The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
10% happier by Dan Harris
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

Stories of how and why some people survived Auschwitz and found meaning despite their context, from two very different perspectives (a child and a psychologist).

* Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

* Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl. This one was very good. Psychology can actually be logical and accessible.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl

Short read, but great perspective from a really inspiring figure.

Deep Work gave me some good insight on how to get the most out of my days.

Sapiens vastly widened and shifted my understanding of the myths that make up our society.

Thanks for the martial arts idea.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl - on choosing your own attitude

“Dreamland” by Sam Quinones - on America’s opioid epidemic

“Technics and Civilization” by Lewis Mumford - on technological progress (and machines) from the perspective of someone in the 1930s

“The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein - on the myth of de facto segregation (vs de jure segregation)

It was recommended by several friends, and I finally got around to reading it. Helped, along with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to work through my personal thought process. Highly recommended.

1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

2. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

4. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

5. The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

6. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

7. Mastery by George Leonard

8. Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn

9. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

You may also try Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung

But in general there is no such book as there is no universal meaning. One has to find it oneself.

How to Win Friends and Influence People. - Dale Carnegie

Influence - Robert Cialdini

Books on understanding how to push through adversity

The Obstacle Is The Way - Ryan Holiday

Man's Search For Meaning - Victor Frankly

Books on process improvement

The Phoenix Project

The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss (ignore the outsourcing bit, listen to his podcast)

Books on breaking out of your thought bubble.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Ishmael - David Quinn

Books for understanding how sales works

Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes

Negotiate As If Your Life Depended on It - Chris Voss

Any of these books are great starts. If the leadership big bites you there's way more I can suggest. Most of these are a mix of classics and new stuff. I've read them all and they want have their own style and provide their own insight. The trick is to find out what parts work with how you do and incorporate them into your flow. The learning process never ends.

A book recommendation: "If Life Is a Game, How Come I'm Not Having Fun?: A Guide to Life's Challenges", Paul Brenner. Another one: "Man's Search for Meaning", Viktor Frankl. Regarding the "zone": everything written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Endgame (Biography of Bobby Fischer) - Frank Brady

Walt Disney - Bob Thomas

The Given Day - Dennis Lehane (Fiction)

Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane (Way better than movie)

Michael Lewis - The Big Short

Churchill - Paul Johnson (faster read than the others)

So short of that, i'd give my 16 year old self the missing pages from the Dabs C book which I spent far too long trying to figure out!

I bought a copy of it, so I could make up my own mind. Peterson brought it to my attention and it was timely as I read Man's Search For Meaning this year. That book is very widely read.

I had never even heard of The Gulag Archipelago. Peterson points out that it's severely under-read in the West compared to how significant it is. He's saying you should at least read it and judge for yourself and not let only the ideology itself be the basis on which you judge the ideology.

That seems reasonably sensible to me.

On a business side I personally like, "Postively Outrageous Service" & "The Heart of Change"

Many of my friends are straight out of university, and it's a period where most people seem to start asking existential questions. The two books which have affected me greatly (and which I regularly give as gifts) are:

* Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
* Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Edit: you should also read Man’s Search for Meaning by Richard Frankel.

Antifragile: This book has informed many decisions I have made recently. It is insightful, entertaining, and in its concern for human choices manages to send a beautiful message about nature and reality.

The Power Broker: I listened to this via audiobook and I highly recommend the experience. It's a large dose of history and a fascinating exploration of city politics and, as its name implies, power. And I learned a lot about New York!

Lonesome Dove: I hadn't read any fictional "westerns" and this came well recommended. I loved it. Listening to it while backpacking and on a road trip was extremely rewarding.

Man's Search For Meaning: Extremely powerful and potentially life changing. It was both cathartic and therapeutic for me, and has affected how I live my life.

The Lathe of Heaven: Incredibly enjoyable dystopian future fiction. It came recommended via the "HN reading list" released some number of months ago, and I liked it a lot.

The Fellowship of the Ring: I had started this book in high school but hadn't finished it for some reason. I picked it up again, and I'm glad I did. It is a gem, and there's good reason that it has become a part of our cultural bedrock. Its exploration of purpose, challenge, and choice is quite moving.

