Why the Unmarried People Should Start Learning About Raising Children Well, Before Their Marriage

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
-Frederick Douglass

This is something I’m not very much familiar with or write about but I’ve naively observed. I really felt this can be helpful or at least thought-provoking and felt this needs to reach more people. So I decided to write this. Please read this with an open mind.

The Courtship Period
Have you observed a significant, and in some countries, majority of movies are love stories? And out of those love stories, majority of them are about courtship period: where the romantic couple gets to know each other, falls in love, overcomes some sort of obstacles and finally unites – in marriage – and that’s shown as ‘the happy ending.’

But think about it, depending on whether love or arranged marriages, the courtship period lasts anywhere from a few months to in some exceptional cases, a decade at most? But how long do marriages last? In most cases a life time – spanning across at least a few decades. What movies, songs, novels and societies portray as happy ending is actually a beginning, of a far longer journey and definitely with its own unique challenges.

Why mention this?
Our youth is inspired from it. They put too much emphasis on courtship period ending up in marriages than on living as a married couple, understanding each other, understanding that relationships require effort (and not confusing that relationships draw from forever sustaining, eternal fountain of love) and raising children well.

Discussions On Raising Children
I may be generalizing and I apologize, but most married couple would likely have children. However, they rarely think about it in the courtship period apart from the fancy mentioning – “we’ll have babies that look like you” and “we’ll name them that” or something along the line. Later after marriage most married couple do give a thought about when they’ll have children: often when their career and priorities align and when they can give most time to their children – this is wonderful. But is this enough?

The Most Ignored Part
Sadly, there is a part of raising children that is often completely ignored: inculcating, instilling great qualities in them. “But every parent wants to and tries to instil great qualities in their children”. True, but in what way? Please read on:

How do children learn?

(Image via Quoteswave)
Another similar quote: “Your child will follow your example not your advice.”

Children learn more from example than advice. The parents are their first teachers and their education begins right from home. Children mirror their parents’ behavior, habits, words and actions. They continuously observe you and imitate the same thing.

Lot of parents try to impart teaching through words while either behaving exactly opposite in action or hardly following their own preaching.

The Sins of the Parents
I’m currently reading a book called “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck and it has a chapter with a similar name (The Sins of the Father) which puts a great emphasis on good parenting and highlights the consequences of bad parenting.
The chapter describes the lifelong neuroses the children develop because of the parents who try to instil self-discipline in them while being without self-discipline themselves. In his words they’re “Do as I say, not as I do” parents. From the same book:

When parents do things a certain way, it seems to the young child the way to do them, the way they should be done.
If a child sees his parents day in and day out behaving with self-discipline, restraint, dignity and a capacity to order their own lives, then the child will come to feel in the deepest fibers of his being that this is the way to live.
If a child sees his parents day in and day out living without self-restraint or self-discipline, then he will come in the deepest fibers of being to believe that that is the way to live.

Some More Examples
If the parents frequently fight and bicker over the most trivial of things in front of their children then teachings of tolerance, understanding, being calm go right out of the door.
If a father tells his son to not beat his sister but if he beats the mother then the son won’t stop.
If the mother tells her children to check their temper but she regularly shouts around and gets in argument with the neighbor, her own children would shout and be angry too.
If either of the parent is into some bad habit like drinking or smoking, it’d be hard for the teenage son to not follow the suit despite being told “don’t smoke“.

These were rather more extreme cases but if the parents don’t themselves embody the values, virtues, behavior, habits and thinking they want their children to have, it’s unlikely children would have them.

The Value of Well Raised Children for You, Society and the World
When you raise a child well, you don’t just contribute one good individual, you improve the whole next generation, our society, its future and the whole world. A lot of issues such as violence, racism, addictions, vices and so much more that the world is crippled by can be addressed at home, by parents, by good parenting.

Your Legacy
Your material inheritance may not last with your children forever, but the values you instil, the habits you inculcate in them, the virtues, the individual thinking you help them develop and the person you help them become; that’d remain with them forever and it’d be passed onto to their own children. Your teachings would immortalize you. That’s your true legacy and the whole world would be thankful for it.

Just as you won’t want bad genes to pass on to your children – though you don’t have much control over it – similarly, you shouldn’t want to pass on your bad habits, behaviors, thought patterns and narrow-mindedness to your children and you (both parents) have a lot of control over this. It begins by improving yourself.

