How did I hear about it?

I don’t know how The Four Agreements ended up on my reading list. I don’t mean that I don’t remember the sequence of steps I took to add it, I mean it seems impossible that such a book would be on my reading list. You see the full title of this book is The Four Agreements: Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Toltec Wisdom Book) and it’s the Toltec Wisdom bit of the title that normally acts as a repellent. Toltec is an ancient Mesoamerican culture and if there’s one thing we know about wisdom from ancient cultures its that they’re notorious for being wrong. Yes, it’s true. Still the book was on my list so I assume I had a well researched reason for adding it. I started reading and the drill is simple, if I start reading a book then I have to complete it.

Now I’ve completed it and …?

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in one afternoon. It’s not very big but also Don Miguel Ruiz makes his points using simple, natural language without patronising the reader. The key point is that we live our lives based on agreements we’ve made with society. Unfortunately society’s primary goal is control and we didn’t have much of a say in the agreements as they have been drilled into us since we were children.

One such agreement, for example, is when as a child you’re singing and your parents tell you that you don’t sing well. After hearing this repeatedly you eventually stop singing because you have come to the agreement that you don’t have a good singing voice. It doesn’t matter that singing makes you happy, you would rather deny yourself that pleasure than break the agreement. Of course you can’t blame your parents because they too had the same agreements imposed on them.

According to “Toltec” wisdom (more on that later) all that matters is happiness and you only need four agreements with yourself to find happiness. These are 1) be impeccable with your word, 2) don’t make assumptions, 3) don’t take things personally and 4) always do your best. That’s it. Break the old agreements, adopt these new ones*, live happily ever after.

As for all this talk about Toltec wisdom it’s like calling your ice cream flavour Planifolia, it might attract hippies but ultimately it’s still just Vanilla.

* ignore the fact that this is someone else telling you to make these agreements

What are some sample quotes?

We train our children whom we love so much the same way that we train any domesticated animal: with a system of punishment and reward

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive

The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human

Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves

Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves

When we believe something, we assume we are right about it to the point that we will destroy relationships in order to defend our position

Was it worth the money?

As I stated earlier, I had reservations about reading this book but once I did read it I thought it was well worth the (admittedly quite small) effort. The four agreements speak for themselves and are pretty obvious but the surrounding narrative really helps to reinforce the point.

Verdict: Buy.