The tldr version goes something like: “Meaning is irrelevant, but humans need meaning to live. Pick any meaning you want. Doesn’t matter what, just choose something. Then go for it with all your might. If you ever find it wasn’t a good meaning, pick a new one. You’re a different person now anyway”

Audiobooks (Audible):

Food: A Cultural Culinary History - The Great Courses (if you've ever searched for 'authentic' food, I strongly, strongly recommend this book. It was one of my favorite listening experiences of the year)

City of Thieves - David Benioff (Wonderful storytelling, I recommend the audio version just for the performance)

The Elephant Whisperer - Lawrence Anthony (Another example of great storytelling, highly recommended)

Little Princes - Conor Grennan (Conor does a good job of teleporting you to another world and capturing the inner spirit of being a child anywhere in the world)

The Inner Game of Tennis - Timothy Gallwey (A great paradigm for practice and improvement)

Books:

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (For some, this will be life changing. ~3 hour read is all)

Tools of Titans - Tim Ferriss (I've only read through one time, but I plan to use this as a sort of reference book. I agree true that you'll enjoy 50%, love 20% and never forget 10%, but what falls under each category is different for everyone)

The Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin (I haven't read any sci-fi in a few years, this was a great reentry to the genre for me)

The Food Lab - J Kenji Lopez-Alt (If you want to know the why as well as the how when you cook, this book is for you)

-Losing my virginity (Branson)

-How to win friends and influence people (Carnegie)

-Venture deals (Feld)

-Man's Search for meaning (Frankl)

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that anyone who hasn't faced death can really understand life. You can talk to people and they'll nod and agree but they won't understand. My suggestion for living a fulfilling life would be to nearly die every 5-10 years. It's the only thing powerful enough to remind you what is important about life.

The Art of Empathy (very interesting)

The Three Body Problem (good)

The Startup Way (decent)

The Politics of Bitcoin (short but interesting)

Why We Sleep (very much worth it)

The Last Arrow (mixed feelings)

The Prize (boring but informative)

Superhuman by Habit (OK, not much new)

The Circle of Profit (straight to the point)

Thinking in Systems (couldn't finish it)

Radical Candor (awesome)

Harry Potter #1 (too low of a reading level)

Man's Search for Meaning (classic)

Flow (Amazing!)

Scary Close (great)

Chimpanzee Politics (interesting)

Corporate Confidential (paranoid, but worth a read)

Developer Hegemony (red pill for developers!!!)

Bargaining For Advantage (reasonable)

Tempo: Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision Making (abstract as hell but rewarding)

Thinking Fast and Slow (loved it)

The Elephant In The Brain (seriously underrated)

The Brain That Changes Itself (inspirationally freaky)

The Power of Habit (good!)

The Secret Barrister (mildly disturbing)

Thinking In Systems (huge fan of this book!)

A Short History of Truth (meh...)

Man's Search For Meaning (brooo... I am so sorry)

Thinking In Bets (meh.. really meh)

The Road To Ruin (alright. Interesting even.)

Lying For Money (lots of fun!)

Great Answers To Tough Interview Questions (what it says on the tin)

Traction (good overview of marketing tactics)

Lean Customer Development (pretty good)

The Mom Test (eye opening)

Lean B2B (solid playbook)

Principles (instant classic)

1. Man's search for meaning, by Viktor Frankl.
He was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded Logotherapy as a form of analysing one's life with the idea of finding meaning or living a purposeful life.
According to Frankl, such a life would mean doing important/meaningful work, enjoying nature in all it's beauty, loving and taking care of another person and being courageous when going through hard times. These are things that I personally consider part of the common sense package I had built-in when I was born, so this book kind of talks to my soul. I would recommend it to anyone who is highly self-reflective.

2. Stumbling on happiness, by Daniel Gilbert. This was an interesting read and the different studies described in the book made me think how would I react in a similar situation and I realised funny things about how memory works and how does our brain imagine future events.

- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. It's helping me focus only on the things I really want.

- Deep Work by Cal Newport. I have almost no social media now, and I value uninterrupted time greatly.

- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Quite sobering honestly. I realize I'm spoiled AF.

- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. I'm more conscientious of my (and my close friends') plans and I try to help them as much as possible. No excuses. Also the military discipline/mindset is really inspiring.

- Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss. I haven't finished it but this is what I read before sleeping, I can just flip the page anywhere and I read something cool

- Frankenstein: Highly recommend! It is nothing like it is portrayed to be in pop culture and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

- Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in America: It is literally unbelievable. It follows Katy Tur, a reporter tasked with following Trump leading up to the election. If you aren't already fed up with Trump, then give this a whirl.

- Dune: 5/5 sci-fi

- The Society of the Spectacle: I had trouble with this one. I think some things get lost in translation, and the philosophical arguments are so abstract it was a bit hard to follow along. I had a few key take-aways but to be honest it was kind of a chore to read.

- How Not to Die: Argues for prioritizing a plant-based diet, and definitely changed my relationship with food.

- East of Eden: My wife's favorite book and is now one of my favorites.

- Sapiens: Very enjoyable, but some of it can feel pseudo-sciency and gets a bit nihilistic in the end.