Improving Ourselves Takes Time – Begin Early (Now!)
Your bad habits, addictions, vices, improper thinking, narrow-mindedness and any fault you have right now and are aware of won’t suddenly disappear once you’re married. It’d stick with you and would pass on to your children. If you want to raise great children, you must improve yourself.

This improvement won’t happen suddenly. Trust me, it’s challenging to change ourselves. We cannot simply decide one day and completely transform ourselves the same day. To change habits, behavior and thought patterns of years takes at least a few weeks to a few months. Researches shows that at least 62 days or 2 months are needed to instil a new habit. However this is optimistic, doesn’t take into account failures, distractions and other priorities. Also, it’s unlikely there would be only a few bad habits you’d have, so begin early, begin right now.

It’s not like you’re married now or are about to have children and then suddenly you decide and you’re better. This is why I believe if you’re unmarried, very good, begin now. If you’re married and about to have children, begin now, address the worst habits. If you’re married and already have children, you too begin now. Improve yourselves. Your children would be inspired by your changed behavior and would follow you.

Not Being Hard on Children
“Don’t let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid, that you forget you already have one.”
A lot of parents rely on physical beating, harsh words, mental torture to discipline their children. Such parents themselves lack discipline and are ignorant of more loving, kind ways to impart a teaching as well as ignore the ill effects their punishments may have on their children, in childhood and later in life. Please stop. You don’t want to raise children who need to recover from their childhood.

Just as experienced adults who have seen the world take time to improve; a child who is unaware of the world and its teaching is definitely going to take more time. Be patient, loving and caring parents. You don’t want your child to remember childhood as something dreadful and forgettable.

Another Need: Learning of Better Married Life Before Marriage
Similar to raising children well and probably preceding it is the need of learning about how to have a better married life. I see this too frequently, the married partners bickering over useless things, in busy lives of today they’re not together whole day and when they are they’re fighting, arguing. In courtship period people promise moon and stars for loved ones. But moon and stars aren’t needed to live a healthy, happy married life.

What’s needed is proper communication, honesty, understanding, tolerance and the youth needs to learn this – preferably before marriage. You’re not going to learn and instil this all suddenly on your wedding day, right? Be responsible. Learn now.

Opening Up
If you’re unmarried, you’d be teased about being in the age of marriage etc. If you’re recently married you’d be teased about when are you having children. The youth find themselves bombarded only with this imbecile teasing but are not given proper guidance and more responsible discussions on finding a good partner, on married life, responsibility of both partners, importance of communication and of course on raising children well.

To the youth, the courtship period is extremely exaggerated, is shorter and is perhaps less important than married life and raising children well. If you want to raise children well, improve yourself. This improvement begins now. Start.


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The Dilemma of Good and Pleasant: How Our Brain Works and 10 Powerful Ways to Overcome Instant Gratification.

Image result for 2 choicesIn the Ancient Indian scripture Kathopanishad, there is a verse spoken by Lord of Death to the child Nachiketa that describes the dilemma that we all often face: of choosing to do what is right and good for our future even though it’s uncomfortable right now OR doing things that give instant gratification right now but harm us in the long term-
“Every person is faced with 2 choices: The Good (sreyas) and The Pleasant (preyas). A wise person chooses The Good, even though it’s not pleasant. A fool chooses The Pleasant, with only instant gratification in mind and suffers later.”
-Kathopanishad, 8th Century BC, India.

We’re faced with this choice numerous times every day: Should we choose the healthier salad or the delicious dessert? Should we watch the TV right now or study? Should we take the stair or lift? Should we write the blog post or continue browsing Facebook? Make the important call or watch another video? Discuss the important but difficult issue with our partner or go on with our day.

And we choose the pleasant more often than we would like to. Not only that, sometimes we understand the Pleasant would ruin us, we don’t pursue it but we indefinitely delay doing the Good. This gives rise to missed deadlines, amassing of guilt and regret, introduce excuses, lying, dishonesty, bad habits usually follow and over long time, can result in far worse outcomes than one can anticipate like ill-health, failure, rejection and broken relationships. This may sound too extreme but it’s the small everyday wrong choices that may result in such apocalyptic outcome.

Knowing is Not Enough
In another scripture from India, the Mahabharata, the antagonist prince Duryodhana, offers the following perspective when asked why he continues to do the bad deeds despite knowing what is right:
“I know what is dharma (i.e. righteousness), yet I cannot get myself to follow it! I know what is adharma (non-righteousness), yet I cannot abstain from it! O Lord of the senses! You dwell in my heart and I will do as you impel me to do.”

