If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

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J_
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by J_ »

When I was 12 I collected old newspapers and sold them by the weight of them. I got sometimes old books, also to sell them to be used for paper recycling, and there I found my first "ere" treasure: Make it yourself! printed in 1938 or so. Some weeks ago, a half century later, I gave that book to a boy of 12 living next door, he used it to make bird houses, but more important he started to use tools..
I bought at 17 the drawings and building instructions to build a sailing dinghy, which I build and sailed for a couple of years and could sell it for more than my initial investments.
But it saved me not from (some) consumerism in my twenties/early thirties. So I think that at 17 I needed a more simple but very tempting written book like Jacob's, with easy graphs and stories not so subtle as the richest man in babylon but with same message.
Writers in this forum: write it!! There are many 17 teens out there.....

themodernchap
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by themodernchap »

Chad wrote:Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.
DW is reading this at the minute. I might have a go at it after her. Im more extroverted than she is but I still get INTJ on the test.

I would give myself The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. The book and Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London probably put me on the path to who I am today.

zarathustra
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by zarathustra »

"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" by Harry Browne

brighteye
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by brighteye »

I don't think I would have been ready for the ERE book at 17.
Not a book, but I think MMM writes in a way that a teenager would understand.
And though it is not the most popular book here on the forum, The 4-hour workweek was the one book that showed me that there is another way than the standard "work for 40 (50?) years from 9 to 5". It made me open to alternative ways and led me to ERE.

brighteye
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by brighteye »

And I am currently reading "How I found freedom in an unfree world" and it could become a candidate for a book recommendation as well

BRUTE
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by BRUTE »

brighteye wrote:I think MMM writes in a way that a teenager would understand.
brute chuckles

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Slevin
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by Slevin »

I am currently only 22, so I'm not that far off of 17. I'm pretty sure the delta t is probably one of the most important factors here -- but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't give him a book. Back then I certainly wasn't in the same mental place as I was now and certainly had some huge character flaws (I was very arrogant and certainly fiscally irresponsible), but I didn't make any huge mistakes that I would want to correct, and I wouldn't want to derail that path that I eventually took.

Along this line of thinking though, I wish I could have given my 20 year old self the complete works of Taleb. Between then and May of this year I believed that everything was a problem that could probably be solved by a complicated mathematical model, and that science could provide a solution to all our problems, which I now think is a very skewed/wrong view of the world.

Dragline
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by Dragline »

You probably would not have wanted the original Taleb book: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Hedging-M ... 0471152803

It IS all mathematical formulas and jargon. Yet its essentially the same book(s) he wrote later in common English!

jacob
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by jacob »

Reading both math and jargon, I much prefer Dynamic Hedging to all subsequent works. It's much more accurate and concise. I also like his tech papers.

Taleb's subsequent works are essentially "how to manage and hedge a net long strangle options portfolio using phenomenological probability distribution assumptions" translated into English.

Dragline
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by Dragline »

What I meant to say . . .

brighteye
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by brighteye »

BRUTE wrote:
brighteye wrote:I think MMM writes in a way that a teenager would understand.
brute chuckles
I actually see this as a compliment to MMM, I think it is not easy to explain systems in a way that a beginner can understand. That is what makes a good teacher.

BRUTE
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by BRUTE »

a good teacher of teenagers

FBeyer
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by FBeyer »

BRUTE wrote:a good teacher of teenagers
the hardest people to teach...

BRUTE
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by BRUTE »

brute wouldn't necessarily agree. maybe the hardest to teach if FBeyer is trying to teach them things they aren't interested in, which humans call school.

Did
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by Did »

I think this blog and Mr MM. YMOYL, 4HWW.

BRUTE
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by BRUTE »

4HWW is what the internet gave brute when he was young. so there isn't anything brute would change ;) and it's not like brute now lies in a hammock selling pills over the internet, making tons of cash. but it was the first book that made brute realize it's ok to "break the rules" of 9-5.

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fiby41
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by fiby41 »

Worthless: The Young Person’s Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major

TopHatFox
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by TopHatFox »

WORTHLESS -> YEEEEEEEEEES

I wish I had that goddamn book. Fuck me, and all the other forsaken millennials that majored in the wrong shit at 18 yo.

------

As much as I found ERE, MMM, and JLCollins when I was 17 yo or 18 yo, I don't think anyone addressed picking the right major, mostly just to live simply and save the difference and consider a state school above a fancy school. Yeah that's a lot easier when you're a programming majoring INTJ, rather than a sociologist or art history majoring INFP. ><

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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by jacob »

TopHatFox wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:58 pm
As much as I found ERE, MMM, and JLCollins when I was 17 yo or 18 yo, I don't think anyone addressed picking the right major,
A popular subject in the personal finance sphere when I was blogging was to compare the lifetime income of a college degree vis-a-vis a trade. The trade choice almost always won, thanks to its huge headstart, especially for FIRE time-horizons. There were also a lot of jokes about English majors flipping burgers and the importance of looking at employment placement ratios when choosing one's major. However, I also know if I had come across one of those articles or gotten that advice when I was 18, it wouldn't have registered with me.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/who-n ... anywa.html
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-s ... ation.html

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jennypenny
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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Post by jennypenny »

Forgive the OT ...
TopHatFox wrote:
Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:58 pm
As much as I found ERE, MMM, and JLCollins when I was 17 yo or 18 yo, I don't think anyone addressed picking the right major, mostly just to live simply and save the difference and consider a state school above a fancy school. Yeah that's a lot easier when you're a programming majoring INTJ, rather than a sociologist or art history majoring INFP. ><
Actually, you asked this very question when it was time for you to declare a major and got some very good advice. You just chose to ignore it.

I'm not trying to be snarky. I'm pointing it out because you ask lots of questions and get lots of good advice -- about work, college, ADHD, etc -- but ultimately ignore most of the advice you get. Your problem isn't your education or your job or where you live ... your problem is learning how to get out of your own way. If you solve that problem, everything else will probably start falling into place.

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