- Man's Search for Meaning: Also very enjoyable, a good reminder to appreciate the people and things around you.

- A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: Very accessible intro to Stoicism

- Red Notice: A True Story of Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice: Very interesting and reads like a fiction thriller. TLDR Russia doesn't fuck around

Achieve Your Potential with Positive Psychology also includes a good chapter on CBT. The book also includes other findings/techniques in psychology that can help improve mood, motivation, relationships, etc. It also starts out by smacking down the Law of Attraction, which isn't really effective - it's more like an emotional pyramid scheme.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Teach Yourself by Christine Wilding contains some good information too.

Outside of CBT, Man's Search for Meaning, which defines logotherapy, is a damn useful book. Tim LeBon's book also includes information on this.

- Factfulness by Hans Rosling: In the advent of information flowing from everywhere, it changed the way I look that the world and process it. It is fascinating how much influenced we are just by our hardwired biases and the media.

- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl: Everyone goes through their highs and lows, this account will teach you how to stay put and proceed forward.

- Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet: In a world where we are constantly trying to innovate, it is not possible without unlocking the true potential of the workforce. This is not possible without appropiate accountability and autonomy. The book goes through how to achieve enough of both. You do not have to manage anyone to gain its benefits.

Secondly, your thought patterns of demotivation sound more like the patterns of depression. Focus on finding your own happiness and meaning. On that note, I recommend "Man's search for meaning". The author could find his meaning whilst in a concentration camp. Powerful stuff.

I really dig this particular one. It reminds me of something similar mentioned in Lex Fridman's interview with Daniel Kahneman:

"When you ask people whether it's very important to have meaning in their life, they say oh yes that's the most important thing...but when you ask people what kind of a day did you have...what were the experiences that you remember? You don't get much meaning, you get social experiences."[0]

I'm a big fan of Man's Search for Meaning, and I have generally enjoyed reading existentialist philosophy. That quote, however, presented an alternative foundation for a happy life in such clear terms, and they were terms I simply hadn't considered using! After thinking about it, it's almost obvious. I'm pretty young, and even now I look back fondly on the best social experiences in my life. It's incredible to be alive, and to have had the experiences I've had with the people I've gotten to share them with.

I still highly value having meaningful pursuits, but above everything else, these days I aim to enjoy the company of good people and to be good company for others. I find it's a nice cure for the existentialist blues if you ever catch them.

[0]: https://youtu.be/UwwBG-MbniY?t=3120

And about first world banality - the book of Ecclesiastes in the the bible addresses this also:

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."

I had the existential depressions when I was 19 - 24. I dropped out of college and all my parents knew to do (and did) was put me in a psych ward and 'treat' me with electroshock. That didn't work.

It's a manual process but I make sure that the quote is really good. In the case of stoicism I have a personal collection of maxims from different sources like Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), Letters from a stoic(Seneca) , Enchiridion(Epictetus - my favourite author).

If you go to arandomquote.com/stoic you will get only stoicism quotes, or you can go to arandomquote.com/business to get just business quotes.

Today I will add around 100 quotes from 25 books, like Rework, Deep Work, E-myth, Show your work, Art of War, Meditations, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, Man's Search for Meaning , etc

I read Man's Search for Meaning this year and man that's a bleak, hard-hitting book. Just such a gripping experience reading that.

I've recently bought a copy of The Gulag Archipelago which is a historical account of the Gulag in Soviet Russia.

Will definitely add Rwanda to the list. I think these books are so important to read. They're absolutely horrifying, but lest we forget where those ideas lead people.

But after a car accident 3years ago I realised that there isn't necessarily a tomorrow. I look at a beautiful sunset today and accept that I might not see tomorrow's. And if I do, it won't be exactly the same. I look at today's and appreciate it, cherish it.

Some people see this acceptance of the possibility of death as a negative thing. It is not. It drives me to make today count, knowing that I can never get around to doing everything, but that what I do should matter to me. You will not die with no regrets but you should be able to minimise them. And it isn't all about work, production or consumption -- often what I really want to be doing is lying on the grass, watching the clouds drift past, as the kids run around the garden jumping on me.

I found Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" to be hugely inspiring: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

Viktor came up with the theory of Logotherapy which in a nutshell has 3 parts:

- Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.

- Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.

- We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering

https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/...

Programming:

* Analyzing Computer System Performance with Perl::PDQ - Gunther

* The Mythical Man Month - Brooks

Philosophy:

* A Journey Around my Room - de Maistre

* Anger, Mercy, and Revenge - Seneca

* Schrödinger - What is Life?

