"Mind Your Manners" (Sara Jane HO)

TITLE: Mind Your Manners: How to Be Your Best Self in Any Situation
AUTHOR: Sara Jane HO
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Hachette Books, 2024, (304 pages).
 

Human beings are social creatures. Even for the most individualistic person, one cannot avoid interacting with another person, unless one lives as a hermit in some secluded part of the world. In general, we all need to learn some forms of social behavior and etiquette.  This is necessary for society to function well, and it is applicable for both children and adults. Unfortunately, schools do not often teach such stuff. Those that do often cover them at a superficial level. Etiquette is about connection, says author Sara Jane Ho, a vocal advocate for meaningful social communications in various settings. It is also contextual, meaning we need to adapt our understanding and practice of etiquette based on the geographical locations. In our globalized interconnected world, we also need to expand that to cultural settings. Popularized by a Netflix series with the same name as the book's title, this book is a print version of the streaming platform. In meaningful etiquette, we need "social fluency" which is essentially about reading people quickly and accurately as well as interacting with them confidently and effectively. Mindful of the growing mental health concerns globally, she helps us remember that therapy alone cannot solve issues related to social awkwardness. In a post-pandemic world, some might even need to relearn "social fluency" to help us relate to people.

"Friendship in an Age of Loneliness" (Adam Smiley Poswolsky)

TITLE: Friendship in the Age of Loneliness: An Optimist's Guide to Connection
AUTHOR: Adam Smiley Poswolsky
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Running Press, 2021, (272 pages).

Survey after survey, both research and reports have pointed to a growing problem in our society. People are increasingly lonely. With the pandemic, things are not going to get any better. In fact, loneliness has accelerated because of the many lockdowns implemented by governments around the world. Many researchers have pointed out social media as a negative influence when it comes to addressing loneliness. While it is true that social media could have adverse effects on people, especially those with prolonged usage, leading to addiction, technology can still be useful to help people build friendship networks to connect with people. The key is proper usage instead of total abandonment. Author Adam Poswolsky takes this approach and goes further. He argues that the two keys for a happier life are to make new friends and to deepen existing ones. When our efforts to reach out are reciprocated, the relationship grows. In this book, he gives readers six ways to reclaim friendships in an age of loneliness:

1. Be More Playful
2. Be a Better Friend
3. Invest in Friendship
4. Stay in Touch
5. Embrace Ritual
6. Be a Minister for Loneliness in the community

"Godspace" (Keri Wyatt Kent)

TITLE: GodSpace: Embracing the Inconvenient Adventure of Intimacy with God
AUTHOR: Keri Wyatt Kent
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Faithwords, 2017, (208 pages).

This is a book about spiritual practices. More specifically, it is about making space for God in our supposedly busy lifestyles. Some try retreats or some faraway places to get away from the hustle and bustle so as to attain some level of peace and serenity. Others try to find it in Churches or religious communities that try to practice the spiritual disciplines. Some read books while others attend seminars. Some would try out some new initiatives or special one-off projects to engage their spiritual side of things. Unfortunately, as long as we reserve only specific time and space for us to enter into God's presence, we miss out on the rest of our lives. What about the busy moments at work or study? How can we be holy in the midst of babysitting or housekeeping? Spiritual writer Keri Wyatt Kent knows what it means to be caught in the whirlwind of busy activities and expectations in a modern world. Having written books about Sabbath keeping, rest, devotions, spiritual listening, and spiritual practices to attend to the soul, Keri has consolidated many of them for the busy individual struggling to find space for spirituality. It is an invitation for all to live in the grace of God with our whole selves, rather than compartmentalize our lives into different parts. Truth is, when we desire intimacy with God, we will intentionally find space wherever we can. We may have the best tools or most creative techniques with us, but if we have no desire, these things are nothing. However, when we have the desire to want to meet God always, we will find creative ways to make space. This is what this book is about: Making space for God in all of our life. For Kent, it is about seven practices that could be used to make space for God.

"The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth" (John C. Maxwell)

TITLE: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
AUTHOR: John C. Maxwell
PUBLISHER: Center Street, 2012, (206 pages).

Potential. More specifically, how do we achieve our potential in life? This question is dealt with by the popular leadership guru, John Maxwell. His first two books that deal with "laws" cover leadership and teamwork. While he has 21 laws for leadership, and 17 laws for teamwork, he proposes 15 laws for individual growth. Maxwell calls his leadership laws "irrefutable," and his teamwork laws "indisputable." Now, his third book, he uses the word "invaluable." Focusing on achieving one's potential through growth, Maxwell focuses on 15 essentials for growing.

