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Peaks and Valleys, written by Spencer Johnson, M. D., is all about managing your good and bad times. Nothing more, nothing less, told in a very easy-to-read, parable-like style.
In fact, it really could be said to be a book of great common sense.
I wouldn’t blame you if you asked me why you should buy a book about common sense. After all, common sense certainly doesn’t sound as exciting as “5 quick steps to amazing happiness”, or “the 1- month program to incredible success.”
You should read it because common sense isn’t all too common.
Oftentimes we make our problems in life much more complicated than they need to be. This book shows you how to stay positive and get out of bad times (the valleys) quicker, and how to hold on to your good times (the peaks), longer.
When I picked this book up at the bookstore, two things went through my mind. The first was whether or not I should pay about $20 for a 101 page book, and the second was remembering another book Spencer Johnson had written (Who Moved My Cheese?), sitting on my Dad’s bookshelf for years while I was growing up, thinking it looked like homework rather than anything I would possibly ever want to read, let alone enjoy.
I should have read that book, and then this one, back when I was a kid.
If I had, I would have had a jump-start on being able to see the good in what appears to be a horrible situation. I would have gained the ability to stay humble and grateful when things were going great. I would have been able to see how 90% of the issues and problems in my life are caused by me and how I react to them.
The $20 was a little steep for a book I finished in about 2 hours, but the value of this book is not in its initial read-through… it’s in what it teaches you and how you use those lesson in your own life. Plus it came with this nifty wallet-card thingy that I’ve actually had stuck in my wallet ever since I bought the book.
Its short length is beneficial in another way: it’s quite easy to simply pick it up and read it again, as a reminder of the good lessons inside. In fact, as I sat down to write this review, I started thumbing through it, and before I knew it I had started back at the beginning and read it all the way through.
It’s one of those little gems full of age-old wisdom that anyone of any age can read and get quite a bit out of.
I think I'm going to give this book a try. I remember reading Who Moved My Cheese, and being moved by it. Sometimes the shorter books are the best ones. I have an old inspirational book that I pull out and read when I need to change direction, and in need of some inspiration. It's See You At The Top by Zig Ziglar. Some of the references and examples are a little out of date, but the simple messages are very relevant to the human condition. Thank you.
I'm a big Zig Ziglar fan too, in fact, when I go for my long runs I'll load up on a ton of Zig Ziglar podcasts and listen to them all. Makes my runs fly by.
Haha, it's so funny, I'm reading "Cashflow Quadrant" by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and he made the same point "common sense isn't all that common," in his terms, people don't have common sense especially when it comes to money!
I always love reading book reviews…if I can prevent wasting my time on a book or if a book is a must-read, I like to hear it from like-minded friends, so thanks! I know I just finished "Enchantment" by Guy Kawasaki, it was pretty good!
BTW, congrats on the new logo! 🙂
I’ve read “Cashflow Quadrant” too Shannyn, and I liked it quite a bit. And yes, I’ve always liked reading book reviews as well, so I figured I’d start writing some myself to save people some time.
I like to remind people that "common sense" is pretty situational. What a city dweller thinks of as common sense would have no meaning to, say, an Australian bush dweller or a suburban mom.
It's like saying "everyone knows that…" Well, everyone DOESN'T necessarily know that. Not only are some situations different than others, the old saw "you don't know what you don't know" really is accurate. If you've never seen anyone cook a meal, create a budget or use credit responsibly, the concept of frugality is simply not on your radar.
That said, I agree that a big part of some problems is our reaction to them. If there's no way to change a situation — colicky baby, streak of incredibly bad weather, souring economy — then we need to change the way we deal with it. Trying to keep things in perspective helps: The baby will grow out of the colic; the weather will one day improve; the economy historically has had highs and lows and we have to tough it out. Until those things change, it's necessary to seek practical knowledge and/or physical assistance (someone else to rock the baby, for example).
Books can help. But we have to do the sometimes hard, sometimes uncomfortable work of turning that inspiration into action.
I’ve never really thought of common sense as “situational” before, but it makes sense. And yes, how we react to situations does so much to determine if that situation will get better or worse, as most of the time the way we react to things simply ends up making the original situation that much worse. I am sometimes surprised by how easily most problems can be solved if you take a step back for as little as 1 minute, take a breath, and realize that whatever the issue is, it’s probably not the end of the world, and life will in fact go on.