* Man's Search for Meaning - Frankl

* Essays - Montaigne

* Ethical Intuitionism - Huemer

* The Consolations of Philosophy - de Botton

* A Manual for Living - Epictetus

* Meditations - Aurelius

Psychology / Meaning / Purpose / Science:

* Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace - Dik, Byrne & Steger

* The Case Against Education - Caplan

* Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Caplan

* Dawkins - The Selfish Gene

* A Confession - Tolstoy

* Enlightenment Now - Pinker

* The Better Angels of our Nature - Pinker

* The Improving State of the World - Goklany

* The Skeptical Environmentalist - Lomborg

* Religion for Atheists - de Botton

* Ending Aging - de Grey

* Gut Feelings - Gigirenzer

Fiction:

* Heart of Darkness - Conrad

* Candide - Voltaire

* Brave New World - Huxley

* Selected Works - Goethe

* 1984 & Animal Farm - Orwell

Politics:

* Obedience to Authority - Milgram

* The Problem of Political Authority - Huemer

* The Communist Manifesto - Marx

* Socialism - von Mises

* Just One Child - Greenhalgh

* The God That Failed - Crossman

* Death by Government - Rummel

Thought-provoking:

* Free to Learn - Gray

* The Beautiful Tree - Tooley

* Education and the State - West

* The Machinery of Freedom - Friedman

* Against Intellectual Monopoly - Boldrine & Levine

* From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State - Beito

* The Not So Wild, Wild West - Hill

* More Guns, Less Crime - Lott

* Race & Economics - Williams

* Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men - Hummel

Deep Work - Cal Newport (recommended)

Stumbling on Happiness - Daniel Gilbert (recommended)

Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals - Heidi Grant-Halvorson (lots of great stuff in here, highly recommended)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley (I really like biographies and Malcolm X was a pretty interesting person. recommended)

Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer - John McNellis (meh)

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (I'm not big on sci-fi, so this book surprised me with how good it was. recommended)

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (I'm not sure how much I got out of it, but worth it just for learning about Frankl's unique experiences and perspectives. recommended)

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (meh)

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - David Kushner (One of those books that makes you want to lock yourself in a room and program for hours. Carmack's dedication and intellect is especially awe-inspiring. recommended)

The Republic, by Plato. It introduced me to a whole new way of thinking.

The Gita. I later came to know about the chariot allegory in the Kathopanishad (http://www.atmajyoti.org/up_katha_upanishad_17.asp), and thought that the writer's depiction of the charioteer as Krishna and the rider as Arjuna was just brilliant.

  East of Eden - John Steinbeck
  Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
  The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
  Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
  Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
  Deep Work - Cal Newport
  The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint
  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson
  Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
  Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person - Hugh Prather
  Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
  I Heart Logs: Event Data, Stream Processing, and Data Integration - Jay Kreps
  Kafka: The Definitive Guide - Neha Narkhede
  Effective Java - Joshua Bloch
  Algorithms - Robert Sedgewick, Kevin Wayne

The following book had the biggest impact on my world view:

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh

I personally don't believe in any religious things, and I still don't. But now I look at the world differently.

Buddhism is know for reincarnation, which looks a bit silly to me. But as this book points out, it is not reincarnation, but rebirth in (Zen) Buddhism. Both are completely different. There is nothing silly about rebirth, and it's actually more accurate that how we, as individualistic westerners, view the world.

As someone who loves science, after reading this book, I have a more realistic view on the world than I had before, and than most of my rational friends right now.

The (Zen) Buddhism in this book is not so much a religion with believes, but more a philosophy on how to look at life and the world.

Bed of Procrustus by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a bunch of quick aphorisms that takes less than an hour to read and gives good insight into Taleb’s form of critical thinking.

Between the Devil and the Dragon by Eric Hoffer has essays from a self-educated, laborer philosopher and has helped me to understand much about how I think through things and why.

You mention "being an average programmer" and learning new things feeling like work because they make you feel "too dumb or stupid."

So what is fun? Something you are good at? What are your expectations?

You also mention "trying to find my passion" Cal Newport wrote some articles of how "following your passion" is dangerous advice because it doesn't work like that.

Perhaps you are depressed and you just need to find some meaning behind what you are doing? Have you read Man's Search for Meaning?

Because being good or bad at programming doesn't have to affect the enjoyment you get out of it. I know some grumpy rock-star programmers who seem to unconsciously be chasing this concept of being accepted or loved when they finally reach whatever level of perfection they have invented for themselves. Imagine how frustrating it must be for them, every flaw is preventing them from receiving what they desire.

I worry that your line of thinking is: I'm not happy. -> OK maybe it is because "I'm not a good programmer." -> OK, let's try becoming better -> Progress with natural setbacks -> (Frustration because you aren't becoming happier) -> Maybe it is because I'm not a good programmer -> OK, maybe I need to do something else.