This seems all too real and relatable. We ‘know’ what is the right thing to do and what we should avoid, despite this knowledge we end up pursuing the Pleasant and delaying the Good. As if our brains our wired to do that. Are they? Yes!

The 3 Evolutionary Layers of Human Brain: Lizard, Monkey and Human
Even when we know, we only know what is right and wrong but it also helps us to understand how our brain has evolved over hundreds of millions of years and retained some of its ancient parts and tendencies.

The Evolution of brain can be generalized in 3 stages (see notes at end):
1. The Reptilian/Primitive Brain: The most primitive part, it’s the part over spine with brain stem and cerebellum. It’s responsible for involuntary functions like heartbeat, blood circulation etc. as well as the flight or fight response.
It’s rigid, automatic and compulsive. It wants the gratification right now! We have very less control over it in comparison to the other 2 parts.

2. The Monkey/Emotional Brain:
This part evolved in earliest mammals. It includes hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, fear/pleasure response circuits among other parts. It’s responsible for emotions, subconscious actions, learning and responses. Also helps in forming and retaining memories.
The Reward Circuit and Addiction:
A neural pathway involving major parts of this brain layer is responsible for reward/ reinforcement learning. When we do something pleasureful, a neuro-transmitter (a chemical) called Dopamine is released. This makes us happier. The monkey brain again anticipates/demands that trigger, we do it and again dopamine is released. This results in dependence on that trigger. The trigger can be drugs like cocaine, intoxicants like alcohol or cigarette, it can also be porn, compulsive web browsing, shopping or over consumption of some food.
This reward circuit if properly adjusted, can be used for building good habits by utilizing non-addictive rewards. (See point 9 below)

3. Neo-cortex (New/Human Brain): This part evolved in earliest primates and culminated in humans. It’s the 2 large cerebral hemispheres and is responsible for problem solving, languages, abstract thoughts, imagination, learning, thinking and also for will power (especially the pre-frontal cortex).

Our Brain is Still Mostly Animalistic
The neo-cortex part of brains has evolved relatively recently and the earlier 2 layers are far more dominating. This is why we’re often swayed by our impulses and have to consistently rely on our willpower but…

The Willpower is Limited
In her book, The Willpower Instinct Dr. Kelly McGonigal writes that willpower is a limited resource. It’s generally highest in the morning and slowly diminishes as we utilize it and as the day progresses it becomes harder to resist temptations.
This means you can’t just wake up at 5 AM on 1st of January, do 10 mile run, start eating healthy, be more responsible, be on time and finish your work. If you didn’t already have the habit, you’d have exhausted significant part of willpower by waking up at 5 AM alone.

The Monkey in the Market:
75000 years ago when we were wandering nomads and food was scarce, it made sense to eat the sweet fruit immediately, it had a lot of calories and so we could go one longer. Similarly, it made sense to mate, sleep and do other fundamental, sustaining functions immediately; you never knew if you’d get a chance. As it also made sense to run on the sight of an animal with really long teeth like a Saber-tooth cat. The flight/fight response, the pleasure aspects of our brain saved us.

Slowly as we began to live in groups, our lives became more and more complex. We needed more self-control and restraint in regard to food, mating, resources and duties like hunting & protecting our tribe. Our brains evolved functions of will power, empathy, self-control and neo-cortex became larger and more integrated with other brain parts, having more control over them as well as more influenced by them.

But we retained the earlier aspects too. So when we’re in market it’s really difficult to not eat the pizza, cake, chips and chocolate or do a lot of shopping. We’ve hundreds of distractions on internet, in TVs and phones and our brain’s reward circuits are on fire. We can’t form good habits because eating a chocolate or watching a movie etc. appear more pleasurable and make complete sense to our animal brains than starting the habit of working out.

We’re like a monkey in a market place, he’s never been to a more lucrative, tempting place. He can’t decide what to do. He wants everything and he wants it all right now. When there is food and fun, why be in self-control?

The Opposition Stacked Against Us So Far
So far I’ve only described how we choose instant gratification despite knowing what is right, how our brains are wired for temptation, how we live in an age of distraction & temptations, how our reward circuits are on fire – giving rise to bad habits and how we have limited will power.

