Recently I read The Monkey Theory by Sfurthi Sahare. I read the book’s blurb and felt like it’s going to be about the things I’ve read in other self-help books and blogs but with a different approach. And it did turn out that way!
What’s the book about? Link to heading
It’s about the “monkeys” in our head. These monkeys are our various traits and/or emotions. For example, Procrastination Monkey or Fear Monkey. It’s about how we live so much in our head that it often leads to things in real life. In that sense, it’s similar to the ideas presented in “The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind” by Dr Joseph Murphy.
It talks about how, in spite of our best intentions and goals, we fail to achieve what we have set out to. How various monkeys get in our way and ruin things for us. How our inability to control our minds leads us to fall short of our dreams.
How these monkeys, that prevent us from achieving our goals, end up making us loathe ourselves and even bring down our self-worth, unbeknownst to us.
What did I love about this book? Link to heading
After finishing the book, I read a review about it that said that the book was useless because it didn’t present any new ideas and it was all same old wisdom. I found that harsh.
In my humble opinion, the wisdom shared by age-old texts is simply presented differently in modern books. Having read “The Gita for Children” and “The Vedas and Upanishads for Children”, I find modern wisdom to be the same points presented in different language/manner. Most times, they present a technique/method/process that sets them apart from old wisdom or other books on modern wisdom.
This book seemed no different to me in that context. What I loved was the way the author presented the ideas using “monkeys”! To me, that was an absolutely new tyle and it helped me finish the book in a day. It was funny and engrossing.
In the end, it also shares a simple technique to keep these “monkeys” at bay and make sure that we can focus on what’s actually important.
That’s it Link to heading
I think this book is best suited for teenagers. Most teenagers I have met in my family dislike reading and talking to them about any kind of self-help/self-improvement books is like stepping into a territory full of mines. But, I think, the style in this book is simple and funny enough to keep these people engaged and maybe help them overcome the dislike/fear they have for reading. 😉