Also, moving to a new country is hard for everyone, it sneaks up on you.

- Man’s search for meaning

- some discworld books

- Currency Wars, James Rickards

- The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein

- What Technology Wants, Kevin Kelly

- The Art Of Happiness, Dalai Lama

- Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen

- The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz

- Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl

- Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky

- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

- Good To Great, Jim Collins

- Abundance, Peter Diamandis

- The Mystery Of Capital, Hernando De Soto

- Pathologies Of Power, Paul Farmer

- Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff

- Seeing Like A State, James Scott

- Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

- Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman

- Beyond Fear, Bruce Schneier

- The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

- The Birth Of Plenty, William Bernstein

#LifeChanging

- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

"Unlike other giants in the field of psychology, Adler did not believe past trauma affects one's ability to be happy in the present. Adler taught the importance of liking oneself, contributing to community, appreciating another for just "being," accepting the fact that out of say, 10 people, one will really like you, two will dislike you, seven will be neutral and the important thing is to be yourself; not try to be other than yourself; concentrate on the one who likes you and not try win over others. Thus the title: "The Courage to Be Disliked." Adler proposed that one is happier and freer if they live"moments to moments, "working on one's own task in life and not doing other peoples' tasks"

This reminds me of Victor Frankl and his insights into Holocaust survivors in Man's Search for Meaning. Why do some people survive and others don't.

I look forward to checking out this book, thank you for sharing.

Shot in the dark, but I've had some traumatic life events, child abuse, suicide attempts, mental health issues, sexual assaults, and more. I've spent years, almost a decade, working through my issues every day. Has anyone ever been in a similar situation and what helped, helps you the most?

* How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie

* The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

I lived and worked for two years in the Philippines amongst some of the poorest people in the world. These people were constrained in many ways as you describe in job choices, educational attainments, opportunity for travel etc. But regardless of how poor they were they still had the choice of to be kind or clever, to forgive or seek revenge, to pursue worthwhile activities or fritter away their time/money on drugs and alcohol, etc. There were many many very happy people I met in the worst of slums.

The most important choices we make in little have absolutely zero to do with how much money we have.

For a more extended essay on the topic, read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl who survived a Nazi concentration camp.

To pull one quote off its Wikipedia page:
"Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

“In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.”

The author is an austrian therapist that founded the "logotherapy" (healing through meaning) after surviving WW2 concentration camps.

Is a very small book, and very easy reading, and at the time that I've read it, it helped me find the inner tools within myself to go on and achieve happiness.

The best thing about being at the very end of a big, long, dark whole in the ground, is that you can only go up.

I know that it's not easy to be you right now. But sometimes the worst things that happens to us, turn out to be blessings in disguise.

The bad news is that the healing needs to come from within you, nobody can help you from outside. Not therapists, not family or friends. They can only support you and help you reach your inner voice again to move forward.

Reading a book in itself is not going to help you either, but the thought process that come from it may help you start a different, happier path.

Think of this time as a turning point: There's the old you, and the new one, that needs to start over and reboot himself into something different and better.

- Left of Bang.

- The Obstacle is the way.

- The Daily Stoic.

- High-Output Management.

- The Effective Engineer.

- Managing Humans.

- Introducing Go.

Currently going through "Designing Data Intensive Applications" and some other data-related free ebooks from O'Reilly.

Up next on my list for the rest of the year:

- Hadoop: The Definitive Guide.

- The Manager's Path.

- Anti-Fragile.

- A Guide to the Good Life.

- The Denial of Death.

- Man's Search for Meaning.

EDIT: list formatting.

I've known rejection my whole life. By my father, by family, by girls, by kids at school. When you give love and get rejection in return, it hurts. I stopped expecting anything in return when I give. I was picked on by every bully that came my way since primary school. My grandmother gave me nicknames all the time. I had no friends growing up and I thought of running away every day. I dropped out of college to support myself, took some financial risks and lost all my money. I quit my job a couple of days ago and I still have to get a new job. I'm on my last dime as I'm typing this.

But I know, somewhere on this earth, there's someone who needs me. I know it doesn't have to be someone I know today, it doesn't have to be my family, the girls that rejected me or my father (he wasn't there for the 20 years I needed him, then he passed away and we never met, having only spoken twice on the phone for no more than 2 minutes each time). Maybe it's an orphan who needs a mentor, maybe it's a woman who will think I'm "the one". Maybe it's a startup that needs another programmer, maybe it's just someone on the side of the road who just needs someone to talk to.

