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A short and easy to read book teaches lessons somehow relevant to the situation, especially chapter 3 "do not make assumptions".

The book is "the four agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.

About critizing yourself: The Four Agreements by Don Ruiz. This is a small book with great content. I've read it many times.

This reminds me of the first agreement in The Four Agreements by don Miguel Luis.

"Be impeccable with your words."

The words manifest into thoughts which turn into physical form. The book described words are akin to black magic.

The Four Agreements[0] is one of the best "user manuals" for how one should live life, both work and personal:

-Be impeccable with your word.

-Don't take anything personally.

-Don't make assumptions.

-Always do your best.

[0]https://www.miguelruiz.com/the-four-agreements

Two books that aren't mentioned, surprisingly, are:

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

In my humble opinion, these two books alone, have the ability to change one's life.

Another thing that may help you in the long run and I can't recommend this enough, is a book called, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

The Four Agreements is one of my favorite books, so I was glad to see it already listed, but yeah it does have some nonsense mixed into it as you have pointed out. With that said, the fundamentals are very sound, and for some reason the way the book talks about it makes it all click nicely in my mind even though the fundamental advice is all "common sense".

"The Four Agreements" has forever changed the way I view my actions and the actions around me.

"The Power of Now" is a great book about spiritual enlightenment. It opens up your mind to a different way of thought related to no stress, no pain, no anxiety, no past, no future, etc...

"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.

This book advocates personal freedom from beliefs and agreements that we have made with ourselves and others that are creating limitation and unhappiness in our lives.

Usually I will find out what book famous people has read, what are their favorite books, hope that any book which bring influence on them, will bring good influence on me too.. also, as famous n successful people combined with their experience, I'm sure they have better taste on their choice too.

Stephen King's Favorite:
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes
Saturday by Ian McEwan
The Mad Cook of Pymatuning: A Novel by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel by Stef Penney
When Will There Be Good News?: A Novel by Kate Atkinson

J.K. Rowling's Favorite:
The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Skellig by David Almond
The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle

Jeffrey Eugenides, author, Pulitzer prize winner
"Herzog," by Saul Bellow
"Love in a Fallen City," by Eileen Chang
"The Lay of the Land," by Richard Ford

Oprah Winfrey's Favorite:
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

For complete list visit http://www.famouspal.com

I really like the book The Four Agreements.

My favorite agreement by far is don't take anything personally.

For example a really good friend of mine, was having a bunch of trouble in her home life but she couldn't exactly afford to move out. So if you're working with her and she's rude to you, it has nothing to do with anything you did. 99% of how someone reacts to you is based upon what they're going through. And plus getting upset over someone else doesn't improve anything.

I also have some Buddhist leanings, which are so important to me I told a girl it wasn't going to work when she said that Buddhism was satanic.

Finally learn to appreciate and love yourself, this is by far the hardest lesson I continue to learn. It's very easy to look at maybe a job you didn't get or a relationship that didn't work and think that you're some type of broken thing. But you realize no one really has it figured out we're all just trying to get through the day, you can make peace with who you are

My favorite books...

> Deep Work https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...

> Can't Hurt Me https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Clean/dp/15445078...

> Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-...

> Rich Dad Poor Dad https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680...

> 4 Hour Workweek https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/...

> Steve Jobs https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648...

> The Design of everyday things https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expand...

> Siddhartha: A Novel https://www.amazon.com/Siddhartha-Novel-Hermann-Hesse/dp/055...

> The Four Agreements https://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fr...

> Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745?dchi...

"The Four Agreements", I wish I had read it when I was younger, I give it to anyone who seems to feel other people are their problem.

Labyrinths of Reason, William Poundstone
The Ghost in the Atom, P.C.W Davies
The View from the Center of The Universe, Abrams and Primack
Godel Escher Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz

I think everyone's practice is a little different, and I highly recommend finding people IRL who meditate and ask them about their practice. I sorta have my own thing that I've made up in my routine. Happy to expand on it but not sure HN is the right place. Foundational books that got me going in order of importance for me:

15 Laws of Growth: https://www.amazon.com/15-Invaluable-Laws-Growth-Potential-e...

The Bhagavad Gita: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Easwarans-Classics-Indian-Sp...

The Four Agreements: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fr...

(Note: grew up Christan in rural Scotland now agnostic chilling in Manhattan, so no religious slants)

Zero To One - Peter Thiel

Tribes - Seth Godin

The Four Agreements - Miguel Angel Ruiz (life changing) The

Seven Spiritual Laws of Success - Deepak Chopra

These are some that I am reading/read recently.

If you are not depressed (big if), and you're just going through the motions of life, you CAN make yourself happier just by reading the right material (e.g., Feeling Good, The Four Agreements) or yes, even affirmations. The happiness will last for about a day, in my experience. Then you can revisit the material.

I made a goal to read 100 books this year. I'm through 87 so far. Most of them have been non-fiction. Using this year to learn things outside of technology has been time very well spent for me. Here are some of my top books this year.

- 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

I'll point you in the direction of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning: https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/26/viktor-frankl-mans-...

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

The Four Agreements by Don Ruiz. It's a short and simple book about four rules of life which you can use anywhere.

1. Be impeccable with your word. You can read this as "don't swear", but it's not about that. It is about the constant and continuing things we say to ourselves that make us feel bad. We don't even know we do this. And it's not about big things, it's about the thousands of small reprimands we give ourselves that hold us back living our life.

2. Don't take anything personally. When someone else says something to you, good or bad, it shows how they feel. What they say is about them, what they think is important, what is relevant for them. It's not about you. This doesn't mean that you can ignore it, but it shines another light on things other people say about you, or about others to you. This applies to "good things" as well. If someone gives you a compliment, it tells something about them. And of course it works as well for the things you say or do - they tell something about you.

3. Don't make assumptions. Don't think you know what other people think, or that you know why they do the things they do.

4. Do your best. You can't always live your life following rules. Do your best, and if you break a rule, bad luck, next time better! That means that you can forgive yourself. And it means that you should not give up after a big fuck up. Or a small fuck up, or many fuck ups. You can start over again at any moment.

The book is much better at explaining. It's about 60 pages, worth the effort.

The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving by Barbara Minto (http://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Writing-Thinking-Pro...)

Some Mental Models are available here for free :

http://www.focusinvestor.com/FocusSeriesPart3.pdf

http://www.focusinvestor.com/MungerModels.pdf

For systems :

Lean Thinking by James Womack

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Some thought provoking personal effectiveness titles :

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fre...)

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz (http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/006000...)

The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

For those of you who, like me, would rather not have a book of Christian fables that have incited murderous instincts in people for thousands of years left in their hotel room I heartily recommend The Jupiter Hotel in Portland, OR.

They instead go with a recent issue of Dwell and a copy of Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements. I read it and did not feel like killing anyone!