You’ve inspired a lot of people and most of like the fact that you didn’t major in economics in college, so you can truly relate to the average person.

You define terms and don’t assume we know too much, while at the same time assuming we are intelligent and CAN learn anything we are taught. That’s a good characteristic. Keep up the good work.

I think I’ll print out the artwork for my fridge.

Lets be realistic, most people have debt, most people work 9-5 at jobs that they don’t like at all and that’s why they’re stuck. Also most people are tired after work, and don’t have the time to acquire different skills, or go to college. They have to work to support themselves and their families.

A lot of people don’t know how to get out of that cycle. That’s why the blog appeals to many people, they want to find their own way in life, out of the rat race. When they see someone doing it, yeah it may not be original, but at least they can be encouraged and know that its possible.

The book seems to be more about encouraging people to live their lives and to not just do things because its what is expected out of them by society.

Its actually hard for humans to be original, most of what we’ve done has already been done, said or written by humans centuries before us.

“You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.” (Wow, I’m shocked by his brilliance)

“No one else can be responsible for your success or well-being but you.” (Be still, my heart)

“You are a grown up. As long as your actions aren’t directly preventing others from pursuing their dreams, you have the right (and responsibility!) to pursue your own dreams.” (Thanks for letting me know I’m a grown-up.

Does anyone seriously believe this is new, original, or even helpful? Maybe others are blinded by his brilliance, I find his style pompous and condescending. It might be less irritating if he were addressing 12-year-old’s. I’ll pass on the book and the blog, thanks.

P.S. I’ve traveled and/or lived in most parts of the world, and I never count landing in an airport as bona fide travel.

Btw, I did not like 4 Hour Workweek very much… It was inspiring but I found the content ridiculous (“How to Look Like an Expert without Being One”).

Anyway I’m happy I gave it a chance. Btw, keep the reviews coming, they’re a nice break from financial advice.

While I appreciate his encouragement to go after dreams, Chris doesn’t always make it clear that some dreams (clearly not all) can be pursued in tandem with working a day job. The day job pays the bills, and the dream/passion feeds the soul.

I know that’s not his primary message, but an occasional reminder isn’t a bad thing, IMO.

As soon as my copy arrives, I’m going to unplug for a couple of days and read it. Who knows — maybe it will inspire me to make even more changes in my life.

Thanks for the review!

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

I have a strong personal service ethic, and recently have decided to shift my giving from direct service hours to financial giving (via ModestNeeds.org). Nonprofits do many invaluable things for communities in need. However, I believe that the decision to support them — financially or through volunteer hours — boils down to a personal deliberation, not a formula.

And as one last note, giving has all kinds of ideological considerations, particularly in the U.S. — for instance, who decides who is the “poorest/most disadvantaged” communities? (And *how* did they decide that?) There are pockets of poverty in the U.S. that rival third world country conditions — yet it’s often assumed that the poor in the U.S. are somehow less worthy of assistance (or are lazy, etc). While everyone will have their own opinion on this issue of “worthiness of the poor,” the point is that each one of us has to decide why, how, and when we will give. Grapple with the issue, make your peace with it, and (hopefully!) give with a glad heart.

Good luck!

However, I disagree with two things:
1) The assertion that we don’t need to give money to charity if we help people in other ways.
2) The assertion that because not all charitable programs use money in transparent, sustainable, or efficient ways, we should not give money to charity. (an argument being put forth by commenters to this blog)

Admittedly, I run a charity, so I have a biased view on this. But, I don’t run a charity to make a living. I have volunteered nearly every day of the past 7 years to run this charity. So although I have a stake in this, it’s personal, not financial. Because I have seen the clear evidence of how money can help those in need.

- I don’t have to give money, I can give my time.
JD, I think what you do with your blog is fantastic and helps many people change their lives. But does that really exempt you from making donations to charity? I don’t agree with that. I work as a physician, thus, helping people is my job. conveniently, I make money by helping people. But I have never told myself that because I work an academic physician’s job, teaching resident physicians and medical students, and saving people’s lives and curing them of diseases, that means I’m already doing what I can to help others and to change the world. No, that is my job, and I enjoy it, but charity is not something that you get paid to do. Donating your time to teach is a wonderful thing, but it’s not all that is needed to make a difference in the world. For one thing, it would be impossible for charities to provide opportunities for others to teach if they did not have funding to pay their employees and run their programs. It would also be a major problem for certain types of charities if people decided en masse not to give money, but to give time.

