Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

news.ycombinator.com

201–210 of 225 posts

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#201

is there a similar topic for videos? Some YouTube videos can cause profound changes in yourself an your life in minutes (if you are sufficiently open and actually want the change).

How to be open ?

I'm sure there is a great video or a great book just for you answering this question but finding it among all answering the question in the ways that are not going to help you may be a problem. Threads like this may help greatly.

"In a nutshell" being the kind of open I mean means that every time you read/listen to somebody your prime interest is to understand them (even if they speak weird to nonsensical) and find how, when and why can this possibly make sense (if you fail - try harder and harder) rather than the opposite and being always willing to rationally disprove, correct and expand your view rather than to prove you're right to the others and yourself. In the majority of arguments (and whenever you read/listen to somebody whose views don't mach yours perfectly, an inaudible argument is happening inside your head and chances are you lack conscious awareness of this) each party seems mostly interested in defending its view and disproving that of the other but it usually is more beneficial to "be open" and think about how the opponent's view may possibly enrich mine.

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#202

`Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams` by Matthew Walker. Still in the midst of it actually, and it's had a huge impact. Runner-up would be `the end of religion` by Bruxy Cavey.

I’d be curious to hear abit more about those two.

Why we sleep has given me an immense amount of respect for sleep, something I rather apparently knew so little about. I've put off sleep for decades, and amidst this book I've come to understand that it's been a really stupid approach to realizing my goals.

I still don't understand sleep, but, Walker breaks down sleeps benefits & shows the data to back up why we should be getting a full night's rest. He has given me a newfound respect for something I wantonly would throw away at my next personal whim. Silly me, it's been working against me the whole time.

Fewer late nights learning to code, and I'm making much better progress already in the memory department.

As for Cavey's book: Cavey takes a really interesting look at Jesus through a historical lens, coupled with all these little things I had missed in my own reading of the New Testament. It's full of goodies, and is one of those books I've got 20 copies of in my library to hand out like candy.

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#203

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse Never really been one to enjoy popular books on philosophy (Alchemist was overrated, Monk who sold his Ferrari cliched, The Secret just boring ...IMO) and picked this up at a used book store. The book truly put a new perspective on life for me. Perhaps it was a combination of the time when I read the book: Undue stress, massive imposter syndrome, that feeling of not moving ahead in life, a…

Hindu god Ganesha was created to curb Buddhism and thats why Buddhism is not famous in india.

I am Hindu but unaware of this fact. Though I'll do some googling but can you provide your source and reasoning behind that?

I am aware Shankaracharya did try to curb Buddhism but I wasn't aware of ganesha angle.

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#204

"Food of the Gods" by Terrence McKenna was a revelation and led me to dive into his other books and lectures (and many topics spawned from it). Complete shift in baseline perception. Though not his quote, he said it frequently: "The truth is not only stranger than you suppose, it is stranger than you _can_ suppose."

I must've spent a lifetime listening to and reading McKenna. Time to go back and have another listen.

Check out https://asktmk.com/ too :) There's an API!

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#205

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - practical advice on how to arm yourself every day. 2. Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl - no matter how bad you think you have it, it can be worse, and you can find meaning. 3. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen - it's the journey (not the destination) and pay attention!

>no matter how bad you think you have it, it can be worse, and you can find meaning.

I agree. I have a personality where when something bad happens I just assess my potential courses of action and act accordingly. Sometimes I get depressed, but I usually snap out of it and get back to work. However, I am married to someone with a chronic, debilitating illness. I'm struggling to help her keep hope. I think one of the tricky things to get around is that people with legitimately terrible situations don't want to hear "It could always be worse." They kind of have a point. Just because there's a person that has it worse doesn't mean they aren't suffering also. I think Frankl's book might be helpful, but I wouldn't really know where to start trying to convince her that it might help.

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#206
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. The profitable idea is the hardest thing for me. It seems like everything I think of has already been done before.

With 7+ Billion people on the planet most people have done something similar to any idea. Isn't the point in the book that you can still succeed by creating your own flavor of an idea or selling that idea to a new market?

That might be the point. I didn't make it that far because after what seemed like 60 pages of the author talking about how he's naturally a world class performer at pretty much everything he's ever tried to do in his entire life I got tired of the bullshit time-share salesman style of writing.

Where does the actual advice start? This book is recommended pretty much every time someone asks a similar question, I might be willing to give it another shot if there's actual content somewhere in it.

Also, did this guy create a successful business outside of his self-help stuff before he started writing these books?

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#207

Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell I read this in high-school, and I can see very clearly how it has influenced my thinking up to the current day (and I'm 45 now). I would definitely say this book was a big part of influencing my to my strongly anti-state / anti-government position. I was so angry at the end of that book, and that still resonates with me today. Orwell might not have been a libertarian himself, but…

I have a lot of quasi-libertarian beliefs. However, if you read up on the history of capitalism in America and how poor and middle-class people have been manipulated, mistreated, and oppressed by rich landowners and large corporations since the beginning and you may come to the conclusion that I did: Unfettered capitalism is just as shitty as communism.

I think a better form of government results from trying to achieve a balance between capitalism and socialism (Possibly other things too, I'm not a political science major). I'm not sure how far it should lean one way or the other, I just know that both ideologies lead to plenty of human suffering when allowed to completely dominate.

1984 is one of my all-time favorites. I love dystopian fiction. Have you also read Brave New World?

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#208

The divided mind / healing back pain - Books by John E. Sarno. To give you a background I have struggled with back pain all my life. After dozens of MRIs, X rays, physiotherapy, ayurveda, yoga, posture exercises, and spending almost 100,000 in the last 15 years on this, a simple book saved me. The effect was so powerful that I could feel the symptoms fading while I was reading it. It gave me my life back. A few weeks…

Also, for anyone interested, there is a brilliant 2016 documentary film 'All the Rage, Saved by Sarno'

Here's Dr.Sarno's words at the end of movie trailer: 'All this because of one simple idea — that the mind and the body intimately connected'

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#209

The divided mind / healing back pain - Books by John E. Sarno. To give you a background I have struggled with back pain all my life. After dozens of MRIs, X rays, physiotherapy, ayurveda, yoga, posture exercises, and spending almost 100,000 in the last 15 years on this, a simple book saved me. The effect was so powerful that I could feel the symptoms fading while I was reading it. It gave me my life back. A few weeks…

Also, for anyone interested, there is a brilliant 2016 documentary film 'All the Rage, Saved by Sarno' Here's Dr.Sarno's words at the end of movie trailer: 'All this because of one simple idea — that the mind and the body intimately connected'

I couldn't find a place to buy it online. Do yoh have a link? Thanks

Re: Ask HN: What was the one book that you read and it actually changed your life?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, for anyone interested, there is a brilliant 2016 documentary film 'All the Rage, Saved by Sarno' Here's Dr.Sarno's words at the end of movie trailer: 'All this because of one simple idea — that the mind and the body intimately connected'

I couldn't find a place to buy it online. Do yoh have a link? Thanks

Sure, I found one here on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/alltherage

also, the official website http://alltheragedoc.com/

Post reply on HN