The Best Book on Perspective and Stress.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff is the best book on perspective and stress.

Those who know me may think I am the last person who should write a blog post on perspective and stress. I am known to obsess on the price of coffee at McDonald’s vs. Starbucks. (I highly recommend McDonald’s. If you use the app, any size coffee is usually $0.99, and I think it’s better than Starbucks.) My nephew says if you don’t use the app when you’re at McDonald’s, “you’re an idiot.” He likes to yell it as if it were the worst crime a person could commit. I wouldn’t go as far as he does, but $0.79 off every cup of coffee is pretty good. I don’t buy junk food at McDonald’s, but the app shows they have tremendous deals on those items.

Back to the best book on perspective and stress. I have tried many things over the years to relax and have a better perspective. Stoicism, as presented by Ryan Holiday, especially in The Obstacle Is the Way, has helped me more than anything, and I mention Holiday in my books. (Read about my books here.) However, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, by Richard Carlson, is a very easy read and covers many concepts of stoicism. I’ve read it at least seven times and talk about it in The Three Rules to Lose Weight. If you have one book on perspective and stress, I hope it is Don’t Sweat. If you have room for a second book, get The Obstacle is the Way. These books may change your life.

Don’t Sweat has 100 lessons, each being a page or two. The lessons are simple, and not every one will apply to your life or situation, though most will. Don’t let the subtitle, “And It’s All Small Stuff,” bother you. Certainly, there could be something truly catastrophic in your life. If that is the case, this book may help you, but nothing will adequately salve the pain you’re experiencing. Thankfully, the stuff in most of our lives is small. Thirty years in medicine taught me that almost everyone has the same issues—finance, family, job, a boss, a significant other, kids’ behavior, etc.

Each lesson in the book is short and simple to understand. The first lesson is the title. We too often turn a small event into a big deal. Carlson uses the example of a driver cutting you off in traffic. It can be scary, but if no accident occurred, there is no benefit to getting worked up, retelling the story to everyone you know, and being in a foul mood the rest of the day. It’s a conscious decision to keep rehashing the story in your head and telling it to others. You are granting the other driver magical powers to ruin your day. The second lesson, which is the one I mention in The Three Rules to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, is “Make Peace With Imperfection.” None of us is perfect. None of our homes or cars is perfect. Learn to live with it. Several months ago, we found a narrow crack in the ceiling. I obsessed on it, letting my mind “snowball,” which is a concept in Don’t Sweat. I imagined scenarios where we would lose tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe the ceiling would fall apart, ruining the house. As you can guess, I couldn’t even find the crack a short time later. If I had accepted the ceiling’s imperfection immediately, I would have had far less anxiety over the next several weeks.

“Will This Matter in a Year” has helped me repeatedly. I was in Iowa with my wife. It was 4:30 a.m., and I was in the hotel’s cafe. The coffee was too hot, so I had the lid off. I had the book open to that chapter when I knocked the coffee over, spilling a metric ton of it onto the open laptop. I felt all kinds of stress and was ready to scream. I saw the chapter’s title, and in a few minutes, I was relaxed.

Most of the lessons are helpful. I strongly recommend you get the book and read it, unless you already have no stress and an ideal perspective. Get the hardcover so it will last forever. I read it at least once a year, one short chapter daily. I’ve never met anyone who read it and didn’t learn something valuable.

Richard Carlson died young from a pulmonary embolism while on an airplane, proving conclusively that the length of one’s life is not the most important thing about them. His wife, Kristine, has written several books and manages a website, https://dontsweat.com. I haven’t read any of her books because they are geared more to women, but I would be shocked if they are not helpful.