- Not all charities are good, therefore I won’t give to charity
My charity, and many others, are international and spend our money where it is needed most – where the poorest/most disadvantaged people in the world live. People can only give their time in such locations by spending a great deal of money to fly over and volunteer there. They may spend thousands of dollars to do this, whereas giving that same amount of the money to the charity could have saved many more lives (short term volunteer work is unlikely to save any lives, and may actually have negative effects).
See ‘Giving 101′ from GiveWell.org for more explanation on how you can see whether a charity is doing good/worthwhile work, and how you can save a life for less than $1000 – an amazing ‘return on investment’ when it comes to your charitable donation!
http://www.givewell.org/giving101

Things like mosquito nets can be purchased cheaply, and can save lives (this is an example from GiveWell). If people gave only their time and teaching, instead of money, charities would not be able to provide mosquito nets to children in the developing world, to save them from dying early deaths from malaria.

To me it seems glib (and a rationalization) to say that ‘it’s other people’s job to give money to charity, it’s my job to do other things’, if the other things you are doing could really never help to do the things that charity can do best (i.e. saving lives, achieving the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate poverty, hunger, and disease, etc.) Let me put it out there that even if you considered your time to be very valuable, it is unlikely that by volunteering your time you will save lives, although you may improve lives or change them. Again, compare the ‘return on investment’, they are not equal, though both may be valuable.

Here is more from GiveWell on best ways to donate to the Pakistan flood that explains why money is the most important donation (follow some of the links to see why in-kind donations and volunteering are simply not as useful).
http://blog.givewell.org/2010/08/25/our-advice-re-donations-for-pakistan-flood/

p.s. I swear, I’m not affiliated with GiveWell in any way, it’s just a website that I’ve found does a great job in explaining how to make the most out of giving to charity, and why your dollars given to the right charities ARE valuable!

That shouldn’t take away from anything else he does.

Mike

I love Chris’s site & his philosophy and cant’ wait to see him back on tour.

It was awesome meeting you guys & seeing that indeed you BOTH are in fact “real” people.

Chris’ book is a great read [in my humble opinion]. I think everyone should check it out…

http://zenhabits.net/

It’s standard practice (as in: not slimy) for authors to request that reviews be held until the day of release so that, as you’ve noticed, more people are aware of the book. Chris didn’t invent this, and there’s nothing sneaky about it. It’s the same reason you see reviews of new movies every Friday.

I’ve only been reading GRS for a few weeks, but am slowly digging back through the archives. I think I can echo what a few commenters have said though–you’re certainly a key-dropper yourself!

Now for some more digging around the AONC blog…

I feel like I have lost a little respect and I should be more skeptical about anything I read in this blog anymore.

At least the other site don’t pretent to do a random review of a book they liked.

One thing more sneaky about marketeers are people who pretend to be genuine under the disguise of marketing.

I was a bit sad to see your thoughts on charitiable giving. I think we all need to DO some sort of global charitable giving AND drop keys or take local action. My dh is a school teacher, and I work in a similar capacity, which helps us give back–just like your work really does help make the world a better place. But I think that those of us who are lucky to live in this country and other well-off countries have a duty to humankind who are not as lucky as we are. My husband may help numerous kids each year and pays particular attention to high-risk kids. But “his kids” are still SOO lucky to be born in this country where we take so much for granted. They will never have to worry about not having access to clean water and they will have at least emergency medical care available at any public hospital. I think we need to extend our hand in some form, however small, to those who have NO access to helping themselves and no access to even the simple things that we call necessities–perhaps via Heifer Int’l or KIVA or the like.

Moreover, we also use WAY more than our fair share of the world’s resources, and rely on rainforests and other such resources to replenish and fix our damage, despite that those countries with those resources are far less developed than our own. We must be aware of the true cost of our lifestyle on a global scale–it reminds me very much of your prior post regarding the cost of credit card and that the poor may be supplementing the rich. I think the same is true in terms of global resources.

One thing that would-be non-conformists often miss is that it’s wise to be informed. Don’t choose the path less traveled just because you don’t like the common path. Chris clearly reads and thinks … he values education and does his research. He’s not just tramping through life following whatever whim strikes him.

and btw … any kind of business, to be successful, has to engage in marketing. It’s not some kind of scam to use your own website to advertise something you’ve produced; it’s *intelligent.* Anyone skeptical about a writer just because he advertises (and sells) his writing doesn’t understand business at. all.

I’ve only met Chris once, but I got the sense that he truly cares about the success of people he interacts with. He does a lot more listening than talking.

Also, this information from his post today may be of interest for anyone considering the book:
—
“I’m giving 100% of my proceeds to our charity project in Ethiopia for every reader I meet this fall. ”
—

J.D., you apparently don’t see it, but you’ve had a HUGE impact on lots of people (myself included). Whether or not that is your mission, I’m sure it won’t hurt for you to donate to charity and/or work a soup kitchen now and then. The big thing though is that you do make a difference.

You started me on a path that got me from living with debt (seriously, I think it was eating from the fridge at night) to having none, plus a slowly growing savings account balance. I even went back to school, knowing I could finally afford it!

I love the idea of making a list of the things I own. Although I doubt I will ever get down to as few items as Chris owns it has helped me par down my own belongings.

-Justine