Self-Help

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm having the hardest time picking up Victor Hugo....bleeehhhh. Even with the abridged Les Miserables, which I really want to read, I can't seem to stick to it.

So I finished The Five Love Languages within 24 hours instead. Great book! It's made me think about what my friends' love languages are, as well as my family's and my nieces' and nephews'. I thought of my own, and I'm pretty sure that my love language is Quality Time. I'd recommend this book to anybody, especially those who are terrified like me of the love dying after you commit with somebody, or if you just feel like you can't seem to please somebody with the way you love them.

I want to go read some more books, just not Les Miserables. Sorry but the whole convent-jail life- spurning Jean Valjean is just not what I'm up for at the moment, but I still want to read it. I really really like self-help books, I find human culture and psychology extremely fascinating, and they are a gentle way of helping me realize what I am doing wrong with my relations with others, you know, I'll call them blind spots.

It's like those faults that are hurting your relationships with people that you don't even realize you are doing, but everybody else is saying "man, if they just did this, they could be more successful/happy" but that can be harsh blows to our self-esteem so nobody tells us. I'd like to say I'm pretty good at catching mine or I'm completely aware of what I am doing wrong, but you know, there's always more to learn, and everybody can improve their relations with others- whether it's with you and yourself, you and your interaction with one other person, with a group, or in front of a mass group.

And I am very much aware of what I could do better, I'd like to be able to have a good conversation with somebody who is not like me at all, or learn to express love and great communication to somebody more personally, or get better at public speaking.

But yes, I'm happy. My next self-help book I want to explore is this one called "Emotional Intelligence". I think it deals with using primarily social skills to improve your behavior and interaction in a work setting.

A book I would also recommend is Man's Search For Meaning, it is a Millecam-must-read or else you can't be a part of the family therefore I read it but it's really really good. It's also not too long so it's great to get a lot of insight without having to read many pages, that's kind of my reading style generally speaking.

So, what about you? What's a book that has changed how you think or how you feel about life?