My good man, I just told you my story to show that there's still hope for people like us. We've known the worst, we've known failure and rejection but that's what makes us strong. We know how to give even when everything around us seems like a conspiracy to make us quit. You just gotta hold on. Speak to someone, call the suicide watch line. It will get better if you're willing to speak to someone.

All the best

Book of Mormon

The Stormlight Archive series (Way of Kings, Words of Radience, Oathbringer) - Brandon Sanderson, I've heard it compared to the Kingkiller Chronicles in terms of depth, intricacies and overall masterfully executed plot but Sanderson is also one of the best authors at making characters real and captivating that I've ever met.

Mistborn Series (The Final Empire, Well of Ascension, Hero of Ages) by the same author as The Stormlight Archives and for the same reasons.

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis, even if you aren't religious it has helped me see so much clearly the tactics and obstacles that prevent me from being the person I want to be.

I've read quite a few more books more often but these are the books that I have reread multiple times because they have changed who I am and helped me recognize that each time I fall I can rise again a better man.

1. Tell yourself that it is okay to feel uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable feeling that you're not in control, that you're not making enough, that you're going to miss your one shot. This is the first step at reducing the anxiety of it.

2. Start to remove distracting consumptions. Social media, articles, news, etc. Spend time just being with yourself and appreciate the quiet. Put your phone on flight mode at night and charge it in a different room, get enough sleep.

3. Expose yourself to new perspectives. I have found the following audio books to be instrumental is figuring out how to be happier without greed:

a) A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

b) Man's Search for Meaning

c) The Power of Now (I'm only about 1 hour into this one, but it's made me think)

4. Start a new routine to break the habit of your current ways of thinking.

5. Meditate to help you regain control of your reactions - become reaction aware.

6. Don't look for whole solutions, progress happens in tiny steps and just keep exploring new ways to approach how you feel, how you motivate, how you enjoy the today. Sometimes it's the smaller things that have more profound effects.

7. Start measuring your progress in years, derived by small daily improvements.

I appreciate the above advice might not be for everyone, but it's something I'm going down and enjoying it very much. You already reached a fundamental point, to bring out of your subconscious how you really feel. Now you can consciously reprogram how you want to feel. Well done!

I've been pretty skeptical myself of the whole "positive visualization" crowd and its various forms. Say, "neuro-linguistic programming".

Or, if the memoirs of a holocaust survivor's search for meaning are too heavy, you can find watered down business book variations in Stephen Covey's Principle-Centered Leadership, or a more mystical variant in The Four Agreements if that's more your thing.

Some examples of ideas from Frankl's toolbox borrowed from existentialist thought -- one that you might find to be applicable is his idea that in the gap between any stimulus and response, no matter how terrible of a situation, every human gets the opportunity to make a choice -- and thus we can always maintain our freedom in this way. Keeping a positive attitude in the face of cynicism-inducing circumstances is one such choice. Or another tidbit he borrows from Nietzsche: He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Maybe you're just crabby because you have not yet found your life's purposeful work, which it seems like other commentators have suggested as well.

The way I see it right now, the world is yearning for competent bullshit-free actors. With the recent existence of light-speed communication, it's only due to inertia that all the rent-seeking bullshit players haven't yet crumbled into dust. Hope you can find a way to use your past experiences to be a positive force in the future. Aaron Swartz, rest in peace, would have admonished you to fix the machine, not the person: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nummi

Getting Things Done - David Allen. If you have adult ADHD like me, and you haven't read this, it's the first system that's really worked for productivity for me.

Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl.

Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan.

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin.

The One who Walks Away from Omelas - U.K. LeGuin.

Wild Seed - Octavia Butler.

The Heike Monogatari - (tr. Helen Craig McCullough) “The sound of the Gion Shoja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure, like a passing dream on a night in spring; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.” If you need a comparison. this is the Japanese historical equivalent of Game of Thrones combined with a bit of MacBeth. The rise and fall of two shogunate families, and an analysis of the tragic flaws of character that brought their fall about.

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo.

Small Gods - Terry Pratchett.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.

The Guide - R. K. Narayan.

Evidence - Mary Oliver.

All of Us - The Collected Poetry of Raymond Carver.

Silence - Shusaku Endo.

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Murakami Haruki. This and the next four are odd choices, perhaps, since it's a surrealist book, but IMO books that force your imagination to work hard do as much for creativity and fresh ideas as any of the more popular methods.

The Well-Built City (The Physiognomy / Memoranda / The Beyond) Jeffery Ford - Surrealist novellas best described as about the protagonist living and achieving agency within the constructs, dreams, and nightmares of a "Great Man's" mind.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson.

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon.

Dhalgren - Samuel L. "Chip" Delany.

