just live for the fleeting moment in which you achieve your goal and until you set sight onto your next aim. Instead, you’ll live for the process, as well.
4. Some of your dreams might break, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on a bright future
“Don’t confuse a broken dream with a broken future.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Sometimes, we build this elaborate mental construct of our ideal life around this one dream scenario.
The longer you have this picture of your future, and the more you want it, the more it’s going to hurt when that bubble pops.
Teh sudden realization that this dream isn’t feasible can be dishartening and depressing.
It might take you a while to get over your loss of perspective for your future.
However, you should always remember that a future equally as good or even better is waiting for you to claim it.
Often enough, we end up idolizing our dream life without realizing that the actual day-to-day routine wouldn’t be ideal for us at all.
Luckily, there is always another, if not better, dream waiting for you.
5. Stop planning your happiness and start feeling it now
“You cannot save up your happiness; you can either feel it in the moment, or you miss it. It’s that simple.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Anyone who is more prone to overthinking than spontaneous actions has probably postponed their happiness at least once in their life.
This can look like forcing yourself to watch a series more slowly than you’d like because you want to have something to look forward to in the next few days.
Or perhabs you have this really deliciously scented candle, and you want to save it for a ‘special occasion, but then it just ends up lying around for years instead of providing you joy now.
Trying to plan our happiness can rob us of the very thing we are trying to secure.
For example, often enough, the excitement of the series or with the candle might fade, and you don’t enjoy it later on as much as you would have now.
Or you even forget about it entirely.
There will be plenty of reasons for you to feel happy in the future.
Don’t act as if your happiness is a limited resource that carefully needs to be distributed across time.
Be happy now, first and foremost!
6. You should be living life and not just think about it
“Make sure you’re living more than you’re thinking about living.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
It is easy to fall into the habit of overanalyzing your life, especially as an introverted overthinker interested in personal development.
As such, we have to put a conscious effort into actually living life.
Stop creating all those Pinterest boards full of cute aesthetic cafés and instead take your laptop or book and spontaneously spend a few hours in one.
Stop planning out the perfect business idea in little detail and just start working on something.
And please stop obsessing over whether or not you’re ‘behind in life.’ Instead, take one step forward in a direction that’ll make you feel less behind.
You won’t remember all the things you’ve contemplated in life. What you will remember and be remembered for are the things you did. So start doing them!
7. Be careful to imagine your life as a synopsis
“You have to stop living for how other people will remember you. Stop living by telling yourself the story that you think other people will be happy reading.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
This book made me aware that I am guilty of viewing my life from the outside and as a synopsis.
Do you envy the impressive CV of successful people?
Do you imagine what your CV will look like one of these days?
And have you ever imagined how other people will introduce you?
If you do, you are also having a synopsis-like view of your life.
You can keep imagining your life’s synopsis if it motivates you but redirects your focus on your life from your own perspective if you get increasingly disappointed.
8. Your fear is not only a warning but also a guiding sign
“Not wanting to do something would make you feel indifferent about it. Fear = interest.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“The presence of indifference is a sign you’re on the wrong path. Fear means you’re trying to move toward something you love, but your old beliefs, or unhealed experiences, are getting in the way.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Not every fear is a sign of danger. More often than not, fear is a sign that you are interested in something that lies outside your comfort zone.
To step outside your comfort zone, you might have overcome limiting beliefs, self-sabotaging habits or simply push yourself through it.
If you do that, you will experience immense growth, and your momentum will make it easier for you to follow other interests that have been appearing as fears.
9. Don’t let your past self dictate how you live your life today
“You owe nothing to your younger self. You are not responsible for being the person you once thought you’d be.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
“There is no way you will be able to predict or plan what will be happening in 5 years from now. If you can predict and plan for that, dream bigger. Try harder.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
My younger self of five years ago would have never been able to predict the kind of person I am today with all my interests and passions.
I’m sure to at very least a small extent, it’s the same for you.
So why would we think we can make a 5-year plan for our life that is guaranteed to make us happy?
You might dedicate your entire high school life to getting the grades necessary formed or law school because you’ve set it into your head that this is your dream career.
Does that guarantee you will like the college courses or the actual career? No!
So don’t force yourself to finish a 5- or even 10-year plan just because you are already a few years into it if you honestly hate it.
There is a fine line between stubborn persistence and foolish stubbornness; be careful what side you’re on.
10. Embrace your embarrassing past
“You’re supposed to be embarrassed of your younger self—really. It’s a mark of progress.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Many people cringe when they see pictures of or hear stories about their younger selves.
They obsess over how they could have done better and why they did this or that.
But the thing is, back then, it was most likely the best you had to offer.
The fact that you could do so much better nowadays should make you proud of how much you’ve grown.
Focus on that instead of on the embarrassing thing nobody, but you obsesses over.
11. The things you love and hate about others tell you a lot about yourself
“You love in others what you love in yourself. You hate in others what you cannot see in yourself.”
– Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
If you have a very strong reaction to people who interrupt others, perhaps that’s because you refuse to admit to yourself that you are prone to interrupting others as well.
If you absolutely hate women caked full of makeup, perhaps that’s because you don’t want to admit to yourself that you’d like to be able to make up as expertly as them (though not necessarily as much of it as them).
After all, if you don’t care about it, you would feel indifferent towards it.
Take your strong emotions as cues to find out more about you and heal your hate by finally admitting to yourself the things you’ve been keeping suppressed.
Comment down below on your favorite lesson from the book.
Until next time!
