Read the Four Agreements

this is a very, very helpful book to read as it speaks to so many people’s insecurities, even if you aren’t spiritual or think all this books are new age crap, there is a lot of validity to the concepts. i personally don’t think the writing of it is superb, but it gets the job done and i keep the book in my purse and read it on the bus
REAAAD ITTTTTT!! :)

...since that is really where this falls. Some of the book was worthwhile, but other parts made me feel like I was reading the secret (another book I don’t really put on the must read list…) I like the actual concept of the four agreements. I think they have merit, but the book didn’t quite hook me. And I also agree with breaking the negative agreements or recordings you have in your head, but I didn’t feel like this concept was anything new or earth shattering as the author seems to try to say…

The hardest one of the day changes daily.

I read this book (by Don Miguel Ruiz) sometime shortly after I graduated from college, recommended to me by one of my best girlfriends. It changed me. I try to live with awareness and intention every day now. Some days are harder than others, and I fail often. I’ve made this one of my 43 things to remind myself that I have the power to create my my own heaven or hell on earth simply through my choices and my outlook.

I was relating an incident of particular difficulty to a friend of mine – one having to do with a member of my family who is always bitter, angry and hurtful – and somewhere along the way she said, “Have you read The Four Agreements? Because what you just said sounds like something I read in the book.”

I’d heard of the book from friends, and authors of books of a similar genre have mentioned it as well. Even Oprah mentions it from time to time on her show. But I’d never read it.

So, I went out the next day, bought the book, and nearly read it in one entire sitting. Not only has it begun changing my life, but its helping me to see things through my 19-year old son’s eyes. He’s a deep thinker, a true humanitarian, and often feels out of touch with his friends because he’s so in touch with his feelings and with man and animal kind.

So much of what Ruiz says reminds me of things my son has shared with me – like how we as human beings have a tendency to make things difficult when they don’t have to be, or how there would be more peace in the world if people would just say what they mean and mean what they say.

Not long into the first chapter, I called my son out in his room and started reading excerpts from the book to him. After about five such calls, he finally asked me to please buy him a copy of the book, which I did the very next day. Still, we were up until nearly 2am that night talking about different passages. It was truly amazing.

I’ve since finished the book, and I’m now ready to read it again. This is one of those volumes that you need to refer to constantly in order to begin to LIVE the Four Agreements – which is now number one on my list of things, as I believe getting my personal “house” in order will help me accomplish the myriad other things I want to do in my life.

I’ve been working on ‘Don’t Take It Personally’, and I think it’s helping some – when my husband went completely ballistic over something last week, I was genuinely able to look at his reaction and not feel it was my fault, he was choosing to be blindly angry and not listen to any outside input. I felt a little frustrated but mostly sad that I could not reach him and clear things up. His behavior also helped to remind me of why we’re not currently living together (see my first goal, ‘decide about my marriage’). That his out-of-control, unpredictable responses had made me into a nervous wreck, and I had to get clarity that if he responded angrily to something I said without trying to provoke him, then even if he declared that I said or did it ‘just to piss him off’ didn’t make it so – I had to search my own heart and intent and to know myself as best I could, and stick with the first agreement, ‘Be Impeccable With Your Word’, which I have always tried to do anyway. ANyway, it was eye-opening, and made me think that the next logical step is for me to work on my own upset and angry responses, reminding myself that there’s a fairly good chance whatever it was wasn’t intended to make me angry, it simply is, and I can choose to be or not be angry – MY choice.

this book is great. there are some religious elements that i wasn’t quite willing to digest, but all-in-all, it’s a must-read. I presented a workshop on the four agreements to my university community and the roundtable discussions were incredible!

there are great life’s lessons to be learned, and you’ll feel much better as a person if you can apply these principles even SOME of the time.

who told me about the book asked how it was going the other day, and I said I was having trouble with the first agreement – be impeccable in your word, since a lot of the time, due to stuff out of my control, or due to simple human frailty, I am late or not everything gets done. (My husband was always on my case about my endless lists and why didn’t i just make them shorter, and I’d point out that everything on them still had to get done eventually, and anyway, at least I HAD a list), anyway, the guy at work said I should check out the next agreement about not taking it personally, and that if I was late somewhere because I was caring for a child, or if something didn’t get done because a friend had needed me or something of that nature, then I was still being impeccable with my word in that children and friends are simply more important to me and I value the energy spent with them over and above all else because after all why else are we here, and what will we have left when we’re gone, and who knows when we’ll be gone anyway. So, I’m not sure it’s a valid reading and am still worried that if I allow other things to impede my accomplishment of goals I set out to do in the morning, am I still being impeccable with my word? And mam, o mam, Ruiz wasn’t kidding when he said that this was at the root of it all – staying with yourself and not bowing to expectations, but differentiating that from responding to peoples’ genuine need, and when are you copping out and when are you being real – have we spent so much time being what society says we’re “supposed” to be that we are no longer even capable of being who we should be if we’re going to be the truest version of ourselves.

The best analogy comes from a chassidic tale, where Reb Zusya declares that when he faces the holy throne above, God will not ask him why he wasn’t more like Moses or Abraham, or any of the supposed ‘greats’, God will ask why he wasn’t more like Zusya! It’s deep, and so hard to accomplish in an honest and still unselfish way.

told me about this book and how it would change everything in my life, just how I perceive and frame each and every issue and moment.
I hadn’t thought of reading it as a ‘thing’, but with so many fellow travelers, it makes sense to put it on the list and get to it, sharing the insights and learning with others along the way – gonna order it right now. Though I usually borrow books from the library these days, (see ‘get rid of stuff’ thing), this seems like a book I’ll want to write in and re-read, and they tend to frown on the former in library books :-)