There’s Hope
If humanity is a religion, it’d be a blasphemy to say that we cannot do anything and we’d always be a victim of our urges, temptations and instincts. Looking around us confirms this, we’ve made great progress and attained remarkable achievements – our ancestor 75,000 years ago could never think of a smartphone but slow, incremental discoveries of fire, agriculture, metal, industry, electricity, semiconductor – step by step like this has taken us here.

Instead of being scared of the knowledge of how our brains work, we should use this to our advantage.

How to Beat Instant Gratification?
I’d describe the following 10 ways that I’ve observed have helped me:

1. Start Small (so small it seems ridiculously easy):
This seems too simple but I cannot stress enough how important this is, if you just take one single point and adapt it, take this. Whether it is starting good habit or breaking the bad one, start small.
Never worked out? Do 3 repetitions of push up. Do it 2 days a week. Then take it to 5 repetitions one or even 2 weeks later. If regular push ups seem difficult, do it with knees on floor, same amount. Never ran? Run 5 or even 2 meters. Start so small it seems ridiculously easy that you can’t think of quitting or doing something else.

2. Just Start It:
I could make this corollary of point 1 but it’s too important and often overlooked. You want or do not want something, you have to start it. The Psychologist Timothy Pychyl has coined “Just start it!” based on Nike’s Just do it. Take the first step.
Want to stop with alcoholism? Sign up for alcohol anonymous. Next step would be to go there. Want to start with the essay/blog post? Just decide the topic and write it down. May be next step would be to write the outline. After that the first point and so on.

3. Minimize Temptations (Remove Them!):
Start this small too. Slowly begin to decrease the temptations around you. Distant yourself from the dependencies that give rise to The Pleasant. Examples would clear them better:
Smoke 10 cigarettes a day? Buy a smaller packet. Decrease 1 over week/ 2 week. Drink too much? May be don’t hang out with the buddy who bathes in alcohol. Waste time on distracting websites? Install blocker extensions like StayFocusd. Gossip too much? Meet the person less or talk about something else. Don’t want to eat the pastries? Don’t buy the pastries or give the ones away and so on.
Corollary: Meaningful Distractions
Some distractions can help you delay the more dangerous gratification. Want to smoke? Watch the TV series or to feel less guilty, go for a run, call someone. Meaningful distractions deviate your focus from instant gratification.

4. Be Consistent (Build the Momentum and Be Committed)
When you’re making a life changing decision or habit, start small and build it up slowly. But be consistent. Decide the frequency: whether hours or days or weeks you’d do something and then on those times, short of World War 3 or a Family Crisis you must do it! Tolerate no excuses, you’re already starting small. I’d say sitting down for 1 hour of an episode is more uncomfortable than 1 or 3 or 5 push-ups, you do twice in a week or once in 2 weeks (depending on your progression).

5. Willpower Can Be Replenished and Increased
Dr. McGonigal also describes that ‘Willpower Reservoir’ can be replenished with Sleep, Rest and when you need it for small time, a minimum 5 minute breathing, relaxing meditation.
It can also be increased with regular physical exercise. Also, as you slowly begin to do the uncomfortable activities that you’ve been avoiding, start small and slowly buildup, you’d expand the limits of your willpower. What seemed too difficult in the past would seem part of nature sometime later. The same activity consumes very less or NO willpower at all after some time. And this willpower you’re free to use on other activities. Yay!

6. It’s Okay to Fail:
In the pursuit of anything, you’d fail. There’d be days when you’d even miss the 3 push ups and WW3 hasn’t started and it’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up for it. There may be relapses in your habit, recurrence of the behavior you’re wanting to change, reemergence of the thoughts you’re trying to get over and it’d be tough. Sometime they’d overcome you. Sleep on it, don’t think on it. But make sure to take the step you missed as soon as you can. We have to practice tough self-love but not beat ourselves either. Balance it.

7. Be Mindful (Acknowledge I’ve a thought or Start Journaling):
There is all sort of confusing mess about mindfulness. For our discussion, it’s simple: Be Aware. Observe your thoughts. Like observe the thought you want to eat a chocolate.
This unfortunately doesn’t work for everyone. You can start a journal, where you pour thoughts about what you want to do, pro & cons against it and track progress. But people can procrastinate on journaling too.
In short, I’d say learn to observe your thoughts. Have some mantra, motto, a mission statement or a catch phrase. Observe the tempting thought and recall your motto. If still have the same thought, distract yourself with the motto. This needs like 2 blog posts of its own to explain properly. It’s the essence: Be mindful. Then direct your awareness to the Righteous.