1. Intentionality: That growth does not happen at random. It needs a plan and a purpose, through the practices of closing 9 gaps. 
2. Awareness: Self identity helps determine a sense of direction. He suggests various ways in which one can recognize one's passion in life. 
3. Mirror: This law aims to help see one's sense of value, and to be true to self, and develop positive self-esteem and self-image.
4. Self-Reflection: Everyone needs to take a pause at periods of their lives to take stock, to investigate, to illuminate, to incubate, or to illustrate. 
5. Consistency: Growth needs consistent growing, not just the initial start. The discipline to continue is as important as the initiation to start.
6. Environment: Where we are can be a big factor in personal growth. We need to learn to assess ourselves, to make decisions for change whether in present or in future circumstances. Learn to find out the best kind of soil to grow, the best air to breathe in terms of purpose, and the best climate in people relationships. 
7. Design: One also needs to learn to develop strategies for maximum growth through systems.
8. Pain: Learning to manage bad experiences is a key part of growth. Whether it is inexperience, incompetence, disappointment,  conflict, change, bad health, hard decisions, financial loss, relationships, and many others, one can turn pain into gain.
9. Ladder: How high one grows depends on the how one cultivates one's character. People, passion, perspective, and principles matter.
10. Rubber Band: Learning to stretch oneself is critical to growth. Tensions are not necessarily bad. They can help one to grow, especially the part about stretching from the inside out.
11. Tradeoffs: Growing requires us to make decisions about compromise and constraints. Learning to give up where appropriate is better than pushing ourselves silly for little gain. 
12. Curiosity: Learning to ask why helps us avoid mental laziness. It is a core part of the learning process.
13. Modeling: Learn to model your growth with someone better than yourself. Choosing a good mentor is key.
14. Expansion: With growth comes capacity for learning. Whether it is thinking or doing, working or playing, growth is empowering and enlarging one's tent of personal growth.
15. Contribution: Finally, growing always means bringing blessings to others. 

My Thoughts

Maxwell has a way of communicating his ideas that are compelling, convincing, and also uplifting. After all, he is not a leadership guru by chance. What makes him such a popular author is that his books are filled with stories and real life examples. He does readers a favour by compiling an easy to read collection of ideas, backed by some of his learning from other experts. The "15 laws" that he has put together are packed with theory and practice, illustrations and steps for personal applications, put together in easy to remember acronyms and communication devices that enable readers to remember. The part about how to "Apply the law" is a valuable exercise for readers to put theory into practice.

Yet, for all the accolades he has won, and the powerful ideas he has put together, I cannot but feel a sense of arrogance in the way that he has described the laws in the first two books. Are his laws so "irrefutable?" Is his take on teamwork so "indisputable?" Is he that perfect in the first place, even considering the years of experience and expertise he holds? Thankfully, his third book has toned down a little bit when he titles it as "invaluable." Maxwell can be a little more modest, though. My problem with the labeling is that Maxwell by using such pounding words, he may have unwittingly hemmed in the minds of readers to think that there are only these numbers of laws. This is the unfortunate result of having such grand sounding titles. It attracts attention, but it can also create negative impressions. Moreover, is it really a "law?" Maybe, it will be better to tone down the rhetoric.

That said, this is still a very readable book, and readers will be challenge by the laws, or at least, some of them.

Rating: 4 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by Hachette Book Publishers and NetGalley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

"Why Jesus?" (Ravi Zacharias)

TITLE: Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality
AUTHOR: Ravi Zacharias
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Faithwords, 2012, (288 pages).

This is another book on the battle of worldviews.The popular speaker and an exponent in Christian apologetics turns his attention on an increasingly pluralistic culture, where everything from Oprah to Chopra is uncritically accepted by the world at large. Providing a critical eye and supported by historical background and research, Zacharias aims to bring back the reality of Jesus in an "age of mass marketed spirituality." It is the author's concern that not only are people no longer critical of the fake, they are dangerously embracing them as "truth." For Zacharias, truth needs to affirm two sets of combinations together:

1. Truth with Relevance
2. Reason and Faith.  

Any worldview that fails to pass the test of any of the four key elements and their combinations thereof, will not fit the criteria for truth. The key idea in all of these ramblings is that other worldviews point either to a principle, a philosophy, a process, or a product. Christianity points back ultimately to a Person. The problem with the world is that it has succeeded in embracing and absorbing all the worldly spiritualities around them. They have been very open-minded and all-accepting. Yet, they have become closed-minded to Jesus and have adopted a default position of skeptical-first-ask-questions later when it comes to Christianity.

