You Learn by Living - Book Review

 

I recently finished You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt. This was such an amazing book! I talked to my sister and husband about it every chance I got. This book is full of practical advise on how to improve your life mixed with stories from her own life. As I read it, I was amazed at how much a book originally published in 1960 (only about 2 years before Eleanor Roosevelt died) was still applicable today. There were a few things mentioned that reminded me how far we have come in certain things, and I couldn't relate to things that she enjoyed because of her wealth and station in life. However, I didn't let that take away from the amazing messages of wisdom that poured out from the pages. 

Here are a few quotes I particularly liked:

Today, learning and living must go hand in hand. Each new bit of knowledge, each new experience is an extra tool in meeting new problems and working them out. It takes everything we can acquire to help us understand the new situations, new problems that are arising on all sides. (page 17)

 A mature person is one who does not think in only absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with circumstances of life, knowing that in this world all of us need both love and charity. (page 63)

I think one of the basic things to recognize is that the only valuable development is the development of an individual. If you try to change that individual so that he loses his personality, you have done something that he loses his personality, you have done something that has destroyed the most important thing about the human being, his essential difference from anybody else. (page 69)

If it is essential, though difficult, to learn how to deal with various kinds of people in one's own environment, it is equally essential, and much more difficult, to learn how to deal with various kinds of people from a totally different environment, people of many races and cultures, people whose customs and patterns of thought are altogether unlike our own. At this moment, it is quite possible that the future of the world and of life on this planet depends on our ability to mast the technique of getting along with the many different peoples who inhabit this globe. (page 143)

The last quote I listed is my absolute favorite from this book! It ignites in me a spark I haven't felt for a long time. This book makes me want to get out and meet more people and do something in my community that will make a real difference. I think that this is what I am here on this earth to do.