It’s February 29th!!! And I’m using this last day of February to reach my monthly goal of at least posting on my blog twice a month. We’ve been blessed with this extra day so why not use it for something productive? I’ve just been so busy, I haven’t found the time to sit down and write a post, despite having a whole list in my notebook of post ideas.

This post is a little outside the ordinary for me, but since I’ve gotten some positive feedback on previous posts that didn’t have anything to do with decorating, I thought that every once in a while I’d write about something that I often talk about or recommend. I’m treating this blog like a journal in a way: all of my tips on decorating and things that have to do with my daily life. These posts tend to get less reads than my decorating ones, but I feel like if one of these books can have a positive impact on your life and teach you something, like it has mine, then it’s a win-win.

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So starting in my early twenties- and by early I specifically mean around age 19 and 20, when I was still living at home while commuting to school, my favorite past time to get out of the house and away from my “roommates” was to walk to the local coffee shop in my hometown, grab a coffee and sit down with a book. (Funny how if you fast forward to my 30’s, it’s changed to grabbing a coffee and walking around Homegoods). I was really interested in the area of psychology and self-help books, as there were some family dynamics in my teenage years I was trying to heal from and also get away from. I knew I had the potential to be successful in relationships, work, and personal goals, but I needed a little guidance in the area of navigating life’s ups and downs while having a level head and healthy mind.

In my everyday life I come across students, adults, and my own family members who all come with a back story. And I can’t help but notice a stark difference between people who have healed from life’s ups and downs, and those who unfortunately haven’t, and use it as a crutch to explain why they aren’t where they feel they should be today. What makes some people who go through some serious shit in their lives strong while others seemingly get stuck and can’t get away from their problems and heal so that they can become the people they were meant to be?

Personal Growth.

So when I think back to that former decade of my life and my dealings with my everyday goals and relationships, ups and lots of downs, words and ideas from these five books often pop into my mind. Now please understand, I’m not a literary scholar and I’m definitely not Oprah (does she still have her book club by the way?). These are just books that I feel most contributed to the mindset that made me who I am today, and I often think back to parts of these books when I’m going through life’s downs.

I’ve tried to categorize them and explain what I took from them, because each book won’t go to everyone, depending upon where you are in your life at this moment:

(And if you click on them you’ll be brought to Amazon.com)

A Self- Help and Spiritual Growth Book Meant for All Ages

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Overview: Written in 1978, this book opens up with the line “Life is difficult” each chapter of this book focuses on navigating life’s difficulties and how to confront these issues and grow from them.

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What I took from it: This is the first self-help book I ever read and started me on the journey of personal growth. One of my favorite parts of the books is an analogy that I always refer to when I’m talking to my students in school regarding procrastination. Peck likens the duties of daily life and work to a cupcake, and talks about which part of the cupcake do people enjoy the most. Most people respond the “icing” and he asks “so which part of the cupcake do you eat first?” He uses this analogy to talk about work and how a successful person should do what they don’t like to do first at the start of their day (the cake part of the cupcake) and get it out of the way, so that they can enjoy the rest of their day with the tasks they do like (the icing). There’s so many other parts of this book that are amazing, this is just an analogy that sticks into my mind on a daily basis.

A Good Relationship Read for the Unmarried Girl

Why Men Love Bitches by Sherry Argov

Overview: It’s title is a little off-putting and would make one think of the traditional meaning behind “bitch”. Ultimately, a “bitch” in this book, is a woman who knows her boundaries and what she will and won’t stand for in a relationship, and holds to that. Many times girls compromise in relationships and ultimately end up unhappy because of it. This book is just a basic guide to the principles of a healthy relationship and maintaining “you” in that relationship.

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What I took from it: My favorite part of the book references a male and female’s life as a “pie chart”. Both parties have parts of the pie that make them who they are. For example: Going to the gym, hanging out with girlfriends, work, family time, etc. are all parts of each person’s pie that makes them who they are. Sometimes when women start dating a new guy, they slowly chip away at their pieces of the pie and replace it with the guy. For example, he might ask you to go out to dinner one night and you decide “well I can skip the gym tonight” or “I can skip my girls night with my friends”. Over time if we as women do this, our entire pie slowly becomes the man we’re dating, and we lost the parts that made us us. By comparison though, Men don’t really alter their pie and a lot of times this frustrates women. It’s an overall great read that goes along with practicing self-care.

An Amazing Read for Someone Engaged or Married

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert

Overview: Elizabeth Gilbert originally wrote the book entitled Eat, Pray, Love, after her marriage fell apart. She swore she’d never get married again, and is faced with this issue in her serious relationship down the road. Post 9-11 her boyfriend isn’t a US Citizen and starts to have difficulty coming and going out of the country. It’s at this point that she considers taking their relationship to the next step, and while going through the process she travels around the globe researching the history of the institution of marriage and love.

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What I took from it: It’s such a great book, especially if you’re a lover of history. My favorite part of the book is when she travels to interview a tribe in Asia, and it literally feels like she’s gone back in time to pre-historic days. Spoken through a translator, she asks the matriarchal leader of the tribe, “When did you know you were in love with your husband?” and the women doesn’t understand the question because they didn’t marry for love, but rather because they each had a role to fulfill. Gilbert does an amazing job of looking at the institution of marriage and how it’s changed in America over the last 60 years, specifically with the coming of the second women’s rights movement of the 1970’s. She talks about how marriage for love is now a “choice” and the importance on working on the relationship you have instead of turning it in for a new one like a car that’s started to have problems and needs to be worked on.

A Great Short Read on Life’s Lessons

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Overview: Sports writer Mitch Albom writes this book as a memoir of his visits and lessons from his former professor Morrie Schwartz as he is slowly dying from ALS. It’s a great read because each lesson he talks about on: Family, Regrets, Relationships, Death, are written short enough that you don’t even feel like the book reaches 200 pages.

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What I took from it: I read this at 21 years old, and I know it sounds so cliche, but this book really made me think about my life’s potential and how I really wanted to live out that potential as much as I could because no day is promised to anyone. A friend of mine has his students read this their senior year in his ELA class and I think it’s amazing short read for anyone looking to ponder about the meaning of life.

A Great Read for Anyone Experiencing Life’s Ups and Downs

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson

Overview & What I took from it: To be honest, when I first bought this book I read the first chapter and put it down for nearly a month. I mean I should have known from the title that it would involve a lot of F words, but I felt like the first chapter was just some manifesto from a guy who didn’t know what he was talking about. I am so happy that I picked it back up. It’s precisely what I needed to read at that time in my life. The main concept that I took from this book is that “ Life can be difficult and bad things happen to good people”, but author Mark Manson talks in length about how once you accept those two concepts, how you deal with it and heal from it determines whether you will grow from it or not. It’s not even about “ Not Giving a F***”, but instead “Choosing what f***s to give”. In my favorite parts of the book he uses examples from the members of the Beatles and Metallica to talk about the importance of not comparing yourself and where you are in life to others, in order to achieve true happiness. I read this when I was 29 years old and in the middle of infertility treatments. Soon after my family was devastated over the cancer diagnosis of my 11 month old nephew. I really felt this book helped shape my thoughts in a more positive way, and I whole-heartedly recommend this book to everyone. It’s honestly the more modern equivalent or 2016 version of the first book I mentioned up there: “The Road Less Traveled”.