371–380 of 407 posts
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Any recommendation for the early CBT books you mentioned?
Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns.
There is also “The dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook”.
“Changing for Good” I highly recommend in general. It’s a very straightforward description of a model for behavior change and based on research as to how people quit smoking, both on their own and with the help of some sort of program.
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+1 for Steinbeck being a “true master”. East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath essential.
I never understood the fascination of many Americans (I'm British) with Steinbeck. For me, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and even McCarthy and Melville are completely outclassing him. One American friend of mine once mentioned that Steinbeck is obligatory reading in many American schools but few read Faulkner. Maybe that has something to do with his popularity.
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I had a friend who also read that book. I don't know if he picked up smoking again but I remember him telling that the book basically hammers it into you that smoking is bad for 150 pages and that you just have to give up smoking because it's so annoying to read about how bad it is.
Isn't that most self-help books? State your core idea in the first 5 pages, then fill the next 150+ pages with restatements of the same idea in slightly different ways.
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The people in the self-help section need something else . Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc. It's a little like, "Have you tried not having a broken leg?" Honestly, you're lucky if the only personal problems you have can be solved by philosophy, literature, history and science. (I ha…
> The people in the self-help section need something else The people in the self-help section don't know what they need or they wouldn't be looking for someone to tell them what they need. > Those things (philosophy, literature, history and science) are the luxury of folks who aren't struggling with e.g. depression, abuse, drugs & alcohol, co-dependency, etc. Excluding paid testimonials, one can find at least as many…
With respect, how do you know? Are you a priest or psychologist or psychic?
> one can find at least as many anecdotes of ... and a lot more who ...
I'm dubious but let's grant it for the sake of discussion.
So what? I mean that's terrific if reading Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" straightens one out or whatever but that doesn't invalidate the benefits some other person gets from, say, "The Secret", does it?
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Check out my answers to the other sibling comments. Would you settle for quit smoking by a self-help book? ;-D Here's something that blew me away... My sister just quit smoking. From ten cigarettes a day to zero. We (her family and friends) are all so overjoyed. How did she do it? https://www.allencarr.com/ She read that book. That's all. When she was done, she was no longer smoking. Within a few days her sense of sm…
It is not uncommon for people to just make a decision to stop smoking. It is indeed possible to not light a cigarette if the motivation is there. That is completely different than "trying not to have a broken leg".
I don't think that true, but even if it is, so what? That's not what happened to my sister.
The “Have you tried not having a broken leg?” line is from e.g. https://sunflowerssunshine.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/breaking... I don't know if that's the original source.
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Interesting that The Second Sex is included in this list, given that its author believed that women are generally too stupid to choose what's best for them in life. > No woman should be authorized to stay home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. — Simone de Beauvoir
You left out the next sentence, so in context it reads “ ... because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.“ > “ ... women are generally too stupid to choose what’s best for them in life.” Those are your words, not Simone de Beauvoirs. I haven’t read “The Second Sex” yet but I have read “The Ethics of Ambiguity” by her. I would bet a dollar t…
For one, relying on information to surface in light-weight form means that - even if it surfaced - you would be behind the curve.
Secondly, it probably doesn't surface. A heavy book you engage with builds rich models: you don't get that from light-weight online content.
Thirdly, if you want to positively differentiate yourself, acquiring information others don't have is one method. Reading books others don't read is one way to get that information.
Anecdote: Feynman used to have others ask him to look at the integrals they'd been unable to solve, and he was often able to solve them - something he attributes to having read a different math book that presented some seldom-presented integration technique.
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These are all pseudo, pop-science books. I would recommend reading the works of actual scientists and philosophers directly, or textbooks.
Are there any particular ones you could recommend?
https://fivebooks.com/category/philosophy/
I'm almost 50. The last fiction book I read was Frankenstein in 1995. I haven't read a fiction book since then because it feels like a waste of time for me, personally. I do read comic books and watch movies. I have however read a few non-fictional books from Michael Lewis, like Moneyball, Blind Side, Big Short, etc. Less than 5, though. I've read parts of hundreds of computer books for work and for education. Do wha…
So, it's been more than half of your sentient life since you tried reading a book that was written 200 years ago... and you're prepared to write off all of fiction as a waste of time? I am begging you to see if perhaps you might have a better experience today with a more contemporary book that frankly isn't kind of dull. I urge you to try audiobooks. There still exists a stigma that it's not "real" reading, but that…
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> Thinking Fast and Slow I thought a fair amount of this book was debunked in one way or another?
What was debunked? As a primarily "system 1" thinker the book reasonated with me in a profound way. It explained why if I know or Intuit a solution, say in an interview it comes out of me boundlessly like lightning, where if I have to work through a solution I struggle. I have to work back wards from my intuitive answer to explain it.