Four Agreements [Hardcover]

Nevertheless, I still find myself thinking about them and how
to relate what they say to my daily life . . . should you want
to join me in the task, consider how you can:

BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the
word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power
of your word in the direction of truth and love.

DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a
projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are
immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the
victim of endless suffering.

DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really
want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid
misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one
agreement, you can completely transform your life.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
Your best is going to change from moment to moment, it will be different
when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance,
simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse
and regret.

Also, I very much liked this one other passage:
Making assumptions in our relationships is really asking for problems.
Often we make the assumption that our partners know what we
think and that we don't have to say what we want. We assume they
are going to do what we want, because they know us so well. If
they don't do what we assume they should do, we feel so hurt and
say, "You should have known."

"Say what you mean. Mean what you say"
"Assuming makes an ASS out of U and ME"

You get the idea... Read this book as a reminder. Read it to gain an alternate perspective. I would recommend it to anyone who is on a path to self-discovery. Remedial or not, the toltec perspective referenced in this book is a valuable one...

One thing I've noticed about most of the negative reviews. They all seem a little bit angry. Perhaps too angry to be receptive to a book with such a positive spin...

I was expecting 150 pages of simplistic New Age mumbo-jumbo, and simplistic New Age-mumbo jumbo is what I got. Chock-full of false dichotomies, logical contradictions and non sequiturs, this book of "ancient wisdom" provides recipes for anything from A Good Life ™ to World Peace ™. All you need to do is to follow the four principles of Miguel the Great and everything will somehow magically work out.

Whereas most of what Ruiz says is just silly, some of it really makes my blood boil. I particularly take offence at principle number two ("don't take anything personally"), which, if you read between the lines, in essence preaches extreme arrogance, turning a deaf ear towards all opinion and criticism, and the sacrifice of love for happiness. This is probably not the conscious intent of the author, but rather he just hasn't followed his lines of reasoning to their logical conclusions. At page 93 he says (freely translated - I read this book in Swedish): "We don't need to know or prove anything. [...] You don't need knowledge or grand philosophical schemes." Well, as a salesman of snake oil of the worst kind, I'm sure you don't, Mr Ruiz, but the rest of us might be interested in at least thinking things through!

To be fair, some of his ideas are not all bad. But then they are not very useful either. How many times haven't we, for example, heard "always do your best" (principle number four)? I'm not sure doing everything in your might to adhere to that is any more realistic than slavishly following the advice of other truistic bumper sticker messages. And I'm not sure it will do you any more good either.

"If we compare [modern society] with the description of hell provided by world religions, we find that they are identical." (p. 28.) While this sentence is a prime example of the bold assertions with no backing whatsoever that plagues many pages of this book, I think most people who are reading this review can agree that life isn't always rosy, and I know we would all like to know how to make it so. But if you really think you'll find it neatly summarized in four sentences on sale for $10.36, then gawd help you.