Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I ask here because many of my pre-existing values/line of thinking match with those of the forum.

It wasn't just one book that helped me become who I am today. It's a tough one. If I could give any book, I would probably give past self my journal so he could learn from future self's mistakes.

Not the answer you were looking for, I know!

Serious response to the question, my biggest regret is leasing an expensive car so I could move 6 miles to and from work every day. In the process wasting many thousands in potential savings. So in short, a bicycle maintenance reference book like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0976 ... HF6NHGE5TX

Hopefully past self would have got the hint!

Obviously a book that contains the historic stock prices or sports results for the same period would be ideal, but if that doesn't count then it would probably be The Intelligent Investor. There aren't any books that have influenced my life very much.

"Your Money Or Your Life."

Two books? Add "Who Moved My Cheese?"

7Wannabe5's posts on sexuality and relationships in this forum.

As if my 17 year old self could have grasped the concepts...,

I had my kid read Early Retirement Extreme before he left for college. But it didn't exist when I was 17.

My 17-year old self really needed to read something like Mindset by Carol Dweck. Not that that book existed then either. But I'm sure something like it did.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0960695400
http://physics.wustl.edu/katz/scientist.html

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Took me a long time to understand the extroverted dominated society wasn't the only way. Though, it didn't exist then.

There are other books too, but as Dragline mentioned, I'm not sure my 17 year old self would have understood them or been able to take away much.

What I really wish I would have had was the internet at 17. Growing up in a very rural area with limited experiences or knowledge outside that area can be a major obstacle.

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States

And it just so happens that I did read that book when I was 18 after hearing it referenced in Good Will Hunting.

The ERE book. I don't think I would have ended up going to college.

Although, I did read it for the first time a month after turning 20. So close enough.

The most important books I've read probably wouldn't be fully appreciated or implemented by 17-year old me. The old martial arts saying, "when the student is ready, the master appears," seems to have held true to my literary journey. I have always found what I needed at the time, and often it was something that wouldn't have had value to me at an earlier stage of development.

That said, if it had existed and I could be sure I would grasp it, ERE is a pretty obvious choice and it would've lead me to a number of the other books I considered listing.

I think that the main concepts in the ERE/MMM blogs are what I most want to tell my 17 year old self. The ERE book is the closest fit for that currently.

There's another concept about the relationship of capital, power, freedom which I picked up from one of the ERE/MMM forums, combined with reading ERE & Cal Newport's SGTCIY.

I suppose the best book would be the one that you write to yourself. Quick! Write the book you wish you had, and then we'll put it into the ERE time capsule! Time capsules travel backwards too right?

The ERE book is the first thing that comes to mind.

Alternatively, anything with a strong pro-entrepreneurship you-can-do-it slant would have been good. At that age I had a lot of entrepreneurial aspirations but my parents and teachers convinced me I should focus on schoolwork and grabbing the first rung of the corporate wage-slave ladder instead.

No regrets in my bibliographical history but I actually wept when I read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill when I was around that age because I related so strongly to being oppressed by the "tyranny of the majority." Hmmm...maybe my 50 year old self should read it again.

If I had read the ERE book at 17 (and if it had existed then), I would probably have dismissed it and thus likely denied myself the chance to discover it at a more appropriate time in my life when actually ready to understand the significance. I.e. the fertile soil thing.
I envy those very few under-20-s here who are able and willing to see the whole picture at that age. (I also realise that what I imagine "the whole picture" to be is based on my current limited perspective at twice that age).

I'm not sure what book I needed (maybe a book about stoicism), but I know the exact date I needed it. I was 12, not 17. I traced the threads enough in my head to know where my train got ripped off its tracks .

@slsdly: From personal experience I can say that reading books about things outside your control at that age can cause more confusion than give guidance.

I read the ERE book at 17, so that one. (:

A close second: How to be Free in an Unfree World, also read by my moody 17-year-old self

I'm not sure the 17 year old me would have listened. He was a bit hard headed.

I would like to say the ERE book, but my 17 year old self wasn't smart enough to understand it, I'll freely admit that I still don't understand most of the equations (although I can apply them by creating spreadsheets etc.)

Assuming the aim of this exercise is to avoid past mistakes by providing future wisdom, I would punch myself in the face with a copy of The Richest Man in Babylon.

Cheesy, trite and not particularly ambitious, but it teaches some key lessons about saving, investing and avoiding debt. What I really needed as a 17 year old was someone to tell me that I would need to earn a living and find my way in the world, not vague suggestions that university was the way to go.

Haha, my 17 year old self would probably have hated my now self.