You Are a Badass: Book Thoughts, Book 3

Sincero, Jen. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2013. Print.

I picked up Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass because I desperately WANT to believe that I am a badass. I think a little more playful, genuine self-love and respect would make my life a lot less painful and even more amazing than it already is.  I just have trouble grasping the concept on my own.

 All my friends and family are awe inspiring. I love nature, words, the universe, and being alive.  I totally adore other people and their talent, but MYSELF? Not as much. Sure I have a great time hanging out with myself now, but I am also my biggest problem. I am the person I get most angry at, the only person I can never really forgive, the person in whom I have the least faith. I thought this book might help me with changing that.

Guess what?  It already has. Just reading the title and first fifty pages helped me determine that I had to finish this blog. I had to do the thing and have fun with it even if no one read it. I had to do it even if the worst possible result occurred: everyone read it and was disappointed.

I saw the book and thought, “If I read one self-help book in my entire life, it should be the one called You Are a Badass. In general Ms. Sincero’s opus did not disappoint me. She uses a playful, sarcastic, incredulous, superhero-friendly tone throughout the book. Sincero pretty much writes the way I think sometimes, so her book brought me plenty of chuckles and grins. It also brought me a few eye rolls.

The philosophy of the book comes partly from the law of attraction, which sounds a little crazy to me when it gets into vibrations and frequencies and energy. Yet, the basic idea is not that far fetched. It just means that thoughts matter. Thoughts can influence actions, actions can influence realities, and therefore we can start changing our lives by changing what we think. That’s not so crazy, is it? It is really hard, often unlikely, but not completely crazy.  Amazing people throughout history have made it happen.

One of my favorite sentences from this book is one I’m sure I’ve heard, read, even said before: “Time spent enjoying yourself is never wasted” (132). What made me almost believe it this time is the way the author learned it. She learned it from a bunch of Indian people who kept getting of the bus to go join wedding parties or do some extremely festive praying.

 I thought, “What if I stop secretly, subconsciously believing I wasted all this time not getting a PH.D. or winning the Nobel Peace Prize or something. What if I just got off the bus to attend the School of Joss Whedon and Friends, become a contributing editor, and meet my ‘French sister’ Skype pal?”

I’ve basically had a five year sleepover with my childhood best friend. In these five, going on six years, my relationships have generally been less stressful because I’ve had less stress in my life. I went on a cruise with my family, thus fulfilling my lifelong dream of seeing Caribbean “blue water!”

 I could list all the ways enjoying yourself might be a waste of time, and I have certainly participated in some of them. For now let’s just say the book encouraged me to see that I’ve wasted…a lot less time than I secretly thought.   

What if I can now get on whatever metaphorical bus I want, starting with this one, this silly, almost flop-wreck of a blog bus, work hard, and just “see what I can get away with?”(106)

You Are a Badass is full of fun advice, stories and exercises that I can use, but another reader could easily think it’s just vulgar nonsense and close it after the first few pages. My brother, for example, picked it up on his own. I think he’s a badass, but he hasn't gotten past the first mention of frequencies yet.  I don’t mind.

PS. If I had one short quote to share with everybody, it would be: “LOVE YOURSELF

 And the bluebirds of happiness will be your permanent backup singers” (108). 

Announcement and Readers Instinct

Alright I have an announcement. 

This blog is not dead. It’s NOT OVER. It’s not forgotten. Well, not by me.  I have read and/or listened to thirteen books so far this year.

I’ve done lots of thinking. I think so much that I read really slowly. I think so much that I judge what I read and can’t decide what to read next. I even judge my thoughts and come up with thoughts for other people to think about them. It’s exhausting sometimes.  I just haven’t done the whole writing my thoughts down for you to read thing.

To be completely honest, I judge my own thoughts, words and choices so harshly that to have them voluntarily judged by others for fun is utterly terrifying. It seems insane.  The results can cause me a lot of pain and humiliate me for days, weeks, even years. Trust me, I’ve been through it enough to know myself.   

However, I also know something else about this thought sharing, soul baring, and/or writing process. It’s usually worth the effort.

If I don’t do this one simple thing I wanted to do for myself, who knows what else I’ll miss out on.

Here are the books I’ve already read and experienced:

1.      The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

2.      Naked Heat by almost  Richard Castle

3.      The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

4.      Heat Rises  by almost Richard Castle

5.      Divergent  by Veronica Roth

6.      Looking for Alaska by John Green

7.      The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham

8.      Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

9.      City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

10.  If I  Stay by Gayle Forman

11.  Where She Went  by Gayle Forman

12.  Lamb by Christopher Moore

13.  Frozen Heat by almost  Richard Castle

I’ve made some quick observations, not judgments, about my choices:

1.      I like John green…a lot

2.      I enjoy love stories and young adult books

3.      I love Richard Castle

4.      All known authors thus far are white. The person in charge of writing as Castle could be a blue woman for all I know, but because he exists in the hearts and minds of fans everywhere, he counts as a white man.

Now obviously I have nothing against books written by white people.  I simply don’t want to limit my reading to them, because everybody in the world is not white. I love reading stories I can relate to, but I also want to read about people who have different experiences than mine.  I don’t want to miss out on something great because it’s not the first thing I picked up.

That being said I have no rules about what to read for a reason. It’s more than just making this perilous task easier. I have this crazy theory that the best books come at the best times for me.  I’ll call it…reader’s instinct.

 There’s a version of this theory that applies to TV shows and movies as well. The same ideas might apply to blogs that take longer than expected:

If I don’t finish a book, it’s because I’m not ready yet. When I do finish, I often learn something, think something new to me, or share the story with a friend. Sometimes I just get that feeling that all is right with the world for a minute.

 I would  promise to have 24 decent posts by December 31^st,  but then this blog would become another unfinished new year’s resolution, and I want it to be more that. I want it to be an adventure.

 Therefore I, Angela Swanson, do solemnly swear to read and publicly comment on at least 24 books EVENTUALLY, baring tragic death.  Series may be included and may be covered in one post.  Oh, and Nikki Heat does count. We’ll discuss why later.