Books changed my way of thinking
As of March 28, 2020, our company announced that 80% of employees will be working from home including me which means no more spending hours and hours in traffic to commute to work, flexible working hours, etc. Since my schedule cleared out so I decided to spend more time reading books and expand my knowledge.
Here is a list of books that changed my way of thinking
Educated
About: Memoir by Tara Westover. She was raised in Idaho by a father who opposed public education, she never attended school. She spent her days working in her family’s junkyard or stewing herbs for her mother, a self-taught herbalist, and midwife. She was seventeen when she first attended class. After that, she pursued learning for a decade, graduating from Brigham Young University and subsequently winning a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. In 2014 she earned a Ph.D. in history from Trinity College, Cambridge. Here is one of the quotes from her book
“You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,” she says now. “You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”
Takeaway: Always invest in education. The book helped me to understand the importance of parenting, the importance of education, how a parent’s ego can potentially destroy a child’s future, etc.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.
Takeaway: Don’t forget about we are humans and must act like ones. We are living in a world where most people forgot about the basic principles of human beings. Men forgot how to be a man. Women forgot to be women. Always respect yourself, be gentlemen to your woman, love your family, never jealous of someone else for their success instead celebrate with them, wish people good, and good is going to happen to you, and never ever betray people for money.
The Foundation Novels
For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future — to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire — both scientists and scholars — and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.
But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun — or fight them and be destroyed.
Takeaway: Make a foundation that will help two, three generations ahead of you. If every one of us would think about two or three generations in advance maybe we will have a better future for our kids/grandkids, maybe we will have a better foundation for our education, maybe we would not have civil/world wars, maybe the world would’ve been a better place for all and all the people would be healthy, maybe we would not destroy this planet and start exploring others.
Fun fact: The collection of these books was included with Starman on one of the SpaceX mission to Mars. I think it also motivated Elon Musk to start the SpaceX company.
What books helped you? Share in comments below
