Your 20s are a time for figuring out who you are and what you want from life.
While
the only way to learn is to survive the inevitable cycle of successes and
failures, it is always useful to have some guidance along the way.
To
help you out, we've selected some of our favorite books that likely never made
your high school or college reading lists.
It's
an eclectic selection that focuses on topics like identity, how you see the
world, and laying the foundation for a fulfilling career.
Here's what we think you
should read before you turn 30:
Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius
As you become an
adult, you realize that there will never be a time in your life where
everything is just as you hoped it would be.
"Meditations"
is a collection of personal writings on maintaining mental toughness from the
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who ruled from 161 to 180 AD and became
remembered as one of the great "philosopher kings."
As Gregory Hays notes
in the introduction to his excellent translation, Marcus wrote his musings on
resilience and leadership in a "dark and stressful period" in the
last decade of his life.
The emperor's version
of Stoic philosophy has remained relevant for 1,800 years because it offers
timeless advice for gaining control of one's emotions and progressing past all
obstacles in one's path.
The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays' by Albert Camus
We all have a reason
to get out of bed in the morning, and we start to question that reason after
entering the real world.
As "The
Stranger" author Albert Camus sees it, all people find themselves in an
irrational world struggling to find meaning for their lives where there is
none.
His main message,
however, is that just as the legend of Sisyphus tells of a god who was
eternally punished by having to push a rock up a hill only to have it fall down
each time he reached the peak, we should embrace the drive for meaning and lead
happy, fulfilling lives with a clear-eyed view of the world.
Crime and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Regardless of your
personal philosophy, there will be times when the world pushes against you and
you wonder why it's worth trying to better yourself and help others.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's
novel is not only a gripping story, it's an argument against the nihilism that
was popular among Russian intellectual circles in his time.
"Crime and
Punishment" is the tale of a 23-year-old man named Raskolnikov who, acting
on a nagging urge, murders two old women and then struggles with processing the
act.
Dostoyevsky argues
that rationalism taken to its extreme ignores the powerful bonds that connect
humanity and give us responsibility over each other.
Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy
William Faulkner and
Time Magazine called Leo Tolstoy's novel "the best ever written."
As the main plotline
of a doomed affair between Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky unfolds, Tolstoy
explores the strife present in nearly every aspect of human existence, like
love, family, social class, and what it means to be happy.
We recommend the
excellent English translation by Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky.
The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
As many a psychologist
would tell you, being a mentally healthy person requires integrating your
childhood into your adulthood.
There is probably no
greater expression of childhood wonder and sorrow than "The Little
Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Drawing on the
author's experiences as an aviator in Africa, the book follows a young prince
as he visits increasingly surreal planets.
"Of all the books
written in French over the past century, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 'Le Petit
Prince' is surely the best loved in the most tongues,"
The Power of Myth' by Joseph Campbell
An American student of
the psychologist Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell spent his life revealing the
connections between the world's faith and folk traditions. He developed the
idea of the monomyth, which states that all myths have the same
basic structure, from Moses to Odysseus to Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter.
"The Power of Myth"
is a wide-ranging conversation between Campbell and the broadcast journalist
Bill Moyers. Conducted at the end of a decades-long career, the interview
format serves as an introduction to Campbell's eye-opening perspective, that
purposefully or not, we are living out myths in our lives.
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