Prajna: Ayurvedic Rituals For Happiness


Mira Manek - 2019
    This book extracts the essence of this Indian philosophy and provides a wealth of timeless rituals to effect positive change.Prajna offers rituals and routines for the entire day, from the moment you wake up and need the energy and positive mindset to help you start the morning, to night-time practices that allow you to wind down, relax and get the most benefit from the healing power of sleep. In between there are numerous breathing exercises, mindfulness techniques, yoga stretches and simple recipes to enjoy, all to help you destress and reset, bringing you back to yourself and to lasting peace and happiness.

Simplify Your Life: Waste Less, Value More, Go Minimalist


Mary Conroy - 2020
    Minimalism can be a beautiful, enriching and life-transforming practice that, at its core, is all about re-establishing what holds value in your life and letting go of what does not. It's not about having your groceries displayed in glass jars or having chic, Scandinavian furniture - it's a way of life that allows us to strip away the clutter that stands in the way of us achieving our goals. Simplify Your Life is about exactly that: bringing simplicity back into your life, and with it, joy in the everyday. Dispelling the myths that minimalism is for either hardcore environmentalists or the privileged few, this book shows how minimalism is more relevant and necessary than ever, not least because it's the most accessible way to achieve a state of contentment in all aspects of life. Minimalism is for you if you want to:  •  stop mindlessly scrolling and start living with intention and purpose  •  spend more time on the things and people you love and less on what you "have to be/do"  •  take control of your finances and stop mindless spending  •  learn more about conscious consumption and reducing your waste  •  experience freedom and pride in your home instead of feeling trapped by your stuffAlthough minimalism is ostensibly about taking things away from our cluttered lives, it is really about adding richness, color, and meaning to our lives. It's about identifying the aspects of our life that we truly love and that nourish us. It's about trusting ourselves and leading the life we always wanted.

Decoding Jung's Metaphysics: The Archetypal Semantics of an Experiential Universe


Bernardo Kastrup - 2021
    Underlying Jung's extraordinary body of work, and providing a foundation for it, there is a broad and sophisticated system of metaphysical thought. This system, however, is only implied in Jung's writings, so as to shield his scientific persona from accusations of philosophical speculation.The present book scrutinizes Jung’s work to distil and reveal that extraordinary, hidden metaphysical treasure: for Jung, mind and world are one and the same entity; reality is fundamentally experiential, not material; the psyche builds and maintains its body, not the other way around; and the ultimate meaning of our sacrificial lives is to serve God by providing a reflecting mirror to God’s own instinctive mentation.Embodied in this compact volume is a journey of discovery through Jungian thoughtscapes never before revealed with the depth, force and scholarly rigor you are about to encounter.

The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin


Søren Kierkegaard - 1844
    Brilliantly synthesizing human insights with Christian dogma, Kierkegaard presented The Concept of Anxiety as a landmark "psychological deliberation," suggesting that our only hope in overcoming anxiety was not through "powder and pills" but by embracing it with open arms. While Kierkegaard's Danish prose is surprisingly rich, previous translations--the most recent in 1980--have marginalized the work with alternately florid or slavishly wooden language. With a vibrancy never seen before in English, Alastair Hannay, the world's foremost Kierkegaard scholar, re-creates its natural rhythm, eager that this overlooked classic will not only become as celebrated as Fear and Trembling, The Sickness unto Death, and Either/Or but also be revivified as the seminal work of existentialism and moral psychology that it is.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be


Marshall Goldsmith - 2015
    Triggers shows us how to break that cycle and enact meaningful change.In Triggers, renown executive coach and psychologist Marshall Goldsmith discusses the emotional triggers that set off a reaction or a behavior in us that often works to our detriment. Do you find that at times you suddenly become defensive or enraged by an idle comment from a colleague? Or that your temper rises when another car cuts you off in traffic? Your reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are the result of emotional and psychological triggers that often happen only in specific settings—at meetings, or in competitive situations, or with a specific person who rubs you the wrong way, or when you feel under particular pressure. Being able to recognize those triggers and understand how the environment affects our behavior is key to controlling our responses and managing others at work and in life. Make no mistake—change is hard. And the starting point is the willingness to accept help, and the desire to change. This book will show you how.Over the course of this book, Marshall explores the power of active questions to get us to take responsibility for our actions—and our failure to act. Questions such as “Did I do my best to make progress toward my goal?” “Did I work hard at being fully engaged?” He discusses the importance of structure in effecting permanent change. Because, he points out, change is hard, and without a structure to keep us on track, we inevitably relapse and fall back.Filled with illuminating stories from Marshall’s work with some of the most accomplished executives and leaders in America, Triggers shows readers how to achieve meaningful and sustained change that will allow us to open our imaginations and escape the rigidity of binary thinking.

The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays


Hilary Putnam - 2002
    In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely subjective.Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a matter of fact as well as to Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.

