Book Review: Habits of a Peace Maker

 

I'm a middle child, the only girl surrounded by two brothers whom I love dearly. They are thirteen years apart which caused several misunderstandings and silly sibling squabbles between them. Even as a young kid, I felt it was my duty to smooth things over and keep the peace. It made me sad to see them not get along. 

Luckily for me, they get along much better as adults, but it seems the world around us has become much more adversarial. One group hating on another, whether it's political, religious, racial, or nationality based.

Just like with my brothers, these conflicts and quarrels make me sad. 

When my daughter recently recommended, Habits of a Peace Maker, by Steven T. Collis, I felt compelled to read it right away.  

Mr. Collis's focus is on teaching people to listen to one another with respect and humility. The point isn't that we should all agree, it's more about getting closer to understanding one another. It's a quick read and the strategies are relatively simple and common sense, but I think we need this reminder. I know I have lost sight of it at times.

I read one negative review of the book commenting on how the author doesn't talk enough about global peace initiatives. Personally, I felt the book was written more to give us non-diplomat people some new habits and strategies to be able to better get along with our old Uncle Jerry at Thanksgiving, or our neighbor, or our older parents who we have tendencies to bicker with about politics, etc, maybe we even let some nasty words slip from our mouths. 

I'm guilty of it, and I always regret it afterwards. I deeply love these people, why can't I let these arguments go and simply show them my love for them?

Mr. Collis reminds us that heated arguments don't change people's minds, they usually just make them defend their positions more fervently and nothing is accomplished except creating more anonymity between the people. That doesn't mean don't talk about important subjects. He also demonstrates how to bring up more sensitive topics in ways that help bring us together to work toward solutions instead of tearing people further apart.

One of my favorite quotes in the book is, "For so many of the problems in this world, many of us are not in a position to make any true impact. But making someone else's day just a bit brighter is something we can do everywhere we go." 

This may be the only real way to change the world around us. 

I rate Habits of a Peace Maker 4 out of 5 stars. 

 

Have a wonderful day! 💕💕

Kathy

Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks Time Management For Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

I used to think of time management as a tool to accomplish the most amount of work in the most efficient manner. This book is not about that type of time management. It's not about productivity. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is an eye opening look at managing the time in our lives by choosing to spend our time doing the things that are really important to us instead of saying, "Oh I will work on my passion when I have more free time." So many people put off what they really want to do and then never get to it.

The average person lives approximately 4,000 weeks and that of course is if you're lucky to live into your 80s. That doesn't really seem like very many weeks.

If you have a dream, start working on it now.

I'm more than half done with my 4,000 weeks. I only have about 1296 weeks left. Maybe I'll have a little more time as I have two grandparents that lived into their 90s and my mom at 82 is still going strong. But the point is you never really know.

My task is to think about how I really want to spend what I do have left. Some people think this is a depressing way to think, or that it means you have to be working all the time. I see it more as liberating. Thinking about it makes me at least a little more present and grateful each day. Maybe some days I still want to sit back and watch some football with my husband, spend a day writing, or take a nice long nap, but the point is that I want to be consciously making those decisions instead of mindlessly going through the motions each day. I want to be present and choose what is important to me each moment.

What will you choose to do more of?

Kathy:)