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![]() I don't know if she thinks prolix titles look good, or make her seem more intelligent, or what, but oh my God, SCRAP 'EM. It is unreadable, the text is different sizes, and it feels like Wiest is grabbing me by the lapels and shrieking it at me in a busy Subway terminal while a metro is screeching to arrive. HERE, A FEW LITTLE SIGNS YOU’VE EVOLVED MORE THAN YOU REALIZE" <- that is genuinely the essay title for essay 29. THIS IS NORMAL BUT IS ALSO THE PRODUCT OF FOCUSING ON HOW WHAT’S LEFT TO DO RATHER THAN WHAT YOU’VE ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED-WHICH IS WHY IT’S OFTEN HARD TO GIVE YOURSELF THE CREDIT YOU REALLY DESERVE. YOU’VE PROBABLY HAD THE EXPERIENCE OF A THIRD PARTY COMMENTING ON HOW MUCH YOU’VE CHANGED BUT BARELY BEING ABLE TO REALIZE ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE WITH YOURSELF EACH DAY. "HOW TO KNOW YOU’VE EVOLVED more than you GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT FOR IT’S HARD TO SEE HOW FAR ALONG THE PATH YOU’VE COME WHILE YOU’RE SO FOCUSED ON TAKING EACH STEP-SO TO SAY. * Keeping yourself comfortable can keep you from reaching new goals.Īlso, side note - I'm not sure if it was my edition or WHAT but the formatting was insane for a lot of essay titles. * Perception is subjective, and realising this is a sign of emotional intelligence. * Feel your emotions, don't repress them. Some of these essays could very easily be viewed as exactly the same, just paraphrased different. There is also an extreme level of repetition in subject matter. But just like I wouldn't click on "Signs That The Only Problem With Your Life Is The Way You Think About It" if I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I'm not interested in reading it in a book. And it's okay for them to be hit and miss at this early stage in her career. If it was, I read it, as Wiest's articles that are only self-driven are. Those are the good essays, in my opinion, and after the first 100 pages, I gave myself permission to skim to the bottoms of each essay and see if there were footnotes, indicating it was based on others' research. The reason for the incoherence in message is that Wiest relies heavily on other people's work, mainly pop psychology self help books to the tune of Brene Brown and Malcolm Gladwell (no hate), and then distils their books into bite-sized portions. It reminded me of that quote from Ned Flanders when he's despairing about God, "I did everything in the Bible! Even the stuff that contradicted all the other stuff!" A few are very well written, didactic and sharply focused, while some had me wondering 'was the initial target for this Buzzfeed?' One that springs to mind is in the first 100 pages, and is titled something like '101 things to think right now instead of _.' It was particularly disorienting because the first thing to think of was where I wanted to be in 20 years time, whereas a few essays up, she'd told me that people aren't happy today because they live in the future, rather than the now. ![]() When I realised that these were a thatched together collection of Wiest's articles, rather than essays (they're not, at all, essays), the disparity in quality between 'essays' made a lot more sense. We allowed Alain de Botton to swagger onto the scene with a pop philosophy book aged 23, and we called him a wunderkin, where here people are saying Wiest is easily dismissed because she was 26. People who are using Brianna's age at writing are being unfair. There are actually good parts in the book, but the amount of fluff that you have to get through I just don't have the time and energy to do that, the editor or the author should have done that for me she needs to learn the ability to cull irrelevant information The main reason why I chose to pick up this book was the high number of stars at the time (4.13), but it seems like there just haven't been enough critical people to actually review the book. I'm not hating on this book or the author, I just didn't find it useful for my needs. The topics discussed are all basically "how to be happy or why your life isn't that bad", it's all meant to make you feel good (nothing wrong with that) but that's why i describe it as non-practical. You can tell since the quality of the writing amounts to fluff and complete lack of relevance to practical day life. The problem is the in between sections, the parts that the author writes herself. The thing is, that's not really the problem, I can appreciate a "book" being a collection from other people's work, I don't mind that at all. When i started the first page I was impressed, I thought I was in for a good book turns out it was just an excerpt from someone else's book from 2005. The book itself is a lazy attempt at a self help book. If you actually look up the credentials of the author she is a 26 year old making a living writing medium posts and posting inspirational quotes on instagram if that doesn't tell you enough then i'll continue.
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