What's life like? Very different from how it was 40 to 50 years ago, right? What's more, isn't it much different than it was say even 10 to 15 years ago? Social media is now as commonplace as newspapers were then and newspaper reliance seems to be shrinking as much as CDs were as the 2000s progressed. Our attention spans have grown shorter as many vanities have grown deeper and our demand for tomorrow is what we wanted yesterday. There's so much to adjust to inside this rapidly-changing framework of society yet no matter how much what's around us is changing, we ourselves are pretty constant. That could be a good and bad thing. It's important to notice that with many things, we've allowed our surroundings to change us but what are and who we are at the core is still there lingering.
I thought of this as I read Unfuc*k Yourself : Get Out Of Your Head And Into Your Life by Gary John Bishop, a five-time author who is far better than a self-help guru. Bishop is a personal development expert and his 'urban philosophy' approach to helping one become the best most enacted them prompts the individual to get out of their often crippling thoughts and into a life of embracing newness, potential, activity and happiness. For that's what at stake isn't it? Our lives, our perceptions, our willingness, our stubbornness, our certainties and our expectations and how much of our reliances on them keep us from living, loving and reaching our full potentials. In Unfu*ck Yourself Bishop offers up seven personal assertions for one to ponder that surpass the 'you're special' mantra and moving beyond mere thought to seizing the your special title by actively pursuing life and also recognizing the signifiers that you may not even be aware are keeping you immobile. Bishop's comical tone is straightforward & non-coddling and doesn't shame or judge, but rather gets an individual to really look at their happiness to see how they are personally responsible for its lacking in an honest and appropriately thought-provoking manner.
After reading this book I realized how powerfully coercive my thoughts were in my going forward and how even more powerful my activities had to be in order to put the kibosh on years of the unrequited, the pitfalls, the excuses, the stale mindsets and the weaknesses that masqueraded themselves as strengths. There's more to greatness than just positive thinking, there's the positivity of moving & shaking, starting & trying, failing & succeeding and loving & letting go.
Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop (Harper One - Harper Collings Publishers) is available now on Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles and other fine booksellers.