8.  Start Accountability and/or Support System
Sometimes this journey can be daunting alone and may be you’re observing you’re failing too many times, then open up and ask for help. If you’re too shy to talk with your loved ones, go to a support group. These are especially helpful in addictions and for bad habits.
If you find it hard to be committed and perform the necessary action, have your ruthless friend make you more accountable. Example, if you don’t study and show him/her your progress every 3 days you pay him/her $5 or $15 or do their home work. The idea is to have a higher discomfort in this penalty than the actual task itself. There are apps that automatically do that.

9. Build a Healthy Reward System:
Example, if you stay committed and do not give in to instant gratification say for a week then you can have a temporary unrelated reward. Unrelated as in if trying to overcome alcoholism, it must not be related to alcohol or any addiction, may be eat a cake. But if it’s related to cakes, and you don’t eat for a month, then may be watch a movie or TV series? So on.

10. Delay (Defer Gratification):
This is in the end for a reason, you’ve to follow some of the above steps, but some can just do this: Whenever feeling the urge, delay. Don’t act immediately. It goes hand in hand with meaningful distraction and mindfulness. Distract yourself. Overtime it becomes a habit by itself. You have all these thoughts, you observe them and they go, like a flowing river. They don’t have an obstruction to stop the flow and flood, meaning, there is no anchor stopping those thoughts, one thought is replaced with another. With meditation, thoughts can be replaced with thoughtlessness. There is no thought, hence there is no action that follows that thought. Keep realigning your focus.

This has been one of the longer posts. I hope it has been helpful. I thank you very much for reading it and request it to share it, if it’s been helpful.

All the best with your goals. You can message me on Facebook if you want to talk about something. Take care. Keep smiling. Keep progressing towards your dream. Keep Trailing on Your Untrailed Path.


Notes:
1. The Triune Brain Model: Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain

2. The Status of Triune Model: Triune Model: What to keep and what to discard

3. Duryodhan’s Verse: Janami Dharmam

4. Verse from Kathopanishad:
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2017 Reading List and Reading Challenge – 100 Books, 2 books each week

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“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
-Charles William Eliot

Reading good books is one of the most enriching activities that always stretches us. One of my greatest mistakes has been reading less books or reading books related to only a few fields of knowledge. I decided to change this in March 2016 by reading about 1 book per week but could read only about 30 books.

I’ve decided to challenge myself to read or listen to 2 books/audio books each week in 2017, and round it off to about 100 books.

I’ve selected the following 98 books after thinking a lot on topics I want to read, followed by deliberate search for best books and then reading multiple positive and negative reviews. I’ve left out 2 books for great recommendation I come across.

I also wanted to cover a lot of areas, some directly related to my goals like Philosophy, Computer Science and Genetics, while others less related but are related to people I’m inspired by, causes I care about (Cancer Treatments, Overcoming Depression) or School of Thoughts I follow like Stoicism, Survivalism etc. I also challenged myself to read topics I don’t generally read like Finance, Relationships and Addictions.

I’ve marked books with over 450 pages as L for long and with over 700 pages as VL for Very Long and books demanding exercises or with complex material like text books as C for Complex. I’d probably read them over weeks. The ones I’ve already read are marked as such in green. I’d keep updating.

Here are the books:

Biographies + Autobiographies (7)

  • Elon Musk – Ashley Vance Read
  • Einstein, His Life and Universe – Walter Isaacson
  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin – Benjamin Franklin
  • Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind – Charles Nicholl
  • Isaac Newton – James Gleick
  • When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
  • The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt -Edmund Morris (1st of triology)

Psychology + Self Development (18)

  • Deep Work – Cal Newport Read
  • Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
  • Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
  • 4 Hour Work Week – Tim Ferris
  • The Art of Manliness: Manvotional – Compiled by Brett &  Mckay
  • Think and Grow Rich -Napoleon Hill
  • The Road Untravelled – M. Scott Peck Reading
  • How to Win Friend and Influence People -Dale Carnegie
  • Self Control, Its Kingship and Majesty – William George Jordan
  • The Crown of Individuality – William George Jordan
  • Eat That Frog – Brian Tracy
  • Peak: Secrets from New Science of Expertise – K. Enders Ericsson
  • Mastery – Robert Greene Reading
  • Radical Acceptance – Tara Brach
  • The Willpower Instinct (Maximum Willpower) -Kelly McGonigal
  • Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
  • As a Man Thinketh – James Allen
  • Extreme Ownership –  Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Suicide, Depression and Mental Illnesses (2)

