You can only find this book that I’m going to recommend on audio, but it’s wonderful! It’s a fantastic little audio program on not “biting the hook” of anger and resentment — and what I also love is that the author has a voice like Lisa Simpson.
I’m serious! That’s immediately who I thought of when I heard her speak for the first time.
Anyway, as Pema Chödrön says, I’ll bet that as soon as tomorrow you’ll have an opportunity to practice patience — and this book will show you how.
She helps us relate and respond constructively in situations that would ordinarily drive us over the edge, instead of reacting with mindless anger.
For such a short audiobook, it’s packed with insights and moments where all you can do is press “pause” and really reflect on how self-evidently true what she’s saying actually is:
That patience is a revolutionary act; that however we react, we’re casting a vote for who we want to be in the future; that so often we say we want happiness, and yet so many of our words and actions are pulling us away from happiness.
There’s more wisdom-per-minute in here than most things you could spend your time watching or listening to, and I find myself coming back to my notes from her book whenever the world reminds me that it’s time to work on my patience again.
With that being said, here are the top 5 takeaways from Don’t Bite the Hook that will help remind you of most people’s basic goodness (as well as your own), and give you a few ideas that will help you protect yourself against the corrosive effects of anger, resentment, and other destructive emotions.
“Patience is a revolutionary act.”
My Take: Anger has a momentum all its own, and today, we can all get drawn into it so easily.
Because of this, when someone stands up — patiently, yet firmly — and refuses to participate, that person is engaging in something of a mini revolution. A peaceful uprising against rage and antagonism.
It’s so easy to become one of the angry ones. And when that’s your daily, waking reality, it becomes easy to stay in that state.
That’s why we usually need a series of pattern interrupts, revolutionary reminders that we’re more alike than we are different, and that we might actually be on the same team.
…
“Our knee-jerk reaction is often to harden our heart.”
My Take: Extending Chödrön’s thoughts from above, patience isn’t usually our first reaction either. It’s a trained response, made more likely in the future based on how often we practice it in the present.
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“Patience is an armor that allows you to go anywhere without closing off your heart.”
My Take: I love this! One of my favorite quotes in the book. Similar to the one in the “Additional Takeaways” section below, where she says that instead of carpeting the world so you’re protected against things that offend you or enrage you, you can put on shoes so you can walk anywhere.
When you have patience, you can go anywhere. Your heart can function, yet still be protected. Again, this isn’t many people’s default state. It has to be developed, earned. It’s a real achievement, and one that’s absolutely worth striving for.
…
“Put good things in front of your eyes all day and turn the tide of negativity.”
My Take: This is sooo important! Your subconscious mind is always paying attention to what you’re seeing, experiencing, feeling, hearing, thinking — it’s never NOT paying attention to any of those things.
James Allen, the author of one of my favorite books of all time, As a Man Thinketh, likened the mind to a garden, where the thoughts you plant there are like seeds that will bring forth.
It’s up to you what you plant there — patience or anger, love or hatred, understanding or hostility — and it’s just like Marcus Aurelius said too: your life is what your thoughts make it.
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“Our potential to be bothered is what allows things to bother us. So we can work on dampening our potential to be bothered, rather than striking out against all the things that are likely to bother us.”
My Take: This reminds me of the saying, “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”
It really is like putting on a suit of armor that makes you invincible to negative emotions (or at least they won’t affect you for long) and enables you to move through the world at peace. And with patience and grace.
“Non-aggression is a synonym for patience.”
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“Absurdly, but predictably, we fan the flame of our own anger.”
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“The Buddha never said, ‘This is true.’ He always meant for people to test it for themselves.”
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“I bet that tomorrow you’ll have an opportunity to practice patience.”
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“Nonviolence is just as contagious as violence.”
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“Don’t stop seeing someone as a person when you find out they don’t agree with you.”
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“Let the world touch your heart.”
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“You can try to carpet the entire world so that it won’t hurt you to walk through it, but you’ll never have enough carpet. Or you could put on shoes, and you can walk anywhere.”
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“In order to be capable of hurting anyone, you have to make them wrong in your mind, you have to make them into the enemy.”
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“The reward for patience is more patience.”
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“The people who most annoy us are usually the most unhappy, and we can kind of give them a break by being one of those people in their lives who doesn’t push back in anger and who actually models some of the kindness of which they have been deprived.”
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“When we see how easy it is for people to hate themselves, and to do things that are bad for themselves, it’s easy to see how they can mistreat other people just as easily.”
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“Someone just attacked you. If you attack them, then you’ve cast a vote for being the kind of person who attacks people, and you make yourself capable, little by little, of acting that way in the future.”
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“Resenting people for what you see as basic badness is like resenting fire for having heat. Resenting people for covering up their basic goodness with evil actions is like resenting the sky for having clouds.”
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“It requires fearlessness and courage to experience compassion, because it hurts.”
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“The image of compassion is the mother with no arms whose child has just fallen into the river. But it’s that feeling that is evoked that benefits others.”
Download My Complete Notes from “Don’t Bite the Hook” (Free)
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Don’t Bite the Hook is a wonderful little audiobook and I absolutely recommend reading it for yourself. Or, listening to it. These takeaways give you a very good idea of what’s waiting for you there, but if these interested you, definitely read the whole book.
And of course, if you want more book recommendations from me (from the 1,300+ books I’ve read at the time of writing), subscribe to my free newsletter, The Reading Life, which is enjoyed by 4,800+ people each week.
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I post in-depth book reviews, podcast interviews with famous authors, and tactical videos that will help you earn more money in your business.
With that said, I hope you enjoyed (and profited from) these takeaways, and I’ll be back soon with more great books!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. These 100 Books Will DRAMATICALLY Improve Your Life👇
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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