Right from the start, Zacharias makes his case by asking readers to probe whether their form of spirituality is fake "movie-making" or true "soul making." He makes this sharp critique: "Giving yourself the privilege of destroying other positions while parking your own position in an unidentifiable location is a form of linguistic terrorism." (14) He then points out the three ways in which the West was lost.

1. Disillusionment with materialism
2. Shallowness, and sometimes hypocrisy of the Church
3. Free from all kinds of restraint, especially sexual matters.

The new spirituality marries the soul's restlessness, disillusionment with material stuff, extreme hunger for liberation, all adds up to a pursuit of anything that promises to resolve all three tensions. Before Zacharias goes on a tirade against worldly spiritualities, he gives readers a helpful overview of some terms and definitions of the new and old spirituality, and especially how the West is taking a mysterious uncritical fascination with Eastern spiritualities. After this, Zacharias goes on the offensive, taking special aim at the two spectrums of erroneous spiritualities. On one extreme, Oprah Winfrey represents a life that started in poverty but ends up with riches. On the other end, Deepak Chopra begins something from the East and grows in influence in the West. Both of them are roundly criticized for their deceptive philosophies that are ultimately empty and meaningless. He reserves his harshest critique for Deepak Chopra, who has benefitted immensely from the works of three Eastern gurus, Swami Vivekananda (who inspired Ayurveda and Chopra), Paramahansa Yogananda (who inspired  Self-Realization and Eckhart Tolle), and the Maharishi (who inspired Transcendental Meditation).

"Behind the popularizers like Chopra are the real metaphysicians of the soul." (113)

Even Buddhism is mentioned, where the danger is the temptation to want to "become" the Absolute rather than to worship the Absolute. Zacharias highlights the three strands over and over again, that a spiritual search for a belief system needs "relationship, stewardship, and worship." On pain, Zacharias shines in defending the Christian faith, and argues actively that the moment we reject Christ, we are also rejecting the Word, the Son, and the Truth. On Jesus, Zacharias also warns readers against distorting Christ to make Christ a non-sufferer, or nonjudgmental. He even critiques authors like Butler-Bolden, who though they market their writings as something neutral, they somehow cast a negative light when it comes to Christianity.

Zacharias is also fair to admit some of the failings of the Church, especially the accusation that churches tend to be "country clubs for nice people." He reserves 5 criticisms for Christians to take note.

1. Christians tend to be nice only to some
2. Christians have forgotten the spiritual practices of devotion
3. Christians have institutionalized Christianity
4. Christians have failed to grapple with pain and suffering sufficiently
5. Christians tend to be judgmental.

Finally, Zacharias suggests three important questions to ask whenever we come across any worldview.

1. "How do they answer the question of exclusivity as it relates to their own belief?"
2. "What is the source of their authority?"
3. "How relevant is what they believe to the common experience; what difference does it really make?"

He ends the book with a quote from GK Chesterton and a hymn from "The Lost Chord" by Adelaide Anne Proctor.

My Thoughts

I applaud Ravi Zacharias for his honest convictions and passionate arguments. He thinks clear. He criticizes without fear. Most of all, he has shown us the way to be more critical with the worldly philosophies and values that sometimes we accept without asking appropriate questions. After all, if our souls are more important, should we not be more cautious about what we are accepting? At the same time, are we practicing double standards when we criticize Christianity fiercely, but fail to apply the same to non-Christian beliefs? This book is valuable for the background information that gives us an idea of how popular spiritualists like Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and other mysterious spiritualities are formed. There are many reasons for disillusionment with Christianity. Yet, there are no easy substitute for the vacuum left behind by the Church in this marketplace of religious ideas, in a pluralistic society. The danger for anyone is two-fold. Firstly, one can become so overly critical of the Church, that they close their eyes on all the good that the Church is doing, or has done. This leads to myopic understanding of the goodness of Christ. Secondly, one can become so all-accepting that by accepting everything, they end up with nothing.

If I have a critique of this book, it will be that Zacharias can be easily accused of being too harsh on Deepak Chopra. It will look as if he has a personal vendetta against the world renowned spiritualist. Looking at the big picture, that is not Zacharias's main concern. His main concern is truth, and Chopra is an example of how some modern spiritual philosophies are dangerous not because they want to market truth, but because whether knowingly or unknowingly, they are masking truth.

