Book Report: The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by: Miguel Ruiz

This book begins by explaining that we are all living in a dream. A dream that was created by the rules set up by our parents and society as we grew up and then the agreements about truth that we make with ourselves as adults. Our minds are cluttered with these so called agreements that we have chosen to believe. If these agreements are negative we spread them to other humans and reflect some of that negativity back to ourselves. Likewise if we have positive agreements. Interesting theory.

The four agreements:

1. Be impeccable with your word. This doesn't just mean what you say to others, but what you say to yourself.


2. Don't take anything personally. I was surprised to read that this mean compliments as well as criticism. You have to be true to yourself regardless of what others think; good or bad.


3. Don't make assumptions. Personally, this is difficult.


4. Always do your best. Something new here was considering that my 'best' changes. Doing my best doesn't mean that every time I need to best myself.

I found this book very interesting. It is a perspective that I hadn't considered before. The four agreements seem quite reasonable to me as the type of person I would like to be. Like everything I think you can take what you want out of something and pass over the rest. Some concepts he wrote about were hard to grasp like us sending "black magic" to others when we are negative. I get what he means; we spread our pain to others and cause them pain. It's just the wording I had to get past. It's very non-secular also. Being a Christian I could interpret the book from how it fits in with God's plan for my life; whatever you believe it is easy to interpret from that point of view.

I liked this book. He has also written a few other books that I will check out in the near future.