The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

In a nutshell, reading this book feels akin to delving into the personal experiences and wisdom of a seasoned individual. The author’s wealth of life experiences shines through the pages, offering readers a remarkable opportunity to learn from their profound insights.
The narrative immerses you in a journey where you can glean invaluable lessons from the author’s wealth of knowledge. It’s as if you have a wise mentor guiding you towards a better understanding of life’s complexities and providing practical advice for personal growth.
The book serves as a testament to the author’s expertise and offers readers a unique perspective on how to navigate life’s challenges and embrace opportunities. Their wisdom resonates deeply, leaving a lasting impact on those who embark on this enlightening reading experience.
In summary, this book not only provides guidance for a happier and more fulfilling life but also imparts the priceless wisdom gained from someone who has truly lived. It is an enriching read that offers a profound journey of self-discovery and personal development.

I should start off by stating my background. I am an undergrad student of philosophy and linguistics, a branch of the humanities. I also deeply love this series of books because of its obviousness and simplicity. It has personally helped me triumph over many, many challenges. This is why I decided to write a review here.

There is a huge tradition of skepticism in linguistics, especially about how language is used in various cultures to create belief systems. A belief system is basically a set of instructions inside your brain based on language. These instructions help you navigate the stressful world around you so you can survive. We are psychologically wired to think our belief systems are accurate and experience deep stress if we find them to be inaccurate.

The trouble is, our belief systems are ALWAYS inaccurate. Yes, I used the word “always” for a reason.

Without going deeply into the study of philosophy and linguistics, I will give you an overview here:

Philosophy – When you study philosophy, you study belief systems about how the world works and explore important questions like “is there a God?” or “What is consciousness.” You may not be surprised to find out that philosophy majors have not come up with answers to these questions because there is always a case where we are going to be wrong or have a counter argument. Much of the study of philosophy is the collection of vocabulary words to describe beliefs. They even have a mathematical component called propositional logic, where one takes sentences and reduces them to symbols and creates “proofs” but even prop-logic is under fire from academics for its complete inability to predict anything. In other words, it isn’t the answer either.

Linguistics – When you study words and language, you realize that all our beliefs are based on language and this language can never “touch reality” in that language is just an arbitrary description of reality, posing as real. I believe Miguel Ruiz must have taken a linguistics course as well–as his first agreement attests to the power of language. The four agreements pulls heavily from Saussure and Derrida. Both Saussure and Derrida (and many, many others) did work on how we form ideas in our heads based on language. The gist is this: we have something called a “symbol” in our brain which is composed of two parts: the word and the visual representation of the object (look up semiotics for further detail). These symbols are in our mind and work together to form meaning, then belief. The unfortunate thing is that they are entirely made up. It isn’t real. Our ideas of it aren’t real.

If you really want a deeper understanding on how linguistics has saturated our belief systems I recommend reading some of their academic essays or get Rivkin and Ryan’s literary theory books. They are excellent and will take you further down the rabbit hole. Most of the essays are dense but worth the effort!

To simplify: scientists and academics in the millions have tried and tried and tried to find “the true belief” for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years and we have not yet arrived at any truth. Because of domestication, we think other people have it, but they don’t! “Truth” is defined as that which has the most predictive power. So far, mathematics, geometry, and physics has the most predictive power. Our belief systems simply do not.

So any beliefs about yourself can be true and they can also be false. We can’t know. So why not pick something positive? If no one knows anything, then how can you even know anything?

But you don’t need to study this yourself. All you have to do is think back to your past self, let’s say ten years ago. Did that person have a belief system that you now consider to be faulty? How is that possible? What about your future self? Will that person believe you have a faulty belief system? Probably! How is this possible? How can you be SO WRONG? Is it because you “haven’t learned?” I highly doubt it!

But we have to be right! We ARE RIGHT! At least we think we might be . . . maybe?

The need to be right is so ingrained within us that we create a huge drama when someone contradicts our beliefs. We end relationships over it! We storm out! We write angry twitter updates.

HOW THIS BOOK HAS PERSONALLY HELPED ME:

– No one person’s opinion will ever again have the power to limit what I can do, even if this person is an authority figure
– No one group’s opinion will ever again have the power to limit what I can do
– No one has a clear idea of who or what I am, not even me!
– When people talk, they are telling stories. I don’t have to argue. I don’t have to fight. I simply have to listen. WOW!
– I cannot comprehend another person’s dream. I can’t mind read. I can’t assume. I know nothing of their inner workings.
– Even scary, aggressive people are just telling stories.
– I no longer have to feel ashamed about who I am or what I’ve done or where I’m going. It’s not my job to assign a story to my life, or a judgment.
– I no longer have to pretend to be something or hustle to gain love. I just need to love who is willing to love back. It’s so simple.
– I take all gurus, religions, indictments and gossip with quite a high level of benevolent skepticism, which allows me to be free from the fear that goes along with these stories.
– I don’t take myself as seriously as I used to.

Probably the most valuable of all . . .

– I have a deep compassion for all people. We are all just stuck here together, trying our hardest and doing our best. I don’t have to hate someone because their best wasn’t up to some story I tell myself. I don’t’ have to insist they believe in my story. I can just smile and listen and do what I can.

Waste of paper, time and money. It could have been a set of four post-its with one agreement on each.