Zacharias has given us a valuable tool to engage the culture and so questions to help sieve out truth in a marketplace of ideas. Why should anyone read this book? Let me suggest three reasons. If you are concerned about truth; if you are concerned about distinguishing falsehood from reality; if you are concerned about soul making, this book is a must read.



Ratin: 4.25 stars of 5

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by FaithWords Publisher, a division of the Hachette Book Group without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

"Linsanity" (Timothy Dalrymple)

TITLE: Jeremy Lin: The Reason for the Linsanity
AUTHOR: Timothy, Dalrymple
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: Center Street, 2012, (186 pages).

What's the reason for Jeremy Lin's rise from mediocrity to linsanity? This is the underlying question that laces the entire book. The overnight hero and unlikely star has not only become a basketball sensation, he has galvanized hope for many in a society that is currently economically depressed and spiritually hungry for hope. Jeremy Lin provides glimpses of hope that tell us that any ordinary person who works hard will always have a chance at stardom. Jeremy comes from an Asian culture staunch in educational pursuit and a work-hard attitude. Like any typical Asian American family, his parents put a huge emphasis on academic excellence, and sports often become a distant second or third priority. At the same time, it is hard for any Asian to break into the domain of the world of sports, usually dominated by non-Asian Americans. Despite these barriers, the way Jeremy rescues his team from the brink of defeat, to become a genuine force to contend with in the tough NBA league has made him a household name not just in sports-mad America, but in many Asian communities worldwide.

The author interviews Jeremy, and writes a captivating summary of the events that made Jeremy a star. Using the seven game winning streak by the New York Knicks to coincide with the significance of the number 7 in Hebrew culture, Dalrymple details the background and the ups and downs of the emotions from Game 1 to 7. Like a skilled storyteller, the author weaves in Jeremy's background stories in the midst of an exciting coverage of how Jeremy manages to outshoot, outwit, and outplay some of his toughest and most formidable basketball opponents. In Game 1 against the New Jersey Nets, Dalrymple highlights the role of perseverance in Jeremy's upbringing and character. In Game 2 against the Utah Jazz, the author points out a mysterious and miraculous way in which Jeremy was offered a chance to continue his magical play. As Jeremy celebrates his team's victory with lowly and down to earth humility, the media bursts out highly praising his virtues. The next Game 3 happens to be away against the Washington Wizards.  By then, Jeremy already has a sizeable following, especially among Asians. Dalrymple compares Jeremy's attitude with that of the famous Chinese General Li, whose passion for excellence took center stage. Not only is his team beginning to climb up the table, he is rising up in fame and popularity. It is Game 4 against the LA Lakers that cement his heroic status. It pits a rising superstar in Jeremy against the world famous Kobe Bryant. In a culture split between ethnic cultural expectations and somewhat tense inter-racial relations, coaches, supporters, even players are forced to look at the damage and the silliness of discrimination. As long as Jeremy is playing, the fans keep on coming. By the time Game 5 is played against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Jeremy has become a household name. The underdog has become the hero. Winning five in a row makes Jeremy an automatic first team player. In a world of basketball, Asians are a force to be reckoned with. Game 6 against the Toronto Raptors has one of the most sensational endings. With only 2.2 seconds left to win the game, guess who threw the winning shot? Jeremy's faith in his game stems from his deep faith in God. Even many of the local Toronto fans (with a huge Asian population), scream in delight as they watch the Knicks win the game. Game 7 against the Sacramento Kings shows how Jeremy has played his point guard role to perfection.

My Thoughts

This book is inspiring and gives readers a background on how and why Jeremy Lin has become such a sensation. Not expected to perform, he outperformed all expectations. An unknown on the morning of February 12th, 2012, he became a superstar in a matter of days. Against all odds, Jeremy defines for many of us what "possibility" means. His faith shows Christian believers one version of what hope and trust in God looks like. Dalrymple makes this observation about something that makes Jeremy different. While stars like Kobe Bryant are expected to win, it is stories like Jeremy Lin's that connect better with the everyday man and woman in the street. Just like the story of David and Goliath. While Goliath is "awe-inspiring," David is "inspiring."

Personally, I am inspired by Jeremy Lin's never-say-die attitude to persevere on in a tough environment marked by competitiveness, brutal expectations, discrimination, and unequal status. At the same time, it is also humbling to see how a star like him can continue to maintain a low profile, choosing to honour others before self. Perseverance in one's faithfulness. Humility toward people. Faith in God. These three are the hallmarks of any star. Jeremy Lin has shown us the way. Let more of us be inspired to live not just for ourselves or for others, but for God.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by Center Street Publishers, part of the Hachette Book Group of companies, without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.