This week Indi-blogger inspires us to ponder whether “we think inspiration books are really useful?”
I need to get the ambiguity out of my way and therefore the first question I ask myself is “How do we define the genre Inspirational Books in this context”? Let me adopt the simplistic path and consider those to be a subsection of wide variety of inspirational literature that are promoted aggressively by the marketers.
Let me start with the books that made their authors not only very famous but rich as well. This genre include books like following along with their prequels and sequels.
- Chicken Soup for the Soul
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
- Rich Dad Poor Dad
- Think and Grow Rich
- You Can Win
I believe those became bestsellers for a reason and that being marketed differently. People have either fallen for celebrity endorsement, followed their peers or impulsively got motivated to buy it. As we understand sales make books a best seller while reading those doesn’t. Reading would have got them "The
Man Booker Prizes" or something similar!
I am quite sure we will be shocked if know how many proud owners of these, actually managed to travel cover to cover or for that matter crossed the halfway mark.
My repeated attempts of motivating myself to foray into the depth of those, whether thick or thin has failed and story of my peers were not too different. Me and my friends by the virtue of being average people with ordinary brought-ups, occupy the mid region of the bell curve of population’s standard statistical distribution.
The exceptional occupy the spaces in the fringes and they managed to derive great mileage by competing the books. They shinned brighter than we average souls while others excelled and went on to create more of such inspirational books. The picture is captured well in the info-graphic.
Info-graphic
Maybe the question is “if books that inspire people are really
useful?” The would be a thumping YEAS.
Books that narrates stories of real men and women with lot
of empathy, really inspires us. The story of Robert Bruce and the spider, I can
vouch has inspired generations to keep trying and never to give up till we
succeed. It’s the book on Gandhi’s life that taught every human being to be the
change that they want to see. (Really! It Did?)
The life of Nelson Mandela taught us that “the greatest
glory in living lies not in falling, but in rising every time we fall” and when
we are faced with an uphill task, we hear the whisper “it always seems
impossible until it’s done.”
During his lifetime, Steve Jobs has been a phenomenon of
innovation and endurance which we knew without reading his biography. In his
end, Jobs inspired us not to fear death with his final words “OH WOW. OH WOW.
OH WOW.” Which in my view is quite similar to Om Shanti. Om Shanti. Om Shanti.
P.S. there are many souls that inspires us and built our
characters. There are no particular reason why I selected some over other
although there is a definite reason why I did not mention the holy books or
religious scriptures.
It’s true that stories within every religion inspires their practitioners
like no other but I did not want my argument to be constricted by personal
beliefs.
