“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” – 4/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: clock time, pain, ego, overthinking, fear, love and the power of now.

To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of Eckhart Tolle’s extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being, “The eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.” Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question-and-answer format to guide us.

A word-of-mouth phenomenon since its first publication, The Power of Now is one of those rare books with the power to create an experience in readers, one that can radically change their lives for the better.

So I finally read “The Power of Now”. Overall, my opinion of this book is positive, but I still a little conflicted with what I’ve read and I can’t fully accept the premise… but I’ll get to that in a second!

The book talks about how we should be living in the present and to not overthink, because when we do that we get stuck in the past and in the present. It’s important to focus on our emotions in the “Now” and accept what we are feeling, whether it’s pain or happiness. That way, we’ll finally be able to connect to our true essence – our “Being”.

It was a very interesting read! I believe this book has a very interesting point of view on the “Now”, overthinking and how pain controls our lives. It made me reflect on my own thoughts and how overthinking the past or the future is pushing me away from inner peace.

One thing I found interesting was what he said about how people try to have a relationship with themselves (by using phrases like “I want to love myself” or “I’m my own best friend”) instead of just being themselves. By using this internal dialogue we are separating ourselves into two different entities, when we should just be ourselves fully. That was a very interesting point of view!

Another point of view I found interesting was when the author talked about modern art. He says artists nowadays are not truly connected to their inner “Being”, and their art reflects that – it has no heart. To be honest that made a lot of sense to me! Obviously there are exceptions out there, but I feel the same way about most modern art.

So why didn’t I love this book? Even though I agree with most of what was shared by the author, I was sometimes confused and I didn’t agree fully with the teachings. I think the “problems” I had with this book were the inflexibility of the points of view and the attitude behind them. For example, the author says to live in the present at all times and that we should forget the past and the future fully. And when the questions are made, like “but I have to pay rent, how can I do that by living in the present?”, the author responds with the same sentences over and over again “just live in the present”. This didn’t sit very well with me. I wish these responses were more specific.

I understand the point is to not question what the main message is and just accept what is being said as it being the ultimate truth. And part of me couldn’t do that. It just feels unrealistic to constantly live in the now – I’m pretty sure not even monks can do that at all times. And sure, the past is in the past and the future is not here yet, but I believe it’s important to know where you came from and where you’re going. Thoughts can save us from a lot of trouble in my humble opinion! In the book he mentions this as well, but it is quickly brushed off.

The writing was okay considering how complex the topic is. I liked the answer/question format a lot, and I believe it helped a lot to get the messages across in a simpler way.

You can read this book if you’re not religious, but keep in mind that there are plenty of references to various religions. With that said, he only uses examples of teachings, the book is not religious in nature.

I liked the book, but I wasn’t super impressed. It is not a perfect book by any means, but I still took some interesting points of view from it.