Different people have different upbringing. Personally, I am lucky that I have different environment due to my mixed race family. Growing up, I keep comparing on the different way people around me treat me and other people. I told myself since I was little, I wouldn’t do the same thing that makes me feel sad or unappreciated to other people when I grow up.
As a kid, my thoughts are way more matured that my own age. I love reading, besides those Disney princesses books, books like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables and A Little Princess really help in developing my personality as a little girl. I don’t just read back then, I became them, those high-spirited, ready to explore, full of imagination characters. Trying to adapt to my own hard times, by following their beautiful example of perseverance in their life. Since then, I’ve realized that these books have a psychological affect on me and the way I think too. That’s where my interest on psychology started.
I would find books or articles that have to do with psychological behavior. How to control your mind, how to change your mindset, and how to live to become a successful or clever human being. This, ladies and gentlemen, leads me to learn how to be a decent human being. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from perfect, I even think that my little self is more wiser that who I am today. That’s where this quote become perfect sense to me :
“The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”
― Robert E. Lee
When I was a kid, I was so eager to learn and be that perfect and decent human being, like those perfect example of princesses that Disney have thought us girls. So that I can finally get my knight in shining armor to fall for me along the way. Sadly, I’ve realized that was far from the truth now. But what I do realized too is, being a decent human being took a lot of work and process, something that can’t be attained if you preferred to be ignorant, to yourself and to others around you. And it is a constant process, because due to life, you might forget what you’ve learnt, and most of the time, you need to relearned it again.
Nowadays, you will find youngsters are more ignorant despite of all the technological advances that they have at the tip of their fingers. Parents rarely have time to give proper upbringing due to works, children are being left unsupervised on what they should read or do in their spare time. Heck, even students are being rude to teachers nowadays. Which is a very heartbreaking situation, where we used to have respects to our teachers, kids nowadays makes you feel like you are nothing than an older person who don’t get to tell them what to do.
Well, that was a long rambling.
To cut it short
Here are some of the good books that I would suggest parents or yourself to start reading, if you need to improve on how to be a more decent human being, by learning more empathy through other people struggles in life, to think from a different perspectives, to know and understand what life is all about. ( I know I need a refresh in that department some of the days) :
- The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
(about life, about death, about living life to the fullest when you have limited time left, about dreams, about tech, a very good book on advice of how to spend your life without regret) - The Chicken Soup for the Soul series, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen
(this series have different topic that they focus on, like sisterhood, motherhood, teenagers,losing parents etc, but what I like about these series is, they are from real people experience, real people letters that will give us insight on what they actually feel and gone through) - How to Win Friends and Influence other people, by Dale Carnegie
(Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment,Win people to your way of thinking,Techniques in Handling People , these are some of the topics that are very crucial in making you a very decent and likable person) - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
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Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom
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For One More Day, by Mitch Albom
- Dream New Dreams: Reimagining My Life After Loss by Jai Pausch (ex-wife of the late Randy Pausch)
- Prozac Nation, by Elizabeth Wurtzel
(my personal favourite book on Depression topic. A true story based on Miss Wurtzel experience as one of the people who are given experiments medicine for depressions.)
These are some that makes me see life in a different way, help me to deal with people the best way. I hope in some ways, it can help you too.
And for parents, you can start your children reading some of these books:
- Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
- Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott
- Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Wonder, by R.J. Palacio (upcoming movie based on this book)
- The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth, by The EarthWorks Group and Sophie Javna
- The American Boy’s Handy Book, by Daniel C. Beard
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
- The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S Lewis
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (also an upcoming movie based on this book)
As I go through the books, I will update the lists. Till then.