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

1. Any book that you expect to read once and once only (popular science, pulp fiction, toilet-reading) rent from the library. Keep it by your bed at night and give-er by the lamplight.

2. Any book that you can read, word-over-word, end-on-end, without confusion or introspection can be consumed in condensed form. Condensed forms come in many guises:(audio-books, blog-feeds, wiki-pages etc.)

3. You are missing out on all the glories that are not defined by 1 and 2. A good book should be a conversation, held at length, over time.

You asked for philosphy in another comment:

Victor Frankyl: Man in search of meaning

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

Jung: Development of Personality, Archetypes/Aion

Nietsche: all and any

For philosophical fiction:

Goethe: Faust

Hemingway: Death in the afternoon (this was my first glimpse into why books can provide lightness of body, displacement of time: wait for the 4th-wall-breaking-rapport with the old woman)

David Foster Wallace:Rise Simba, Infinite Jest, etc.

https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...

There have been studies that your brain scans feeds and webpages differently than text on a page. You set yourself up to not pay attention / are just "scraping the good bits"

Someone mentioned a while back that Infinite Jest (1000 page tome + 300 pages endnotes!) had ~50 pages that made the whole thing worth it. The immediate following comment was "why not just read the 50 pages?". It is the context around which we find our content that gives it worth. The internet allows you to bypass the context.

I guess you can say this is one application of Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning", which I recommend you read if you haven't -- or re-reading if it's been a long while!

The signal and the noise - Nate Silver;

Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb;

Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb;

1984 - Orwell;

Man's search for meaning - Viktor Frankl;

Diplomacy - Henry Kissinger (not only international politics but also deep-thinking strategy that can be used anywhere);

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius;

Superforecasting - Philip Tetlock;

Propaganda - Edward Bernays;

Pitch anything - Oren Klaff;

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond;

How to win friends and influence people& Stop worrying (both by Dale Carnegie);

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins;

Trust - Francis Fukuyama;

Narcissus and Goldmund - Hesse

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl

1. <em>Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience</em> by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

2. <em>The Guide to Getting It On</em> by Paul Johannides [sp?]

3. <em>The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature</em> by Geoffrey Miller

4. <em>Hackers & Painters</em> by Paul Graham

5. <em>Man's Search for Meaning</em> by Viktor Frankl

6. <em>Stumbling on Happiness</em> by Daniel Gilbert

7. <em>The Time Paradox</em> by Philip Zimbardo.

That last one is particularly important: it points out that, once you've reached a comfortable but, for a highly educated person, relatively low level of income (around ~$40K for an individual), additional income increases do not matter for very for overall happiness.

What does? Friends, family, your sex life, meaningful work.

What doesn't help for happiness? TV. See the journal article "Does watching TV make us happy?" by Bruno S. Frey, Christine Benesch, and Alois Stutzer for more on the answer: "no."

Also Teddy Roosevelt's biography has been very influential.

- Search Inside Yourself by Chade Meng-Tan

- The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman

I read the Happiness Hypothesis quite late in my development regarding "how to be come happier?" I already knew a lot of the ideas in there, but it presented its ideas a bit more clearly than whatever I read from Martin Seligman (many books) and Suzanne Segerstrom (Optimism).

This is why I'd still recommend that book.

I also recommend to read the concept on self-learned helplessness (Seligman researched it) if you haven't already.

One book that I actively disrecommend nowadays is Man's Search for Meaning. I didn't look too deep into it, but there's a lot of controversy on the truth of his claims (e.g. some claim he was in the concentration camps for a few days, not months or years like he implicitly depicts).

Disclaimer: it's these types of books that motivated me to do an entire undergraduate degree in psychology back 6 years ago. Only to realize most of it is nonsense. Yet, at the same time, not all of it is nonsense. Plus it gave me the skills to see what was and what wasn't nonsense.

* Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

* Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

* The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday

* The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday

* The Effective Engineer, Edmund Lau

* The Lean Startup, Eric Ries

* The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman

* Certain to Win, Chet Richards

* Left of Bang, Patrick Van Horn & Jason A. Riley

* Native Set Theory, Paul R. Halmos

EDIT: list formatting

1. <em>Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience</em> by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

2. <em>The Guide to Getting It On</em> by Paul Johannides [sp?]

3. <em>The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature</em> by Geoffrey Miller

4. <em>Hackers & Painters</em> by Paul Graham

5. <em>Man's Search for Meaning</em> by Viktor Frankl

6. <em>Stumbling on Happiness</em> by Daniel Gilbert

In all cases, I think these books profoundly shaped how not only I think, but I think others can learn to think too. All suddenly revealed new connections and ideas about the world I'd never experienced or expected to experience before.

