<story><title>Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?</title><text>Hi all,
Nearly an year ago, I faced a life-shattering crisis that completely wrecked my world view. Since then I have rebuilt up from scratch, and I have found that a lot of the things that I used to believe were false. Books such as Man&amp;#x27;s Search for Meaning have been very pivotal in that regard. What books could you recommend for the same?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>zuzuleinen</author><text>I highly recommend 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.&lt;p&gt;This book gave me the courage to take responsibility in my life and start working towards things which are important for myself. As the author once said, you don&amp;#x27;t get not to pay a price, you only get what price to pay.&lt;p&gt;It actually gave me the courage to leave Berlin and go back to my country(Romania) which even though is more poor and low in quality of public services, my friends and family are there and they are a priority for me right now.&lt;p&gt;It also thought me to make small changes in my every day life even though is something as small as cleaning my room. And these small changes give me enough confidence to pursue bigger ones like quitting smoking for good.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sarabande</author><text>This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it.&lt;p&gt;- It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other&amp;#x27;s sentiments, it could have been &amp;lt; 1&amp;#x2F;3 of its length. The writing style was  rambling, overly emphatic, and arguments were often not coherent.&lt;p&gt;- It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  1. weren&amp;#x27;t necessary to make his point,

  2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes&amp;#x2F;fiction
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I got suckered into to buying the book because the author is a compelling public speaker. I enjoy his lectures.&lt;p&gt;In retrospect, though, part of what makes him a compelling public speaker are his highly emotional arguments, which don&amp;#x27;t seem to be founded on great reasoning, and therefore make for a bad book, since we have more time to be critical about arguments when reading.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?</title><text>Hi all,
Nearly an year ago, I faced a life-shattering crisis that completely wrecked my world view. Since then I have rebuilt up from scratch, and I have found that a lot of the things that I used to believe were false. Books such as Man&amp;#x27;s Search for Meaning have been very pivotal in that regard. What books could you recommend for the same?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>zuzuleinen</author><text>I highly recommend 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.&lt;p&gt;This book gave me the courage to take responsibility in my life and start working towards things which are important for myself. As the author once said, you don&amp;#x27;t get not to pay a price, you only get what price to pay.&lt;p&gt;It actually gave me the courage to leave Berlin and go back to my country(Romania) which even though is more poor and low in quality of public services, my friends and family are there and they are a priority for me right now.&lt;p&gt;It also thought me to make small changes in my every day life even though is something as small as cleaning my room. And these small changes give me enough confidence to pursue bigger ones like quitting smoking for good.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pulkitsh1234</author><text>For some reason I am repulsive towards &amp;#x27;self-help&amp;#x27; books.
I always have a feeling that you just cannot sum up all the things to be &amp;quot;happy&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;content&amp;quot; or whatever in one book.
I have seen numerous people who read inspirational quotes&amp;#x2F;books but the act the opposite way.
I feel it is very difficult to change how the internals of a person work, reading a book will definitely push you in the right direction, motivate you, elate you, change your mental models[0]. But to bring those changes in your actual life, seems quite difficult and time consuming. Can your &amp;quot;mental model&amp;quot; be modified just by reading 1-2 books ?&lt;p&gt;I am interested to know, how often when you face a situation, you stop and think, oh I read this and that in a book, I should act this way instead of my natural intuition to do the other way.&lt;p&gt;Given the limited experience with life I have and the fact that I haven&amp;#x27;t read any of the self-help books, I am willing to change my perspective regarding this. Will give a shot to &amp;#x27;12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.&amp;#x27;&lt;p&gt;[0] =&amp;gt; &amp;quot;It’s Okay to “Forget” What You Read&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;the-polymath-project&amp;#x2F;its-okay-to-forget-what-you-read-f4ef1c34cc01&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;the-polymath-project&amp;#x2F;its-okay-to-forget-w...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>