The Joy of Not Thinking: A Radical Approach to Happiness


Tim Grimes - 2019
    When I was sixteen, I had a mental breakdown. It happened while I was on vacation in the Caribbean with my family. I’d been reading an old Zen book, and it did me in. I’d experienced some strange mental states before, but this was different. As I read this book, death moved to the foreground of all my thoughts—and then stayed there. I found myself in a tropical paradise, terrified. Living seemed too cruel to carry on with. Buddha had said all life was suffering and all that meant was that everything was hopeless. There was no way out. Escape was impossible. When you looked at things soberly, it was obvious. Life, inevitably, was really just suffering and death. I kept this anxiety to myself as best I could. There was nothing to say anyway. No one could help. I was helpless, mortified, but aware that I was unable to do anything about it. The stress began to wear on my body. It felt worse and worse. I would have killed myself right there if death didn’t scare me even more than life. I reasoned if I killed myself at least this particular suffering would be over. These feelings peaked and then went on, and on, and on. At some point, I took a drive with my family to a beach on the other side of the island. It was bad. My insides felt as if they were being torn out. I didn’t understand what was happening. I felt like vomiting but couldn’t. Finally, we arrived at the beach. I sat under a tree, in the shade, trying to act sane. And then I thought I died. Something happened and then nothing. And then there was something again. I don’t know. Was I dead? I looked around and realized I wasn’t. I was on the beach, under a tree. But there was no “I.” Everything was different. Everything had dropped off. Where was “I”? I didn’t exist. What was happening? What was this? It was indescribable. You couldn’t describe this. Any description was pointless. Everything was perfect just as it was, but at the same time, it wasn’t that. Because there was no everything. There was nothing at all. There was no need to describe anything ever again because there was nothing. Words and description were meaningless. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered! And this was, undoubtedly, the best news possible. The greatest realization I could wish to have. Yet that couldn’t begin to explain how good this was. It was way beyond any conception I could come up with. Everything, and everybody, was saved. That was clear. Everything was fine—now and forever. Nothing needed to be done, ever. The whole thing—life, death, reality, individuality, good, bad, right, wrong—was a lie. An illusion. A sham. Everything just was—just is. And this was perfection, beyond any belief, rationalization or label I could ever put on it. It made no sense, and it was perfect. It was before time itself. It transcended thought, was past my comprehension. Thought created all this suffering—and thought itself was not real. Without thought, all was grace—always. It was all blissfully and blatantly simple, yet totally illogical. I sat on that beach, thunderstruck. It was laughable. Whatever you thought, it didn’t matter. Thought had nothing to do with anything real. Everything was always perfect, no matter what you thought…

Do Epic Shit


Ankur Warikoo - 2021
    Ankur Warikoo is an entrepreneur and content creator whose witty and brutally honest thoughts on success and failure, money and investing, self-awareness and personal relationships have made him one of India’s top personal brands.In his first book, Ankur puts together the key ideas that have fuelled his journey.This is a book to be read, and reread, a book you will give your family and friends and strangers.

The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills


Daniel Coyle - 2012
    It is an easy-to-use handbook of scientifically proven, field-tested methods to improve skills—your skills, your kids’ skills, your organization’s skills—in sports, music, art, math, and business. The product of five years of reporting from the world’s greatest talent hotbeds and interviews with successful master coaches, it distills the daunting complexity of skill development into 52 clear, concise directives. Whether you’re age 10 or 100, whether you’re on the sports field or the stage, in the classroom or the corner office, this is an essential guide for anyone who ever asked, “How do I get better?”“The Little Book of Talent should be given to every graduate at commencement, every new parent in a delivery room, every executive on the first day of work. It is a guidebook—beautiful in its simplicity and backed by hard science—for nurturing excellence.”—Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit   “It’s so juvenile to throw around hyperbolic terms such as ‘life-changing,’ but there’s no other way to describe The Little Book of Talent. I was avidly trying new things within the first half hour of reading it and haven’t stopped since. Brilliant. And yes: life-changing.”—Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius


Ray Monk - 1990
    Monk's life of Wittgenstein is such a one."--"The Christian Science Monitor."

The Art of Being Mindful


Kate Pickert - 2015
    We answer a colleague's questions from the stands at a child's soccer game; we pay the bills while watching TV; we order groceries while stuck in traffic. In a time when no one seems to have enough time, our devices allow us to be many places at once--but at the cost of being unable to fully inhabit the place where we actually want to be. Mindfulness says we can do better. This TIME Spotlight Story explores The Art of Mindfulness.

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life


Nir Eyal - 2019
    Later, as you're about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold.  What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become "indistractable"?  International best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley's handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction's Achilles' heel in his groundbreaking new book.  In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more.  Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.  Inside, Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals: Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture - and how to fix it  What really drives human behavior and why "time management is pain management"  Why your relationships (and your sex life) depend on you becoming indistractable  How to raise indistractable children in an increasingly distracting world Empowering and optimistic, Indistractable provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention - helping you live the life you really want.

The Art of Thinking Clearly


Rolf Dobelli - 2011
    But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better choices-whether dealing with a personal problem or a business negotiation; trying to save money or make money; working out what we do or don't want in life: and how best to get it.Simple, clear and always surprising, this indispensable book will change the way you think and transform your decision-making-work, at home, every day. It reveals, in 99 short chapters, the most common errors of judgment, and how to avoid them.

An Introduction to Political Philosophy


Jonathan Wolff - 2006
    Jonathan Wolff looks at the works of Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, Marx, and Rawls (among others), examining how the debates between philosophers have developed, and searching for possible answers to these provocative questions. His final chapter looks at more recent issues, particularly feminist political theory.

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work


Chip Heath - 2013
    The four principles that can help us to overcome our brains' natural biases to make better, more informed decisions -- in our lives, careers, families and organizations.In Decisive, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the bestselling authors of Made to Stick and Switch, tackle the thorny problem of how to overcome our natural biases and irrational thinking to make better decisions, about our work, lives, companies and careers.    When it comes to decision making, our brains are flawed instruments.  But given that we are biologically hard-wired to act foolishly and behave irrationally at times, how can we do better?  A number of recent bestsellers have identified how irrational our decision making can be.  But being aware of a bias doesn't correct it, just as knowing that you are nearsighted doesn't help you to see better.  In Decisive, the Heath brothers, drawing on extensive studies, stories and research, offer specific, practical tools that can help us to think more clearly about our options, and get out of our heads, to improve our decision making, at work and at home.