Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and it's all small stuff

by Richard Carlson

Paperback, 1997

Status

Available

Call number

158.1

Publication

Hyperion (1997), Edition: 1, Paperback, 272 pages

Description

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and It's All Small Stuff is an audiobook that tells you how to keep from letting the little things in life drive you crazy. In thoughtful and insightful language, author Richard Carlson reveals ways to calm down in the midst of your incredibly hurried, stress-filled life. You can learn to put things into perspective by making the small daily changes Dr. Carlson suggests, including advice such as "Choose your battles wisely"; "Remind yourself that when you die, your 'in' box won't be empty"; and "Make peace with imperfection." With Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... you'll also learn how to: - Live in the present moment - Let others have the glory at times - Lower your tolerance to stress - Trust your intuitions - Live each day as it might be your last. With gentle, supportive suggestions, Dr. Carlson reveals ways to make your actions more peaceful and caring, with the added benefit of making your life more calm and stress-free.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ovistine

I have a thing for reading the occasional self-help book, and of course everyone's heard of these, but it wasn't until the copy was a remaindered $3 hardback edition at Borders that I even glanced at it. I'm glad I did -- while the entire book isn't as good as the first dozen chapters, the first

dozen chapters felt like they were talking right to me. There are some things in the book I'm definitely going to carry with me, and that have already helped me with my anxiety. I'm quite pleased with it.

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LibraryThing member qwiksilver

When I'm stressing out and about to tear my hair out until I'm bald, I hit this book. It gives you a chance to stop, breathe, and realize life isn't all that bad after all. And neither are people.

LibraryThing member EpicLaith

This book has benefited me a lot, I used to take everything as a priority 1, this book has taught me how to relax and at the same time complete my work, as what Carlson said: ‘The purpose of life isn’t to get it all done, but to enjoy each step on the journey’, a very inspirational quote.

There are 100 steps to complete the whole book, easy vocabulary that everyone can understand, its a very nice, short book that can help a lot of people.

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LibraryThing member Steve55

‘The purpose of life isn’t to get it all done, but to enjoy each step on the journey’, says Richard Carlson as the core message of this simple but engaging book.

The title encourages us not to get drawn into living our lives constantly dealing with the small stuff. It’s referring to the way

that things ‘of the moment’ gain an unwarranted importance which consumes our time, leaving us with scarcely the time to ask ourselves what is important, much less the time to pursue it.

The book is structured as 100 chapters, each of only one or two pages and each dealing with a simple strategy to retrieve our lives from the reactive state that we too easily find ourselves in.

The message of the book is don’t waste time on the small stuff and of course, however important we may believe our lives are, if we stand back far enough, everything becomes small stuff.

Several of the chapters are used to help the reader recognise this perspective. The approach to this illustrates the simplicity of the ideas presented. For example in the midst of an argument to become aware of your breathing and count to ten. To ask yourself whether the issue you are fighting for will be important to you in a year’s time. To reflect that with the passage of a period as brief as 100 years, none of us will still be around. Other chapters offer approaches that can help you change your approach and for example become more patient, considerate, thankful, and help you gain control of your perspective on life.

The ideas are simple, but this is their strength. They reflect what we already know. Richard doesn’t set out to teach ideas, rather to gently remind us and encourage us to create a little space to adopt them in our all too reactive lives.

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LibraryThing member ablueidol

Not rocket science advice but a timely reminder of some small practical tips that get the blood pressure down and put things in perspective. One of my favourites is one someone is driving you up the wall with a whole range of negative behaviour, take time out to consider what this is teaching you.

Used this with a Boss who is a sexist, megalomaniac bully(sadly not an exaggeration!) to make sure that I examined any bit of my behaviour that could fall into the same way of behaviouring.

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LibraryThing member sportsbybj

this is great if you need some help keeping your balance.

LibraryThing member AngieMargi

Good commonsense advice, we all should try and live by. Believe me it is quite hard to change your personality, but will always try.

LibraryThing member MissTeacher

In this collection of one hundred "Open Your Eyes" hints to true happiness, I often found myself drifting and wondering. Sure, the things Carlson suggests in his book are wonderful, but I couldn't help but asking: "How do you focus on inner peace when it's a struggle to keep the lights on?" I got a

little too hung up on thinking these tips would only work for the affluent--and when they did seem in reach, there were simply too many of them. That's precisely the reason why I've been reading this book off and on (and over and over) for seven months. There simply isn't any other way to tackle it effectively. The short blurbs are complete wisdom, and it is a book truly worth owning and ingesting piece by piece.

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LibraryThing member chrisweiss

A little too warm & fuzzy for me - I should have expected that though. I got turned off by the number of times the author uses "love" in the text. To be fair, I'm only a few dozen pages in, I'll probably keep going back to it to see if it gets any more palatable.

LibraryThing member Deb85

If you worry a lot, get hung up by trying to be perfect, or feel like life is missing something, try this book. It is a book of 100 brief writings geared toward helping you to stop worrying about things that do not make that much difference in the the great scheme ofthings and start focusing on

things that make the world a better place, if only by taking time to be a nicer, more thoughtful person.

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LibraryThing member stan925

What a load of self serving egotistical crap. It is en vogue to say how wonderful this book is but I found it to be just the authors way of telling you how wonderful he is. Pity one star is the lowest.

LibraryThing member fathensj

it's a good motivational book and i like the way the author relate some stuff to his real life! awesome!

