Blogging Book Club

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that this is the last post on this book. I wanted to finish it up before the New Year and move on with my literary life.

I did enjoy this book, and for what it made me think about.

I finished this book this past summer while I was at the fair, and let me tell you two experiences of what happened.

So, I am waiting in line to take a shower at the bathhouse at the fair, and I bought this book to read while I was waiting. Having gone to the fair my whole life, I knew to bring toilet paper to the bathroom in the mornings, because the staff usually hasn't restocked it that early. Well, not very many other people come that prepared, and I wasn't really thinking about it because I was reading, when I started noticing people in line telling the people coming in the bathroom that there wasn't any toilet paper. I had my roll in my bag, and I thought to myself, "I could be "kind" and let all these people use my toilet paper." So, I did. Would I have done the same thing even if I hadn't been reading this book? Probably, but it did make me feel good knowing I was reading about kindness, and I let strangers use all my toilet paper.

I think it was the next day, I was taking a shower in the bathhouse at the fair, and I could have stood under that hot water for HOURS it felt so good. I was done washing everything, but I was just standing there enjoying the hot water. All of a sudden, the book about kindness popped in my head, and I thought to myself, "I guess it's not very kind of me to stand here using up all the hot water while people wait." So, I ended my shower.

Sure, those are piddly examples of being kind. But, reading this book, and posting about it, has made me think more about kindness than I usually would. Could I still be a kinder person? Sure. I just like how this book has made me think about it a little more.

I posted a few thoughts below from each of the chapters I haven't reviewed yet, but left out two of the chapters because nothing too exceptional stood out to me from those.

CHAPTER ON GRATITUDE ("The Easiest Way to be Happy"):

"The ability to see value even in humble, unremarkable situations is essential to our happiness." (p. 227)

"Gratitude is a realistic view of what we are." When we we have an attitude of gratefulness, "we discover that happiness is already here. It already exists, unsuspected. Right in front of our eyes." (p. 235)

CHAPTER ON SERVICE:

Service "frees us from the prison of our own ego." (p. 251)

"Service is not just what you do, but what you are. Sometimes certain people, by their mere presence, make us feel better, more in contact with ourselves, happier." (p.245) One semester while I was in college, I had moved back home to attend a University close by and ended up having some of the most challenging few months of my life. I made a wonderful new friend named Julia, who is the epitome of that previous quote. Just her being in my life was the greatest service I could have received at that time. She is, hands down, one of the happiest, funniest, bubbliest people I know, and even though I probably haven't seen her since my wedding I will always love her, and treasure her friendship, and the service her "mere presence" made in my life.

CHAPTER ON JOY ("Our Natural State"):

I loved this chapter. The author talked about how we were born to be happy. I so believe that, and that is what my religion teaches, "Man are that they might have joy."

The author tells us to ask ourselves, "what is it that makes us happy," and then "We need only to get on with it." (p. 262)

The author tells of an old Eastern story where God wants to reward a man for his great kindness and pure heart. He tells an angel to go tell the man that he can have whatever his heart desires. The man doesn't want anything, but the angel tells him he has to choose something, so the man says, "I would like all who come in contact with me to feel well. But I want to know nothing about it." "From that moment, wherever the kind man happens to be, wilted plants bloom again, sickly animals grow strong, ill people are healed, the unhappy are relieved of their burdens, those who fight make peace, and those beset by problems resolve them. And all this happens without the kind man's knowing - always in his wake, but never in front of his eyes. There is never any pride, nor any expectation. Unknowing and content, the kindly man walks the roads of the world, spreading happiness to everybody." (p. 264)

CONCLUSION:

"When we are kind, we are more concerned with others, therefore less enslaved by our ego and its tyranny; the monsters of anxiety and depression have fewer hooks; the blocks and the encumbrances caused by excessive attention to ourselves disappear.

Strange perhaps, and paradoxical, but true: The most sensible way to further our own interests, to find our own freedom, and to glimpse our own happiness, is often not to pursue these goals directly, but to look after other people's interests, to help other people be freer from fear and pain, to contribute to their happiness. Ultimately, it is all very simple. There is no choice between being kind to others and being kind to ourselves. It is the same thing." (p. 274).