  • The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression – Andrew Solomon
  • Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide – Kay Redfield Jamison

Survivalism (Survival Guide + Survival Stories) (4)

  • US Army Survival Manual (FM 3-05.70)
  • Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
  • Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea – Steven Callahan
  • Man’s Search for Meaning -Victor E. Frankl

Genetics + Molecular Biology (6)

  • The Gene: An Intimate History – Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology – Masaharu Tekemura
  • Genome: An Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters – Matt Ridley
  • Molecular Biology of the Cell – Bruce Alberts
  • The Language of Genes – Steve Jones
  • DNA: The Secret of Life – James Watson

Food + Recipes (2)

  • Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer
  • Vegan Recipes Book

Cancer (2)

  • The Death of Cancer – Elizabeth and Vincent DeVita
  • The Truth in Small Doses – Clifton Leaf

Running + Running Inspiration (2)

  • Born to Run -Christopher McDougall
  • Faster than Lightning: My Autobiography – Usain Bolt

Procrastination (2)

  • The Procrastination Equation – Piers Steel
  • Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: Timothy A. Pychyl

Addiction (2)

  • Gun, Needle, Spoon – Patrick O’Neil
  • Alcoholics Anonymous: Big Book – Bob Smith, Bill W. and others

Philosophy + Spirituality (15)

  • Walden -Henry David Thoreau
  • The Art of War -San Tzu
  • Tao Te Ching (The Way) -Lao Tzu, Translation of Gia Fu Feng
  • Vivekchuramani – Adi Shankaracharya
  • The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Songyal Renpoche
  • Freedom From the Known – Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • The Analects – Confucius
  • The Principle Upanishads – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  • Brahmasutra – Badarayana
  • Ethics – Baruch Spinoza
  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • The Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
  • Pragmatism: A New Way for Some Old Ways of Thinking – William James
  • The Republic – Plato
  • Discourse on Method – René Descartes

Health  and Fitness (1)

  • Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and Brain – John Ratey

Science (Multiple Disciplines) (3)

  • Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid – Douglas Hofstadter
  • Cosmos – Carl Sagan
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn

History (3)

  • A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
  • Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socieities – Jared Diamond
  • The Price: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power – Daniel Yergin

Biology + Epidemiology + Anthropology (4)

  • The Vital Question – Nick Lane
  • Eradication: Ridding the World of Diseases Forever? – Nancy Stepan
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
  • Your Inner Fish – Neil Shubin

Relationships + Biological, Evolutionary Aspects of Romantic ones (3)

  • The Relationship Cure – John M. Gottman
  • The Chemistry Between Us – Larry Young
  • The Evolution of Desire – David M Buss

Mental Toughness (3)

  • The Art of Mental Training – DC Gonzalvez
  • Unbeatable Mind – Mark Divine
  • 10 Minute Toughness – Jason Selk

Stoicism (3)

  • Enchiridion – Epictetus
  • Letters from a Stoic – Seneca
  • The Obstacle is the Way – Ryan Holiday

Business + Finance (4)

  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
  • Zero to One –  Peter Thiel
  • Good to Great – James Collins
  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosak

Nonfiction Books By Steven Pressfield (4)

  • War of Art Read
  • Turning Pro Read
  • Do the Work Read
  • The Warrior Ethos Read

Computer Science + Programming (4)

  • Introduction to Algorithms – Thomas H. Cormen et al (VL, VC)
  • Cracking the Coding Interview – Gayle Laakmann McDowell (VL, C)
  • Peeling Design Patterns – Narasimha Karumanchi (C)
  • Elements of Programming Interviews – Adnan Aziz (VL, C)

Mathematics (3)

  • Discrete mathematics and its applications – Kenneth H. Rosen (VL, C)
  • How to Solve it? – George Pólya (C)
  • Statistics – David Freedman (VL, C)

Full Rereads or Part Rereads (1, Full rereads are marked with *)

  • Bhagvadgita – Original translation (without commentary) *
  • The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
  • War of Art – Steven Pressfield * (Already counted)
  • The Manual of Warrior of Light – Paulo Coelho

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  – Dr. Seuss

What are your favorite books? Which books would you suggest me to read? Share in the comments!

Till the next time, take care, keep smiling, stay positive and Keep Trailing on Your Untrailed Path.