How to Live
About the book
Book author: Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers is, among other things, an author, entrepreneur, musician and TED speaker. The book “How to Live” is a philosophical exercise: every chapter, and there are 27 of them, tell you how to live your life the right way. Every perspective is convincing and believable, but sometimes a little extreme. Each chapter starts and is radically different, sometimes blatantly contradictory of what just came before. You’ll wonder what is right. I won’t give it away, but the last chapter is a very unique conclusion.
Reflection and takeaways
This book was a rollercoaster to me. I have never read a book like it before. I felt as if I was agreeing with mostly everything, which is contradictory. I was slightly dissapointed because I normally feel proud that I am quite far on figuring out “How To Live”, only to realise that it’s all much more nuanced and subjective than I thought. My best takeaway is the feeling I had while reading the book - both fascination and dissapointment. Some sentences in the book were remarkably impactful.
Reflection one is that there really is no right way to live, because in a sense, they are all right. As long as you are happy, anything goes I guess. As a human, expect to be conflicted about it.
Reflection two is that you just have to find something that works best for you. The book really teaches you to not judge people with a different philosophy, because all of these angles have their unique strengths. Derek masterfully reveals them for each “take” on the problem. Noone can tell you how to live except for yourself.
Reflection three is that arguing about how to live your life is quite pointless, and this book reveals it. It shows that philosophy is certainly interesting but also slightly unnecessary. It hurts to say that as a philosophy fan.
Why did I pick it
I found it on Derek’s website. It seemed intriguing and had a rather impressive Goodreads rating.
Verdict
4.1⁄5. I read this book at a good time. It is a good read. I can recommend it to most people who are interested in philosophy and who like to contemplate how to live their life.