Within one month of our shared quarantine, I began to dive into a handful of self help books and articles. Among them, was a specific book that has stuck with me for the past few months after I read it. Also, might I add that this book spoke to me so personally that once I began reading it, I was unable to put it down until I turned the very last page. It took me exactly an hour to finish this 140-page book, which isn’t a lot, but you get my point.
A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom – The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a book that I recommend to most friends who seem to be limited spiritually within their daily lives. He wrote this self help book for those of us who need a little more guidance than the rest of society. But in my opinion, this book should be recommended to every student because of the humbling warmth it radiates to each of its readers. For starters, the book helps the reader to realize that most suffering is ‘self-created’ and that by agreeing to these four premises within the book, you can smother your battle in life and start living up to your truest potential.
Ruiz begins his book with a small introduction to what the ‘Smokey Mirror’ is and how it resides within each and every one of us. The definition that Ruiz gives us basically means that people view mirrors as dreams or ‘interpretations of reality’ that they self-create. In the beginning he introduces a student who basically has an epiphany and begins to see himself within everything that is on earth, whether that be humans, the sky, or even man-made objects. This opens the student’s mind up to who he really is, along with everyone around him. He says that everyone in the world is ‘dreaming’ and cannot perceive their true nature due to the foggy mist in between us. In order for us to properly perceive ourselves and the world around us, we must adhere to these four agreements that Don Miguel Ruiz states within the pages of his book.
Now, before I even began to read this book, I was under the impression that it was going to be just another ordinary ‘self help’ book that tells me to exercise daily, eat better, and create a better spiritual bond with the world, but instead the book educated me on how to rewire my view of the world and people around me with just four simple ‘agreements’. Since I’ve finished the book, I’ve found myself reciting these agreements in my head almost daily and reminding myself to follow them with ease. Practice makes perfect.
If you want to achieve a better outlook on life and the way you’re living it, I highly recommend reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It truly changes the way you live and exist in the world.