Lessons for Living: What Only Adversity Can Teach You by Phil Stutz

BATB score: 3/10 🏞️

Best as: 30 individual chapters making 30 unique lessons on life, betting on a 50-50 coin toss chance on whether it would make sense (be a hit) for you

Best for: BATB only likes 3 chapters > Loving the One You’re With, A Model Relationship, and How to Love Yourself; the rest meh; 3/30 = 10% hit rate for BATB

Best to: okie here’s the plan, go to the bookstore, find the book, shuffle to the good chapters above, read it then and there, takes less than 10 minutes per good chapter, do did done, moving on!

BATB lingering thought: love life one week miracle fix? “Whenever you are with your partner, particularly when you’re alone, talk to them and touch them as if they are tremendously desirable. Do this with more passion than you may feel. Try this consistently for a week. I guarantee your partner will become more attractive to you.”

Best quotes: “It is naïve to think your experience in a therapist’s office is enough to change your life. Life isn’t a static thing that you can cover over with a fresh coat of paint.”

“If your habit is to look outside yourself for stimulation or validation, then each time you fail to get it, you’ll become depressed.”

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”

“The moment you feel there is nothing more for you to learn, that you have no personal challenges that mean anything, a part of you dies. This dead part then becomes a burden on your child.”

“Self-criticism is our reaction to the failure to live up to our illusions about ourselves. [..] Self-love is the process of accepting the most inferior part of yourself.”