Healthy + Well writer: Clarisse Liclic
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Navigating your life in your college days and even throughout the rest of your twenties is not a small feat. It’s a transient state that most individuals find themselves in as academics, work, family, social lives all seem to overlap and balancing time between outside commitments and with yourself is difficult to do so entirely on your own. However, while it’s expected you learn how to adjust, you can find some advice in your nearest bookstore. These are 5 books that can help address varying aspects of how you can cultivate a positive self-outlook and well-being that’ll make navigating your life as a young adult a little easier:
1. The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay
Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, lays out her reasoning as to why your twenties and the beginning of your adult are just about the most important years of your life. Jay writes in her book that within this decade, an individual is most likely to undergo more changes (within themselves and with their life) than any other. Her book cites over ten years of work and research with hundreds of twentysomething year olds and she utilizes those stories and experiences with scientific explanations as to why an individual’s twenties is a significant decade. It is a book that reassures you that you aren’t alone in the mix of emotions and thoughts you may be feeling as you’re in a time of great transition and uncertainty.
2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
In 2007, Randy Pausch gave his “Last Lecture”, modeled after a series of talks where academics and professors were questioned to think about what in life truly matters to them and thus deliver their hypothetical last lecture to share whatever wisdom they wished to leave behind. However, a month before Pausch gave his, entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, he received a prognosis saying that his pancreatic cancer was terminal. The Last Lecture details the topics that Pausch discussed in his original talk. He emphasizes at the end that it’s not about how to achieve your dream, but more so about how to lead your life so that the good may come. This one is perfect for those who want to take the experiences and words from another at the end of his life to be something meaningful that helps your own beginning.
3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Written in 1988 by Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho, it follows the narrative of Santiago, also known as the “the boy”, an individual whose recurring dreams lead him to undergo an extensive journey through the Egyptian desert to find treasure. The novel introduces the idea of the “Personal Legend”, an aspect inherently tethered to each individual being as being their destined purpose and what they want to accomplish most in life. It’s a heartfelt, introspective series of necessary life lessons (from self-discovery to what love we should accept) weaved into an exciting short tale of a young shepherd’s voyage to find treasure.
4. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
More so now than ever, college students and young adults have their lives closely tied and tethered to online platforms and social media. Cal Newport understands this and in his book, he introduces the philosophical approach of minimalism to personal use of technology, suggesting a different practice that may change our technology-saturated lives. While this may sound like another cliché anti-technology declaration, Newport doesn’t advocate against the use of technology and social media entirely. Instead, he discusses how one may begin to develop a healthier relationship with media consumption where their use of it isn’t time-consuming or dominating, but thoughtful and with a purpose.
5. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Written by Mitch Albom, this memoir detail’s a series of Albom’s visits to his former sociology college professor, Morrie Schwartz, as Schwartz slowly loses his life to ALS. After he seeing him on an ABC News late night show, he feels prompted to visit his old teacher which turns into a series of fourteen weekly visits, always on a Tuesday. This memoir is an incredible, easy read for anyone, however, for college students and young adults it’s full of significant lessons, important reminders, and moments in which, like Albom, may have you looking deeper at the way you foster relationships with work, others, and, most importantly, yourself.
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