LibraryThing member callmejacx

I got a lot out of this book. It's short chapters made it a fast and fun read. Everyone could always use tips on how to have you enjoy life more. I always thought that I didn't "sweat the small stuff" but I realize now that I could use some improvement. It was really an eye opener. I highly

recommend it.

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LibraryThing member Czrbr

Book Description: Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: Hyperion Books, 1997. Soft Cover. Collectible - Like New/N/A. Psychology

LibraryThing member regularguy5mb

Bought this years ago when it was first all the rage. I don't usually jump on bandwagons like this, but I was at a crossroads in my life and spending a lot of time in Books-A-Million, where the books were on display. It helped me rectify some things in my own mind.

Recently, I've been at another

crossroads and have turned to several other books for some clarification, so I decided to give this another read-through. I'm glad I did.

I forgot how much insight there is within the pages of this text. Using advice and philosophies from multiple sources, Carlson delivers a series of a hundred truisms that everyone should consider at least once in their lives. He doesn't lay anything on heavy-handed, and there is no religious connotation to the advice (in fact, there is a strong Eastern philosophical leaning to many of the statements). Excellent recommendations about living your life, some that I picked up and still follow since my first read, some that I've forgotten and plan to try incorporating now.

Hard not to recommend this one to anyone looking to find changes to help them live a better life.

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LibraryThing member yosbooks

100 tips for simplifying your life and being more at peace.

LibraryThing member clark.hallman

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all small stuff: simple ways to keep the little things from taking over your life, by Richard Carlson, suggests 100 ways for people to change the way they think about or address the stress in their lives. Each of the suggestions is presented on one or two

small pages, which can be quickly read and understood. Most of them address specific issues such as, “Make Peace with Imperfection” or “Become More Patient” or “Become a Less Aggressive Driver” or “Do One Thing at a Time.” The book does not espouse a spiritual approach. However, several of the techniques seem to come from a Buddhist tradition, e.g., “Quiet the Mind” or “Practice Ignoring Your Negative Thoughts” or “Learn to Live in the Present Moment” or “Resist the Urge to Criticize.” Overall this book is a short and simple list of suggestions to help us understand that stress is a ubiquitous part of life, which must be addressed internally by the way we react to it. Carlson does not provide a panacea for stress, but he does provide some helpful concepts. He also presents a short list of selected reading.

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LibraryThing member goosecap

I would call this pop psych or plain psychology; it’s similar to a sort of simple spiritual psychology, but it’s not quite the same. It’s like early Wayne Dyer (70s/80s), or Brene Brown. It’s easy to make fun of, but whatever. It’s not meant to sound difficult, but that just means that

you can’t hide behind the details.

I liked the idea of allowing yourself to be bored. Sometimes your choices are to let yourself be bored or to become super-aggressive. I think that boredom can be a good supplement to meditation; a formal sitting practice is very good, but by itself it becomes just another thing to do, especially if in your main part of your life you only associate with platinum blondes and Nazi hunters, right.

.... Don’t listen to me.

.... Anyway, he does great work that doesn’t require any prerequisite reading, if you like, which has a certain attraction.

.... It’s also nice to “lighten up”, not so much by aching to have fun, but simply by keeping things in perspective.

.... I liked the personal asides as well; it fits that even a pop psych guy could have easily talked too much or got over involved with other people, and nice that he learned to ease it back a little.

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LibraryThing member wareagle78

Good ideas in quick-read format.

LibraryThing member Daniel.Estes

It's rare for me to buy a book on impulse. Thankfully I made an exception years ago for Richard Carlson's best-selling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I was in my late teens, and ardently open to new ways of thinking whenever and wherever they presented themselves. Carlson's book arrived at an ideal

time.

My favorite quote from the book, and one of the greatest realizations that I carry with me even to this day, is actually credited to another inspirational thinker, the late Alfred D' Souza: "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

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LibraryThing member pussreboots

I found this book a quick read. It's not a particularly deep book but it does have some practical advice for keeping things in perspective (a very good thing when one is unemployed and trying to provide for one's family). The bit that fascinated me the most is that the author is from the Bay Area

so some of his specific examples hit very close to home. I am sending this book along to another Bay Area resident who I hope will enjoy this book too.

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LibraryThing member obtusata

Meh. Most of the book was stuff that I'd seen or read in a million other places. Some of it was just silly (a 10 minute bath?! - that's hardly enough time to get in and adjust the temperature). It felt like the author just Googled relevant bits of wisdom and used the book to explain each bit. Many

ideas were repetitive.

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LibraryThing member Tanya-D

This book is a simple book that is comprised of 100 small ways to improve happiness and tranquility in your life. Each tip is only a page or two long and are actually simple things that make a lot of sense. For instance, instead of interrupting someone to agree or disagree on whatever they are

talking about., let them finish what they are saying. In other words, let them have their glory, you don't have to be the center of attention all the time. There were several times throughout the book where I found myself saying 'I am so guilty of that!' One of them talks about not letting things get to you, meaning don't sit there and continue to think of the situation and let it fester. I am guilty of this. However, as I try to live as much of a drama free life as possible, I have found that I also already employ several tactics described in this book. For instance, I always try to see the viewpoint of others. This is a pretty quick read, or can just be read a little bit over time. I would think that by even doing a few of these things, people would find their lives to be a bit simpler and more peaceful.

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LibraryThing member SABC

Stories that reveal ways to calm down in the mist of our incredibly hurried, stress-filled life.

LibraryThing member Kaethe

Like so many books for self-help, there's a huge disconnect between the ease of stating the philosophy, and the ease of implementing it. Besides the huge disconnect between the imagined problem being solved and the real problems most people face.

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