Granted, no book can be removed from its context, and its possible that if I'd read some of the books above as a younger person I wouldn't have been ready to appreciate them. But <em>Flow</em> seems by far the most valuable of the choices listed above because it engulfs more of the content of the others than any other choice.

Steven Berlin Johnson's new book Where Ideas Come From looks promising: http://www.amazon.com/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-Innovation/dp/15... .

* The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday

* The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday

* Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

* Siddhartha, Herman Hesse

* The Personal MBA, Josh Kaufman

* The Effective Engineer, Edmund Lau

* The Lean Startup, Eric Ries

* Certain to Win, Chet Richards

* Left of Bang, Patrick Van Horn & Jason A. Riley

* Native Set Theory, Paul R. Halmos

* Introducing Go, by Caleb Doxsey.

If you'd like to read what I think of these books, you can read my blog post about them here: http://aalhour.com/blog/2018/01/02/review-of-my-2017-reading...

Amazing book on the meaning of life from the founder of logotherapy (therapy based on helping clients to find meaning in their life) who is also a holocaust survivor.

The first 2/3 of the book is an autobiography about his experiences in the concentration camps and the psychological mindset of the prisoners. The last 1/3 takes his experiences and outlines the basis for which logotherapy lies. Reading it was a profound experience. It's the kind of book that you will think back to a few times a month for the rest of your life.

  - Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon by Valley John Carreyrou
  - Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep by Matthew Walker
  - The Magicians by Lev Grossman
  - Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE by Phil Knight
  - How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
  - Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World by Hans Rosling
  - Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
  - Deep Work by Cal Newport
  - Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
  - The Phoenix Project by D.M. Cain
  - 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
  - Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Tia T. Farmer
  - Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
  - Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
  - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
  - Linear Algebra by Jim Hefferon
  - 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
  - Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
  - Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  - Atomic Habits by James Clear

I can't imagine a universe where things would have 'meaning' in the manner the author of this post seems to desire. Even if you believe in a God that gives our lives meaning, doesn't that just push up the search for 'meaning' one level? How is God choosing an arbitrary meaning for our lives any different than some other human choosing a meaning for your life?

I can understand being frustrated by the drive for status and recognition, but that doesn't have to be the source for meaning in your life. We can find meaning in all sorts of things in our lives. We can find it in our relationships with our loved ones, in our enjoyment of our favorite activities, in our striving to advance human discovery and understanding of our world. These are things that can have intrinsic meaning, not things that only have meaning in the way they increase our status or grant us some secondary benefit.

I would really suggest reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

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 <i>pay attention!</i>

"Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Therefore, we can predict his future only within the large framework of a statistical survey referring to a whole group; the individual personality, however, remains essentially unpredictable"

- Viktor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning

It's interesting to contrast this with the stories from Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.

Yet another gratuitous cruelty: the killer targets the most innocent, the people who would never steal food, lie, cheat, break the law, or betray a friend. It was a phenomenon that the Italian writer Primo Levi identified after emerging from Auschwitz, when he wrote that he and his fellow survivors never wanted to see one another again after the war because they had all done something of which they were ashamed. As Mrs. Song would observe a decade later, when she thought back on all the people she knew who died during those years in Chongjin, it was the “simple and kindhearted people who did what they were told—they were the first to die.”

That book has many tales of people surviving by cheating, stealing, and ignoring the plights of others. That's the real truth: In a starvation situation, nice people die first. A sense of meaning contains zero calories.

You are always 100% in control of your emotions: the choice to be happy is up to you regardless of what you're doing or what's happening to you. Money (or value) will come from following fundamental principles of success: diligence, hard work, honesty, etc. You often find the two together, but neither is required for the other.

For more information read Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" and Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning."

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart

House: A Memoir by Michael Ruhlman

I'm also going to throw in a few other books, mainly because I see Crawford's primary argument in a different light. I do believe it is essential to work with your hands. I spent the last few months doing just that and it is has been very instructive. Practical skills are so very important. However, I also think there is an essential human spirit to be enjoyed as well, something that is very present in the moment when engaged in such work. For that reason, I'm going to recommend a few other books:

Gentleman in the Parlour by W. Somerset Maugham

Twilight in Italy by D.H. Lawrence

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

In the Land of Pain by Alphonse Daudet (Julian Barnes translation)

Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

Crawford may well disagree with my thoughts here. He seems to be a pretty devout stoic, but I never met a stoic who didn't have the heart of the mystic beating deep inside. They just need a little push to bring it to the surface.

  A guide to the Good Life by William Irvine

  The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

  The Art of Living by Epictetus

  Meditation by Marcus Aurelius

  Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

  The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

  The Fifth Agreement by don Miguel Ruiz

  Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert