Zikir Para Selebritis Dunia : Dari Muhammad Ali Sampai Cat Stevens

Buku yang ditulis oleh Ibrahim Bin Abdullah Al-Hazimi, saya sarankan untuk dibaca, berikut cuplikan yang saya temukan di mizan.com :

Ia gadis berusia dua puluh delapan tahu. Namanya disanjung-sanjung, popularitasnya pun tak terbendung. Namun ia meninggalkan semua itu justru pada saat khalayak mengaguminya. Kegamangan, kegelisahan, dan kehampaan makna meliputi dirinya. Dunia seperti mati. ''Aku tidak merasakan keindahan model busana yang ada tubuhku. Aku berjalan berlenggak-lenggok di atas catwalk mengiringi setiap ritme musik. Ketika semua mata memandangku, ada kehinaan dan pelecehan. Jiwaku terasa kosong. Penghormatan mereka hanya pada bau dan tubuhku semata.''

Itulah pengakuan seroang peragawati Prancis terkenal, Fabiyani. Pengakuan Fabiyani di atas hanyalah sepenggal pengembaraan spiritual anak manusia yang terekam dalam buku ini. Ada penyanyi Inggris ternal, Cat Stevens, petinju legandaris dunia, Muhammad Ali, bintang film, dan orang-orang dunia gemerlap lainnya yang jiwanya mengalami pergolakan. Mereka adalah petualang-petualang dunia gemerlap yang terjerembab dalam dunia kelam yang akhirnya ''terdampar'' dalam perjamuan Ilahi.

Buku Zikir para Selebirtis Dunia ini mengurai drama kehidupan para selebritis dunia yang telah mengantarkannya pada sebuah momentum kehidupan yang lebih hidup. Mereka berzikir secara lahir dan batin dan menemukan alam primordialnya sebagai makhluk yang suci (fitri). Buku ini ingin menegaskan bahwa zikir bukan sekadar doa-doa yang dipanjatkan, tapi kesadsaran untuk memandu gerak-gerik kehidupan di jalan-Nya. Zikir bukan sekadsar upaya pasir dengan ratapan dan linangan air mata, tapi ia merupakan gerakan hati untuk berhijrah ke wilayah ilahiah. Ia menjadi bagian dari setiap helaan nafas daslam menyapa Tuhan dan makhluk-Nya. Dan itulah yang dialami oleh para selebritis yang terangkum dalam buku ini.

The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border

Teresa Rodriguez (Author), Diana Montané (Author), Lisa Pulitzer (Contributor)

Here is Editorial reviews from Amazon.com :

"The Daughters of Juárez not only investigates, with facts and information, but illuminates how innocence and purity are sacrificed almost daily on this desert altar. Teresa Rodriguez's book can make a difference only if you and I get involved to assure that this will never happen again to anyone."

-- Carlos Santana

"This story is more horrifying than a Stephen King novel, has more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie plot, and has a higher body count than any James Bond flick -- and it is all true. You will never forget The Daughters of Juárez, which is exactly what the authors intend and accomplish brilliantly. This book must be a beacon, a catalyst for justice, that rare commodity so nonexistent in Juárez. The authors bring to life the human faces, shattered families, and lost dreams of those who must not be forgotten."

-- Edna Buchanan, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Love Kills

"The Daughters of Juárez is a book you cannot put down and will never forget -- it will shock you and it should. The authors have done a remarkable job piecing this horrific puzzle into one lucid account of the atrocities that have befallen Juárez, Mexico. This is truly an extraordinary book."

-- Isabel Allende

"Here's the deal: you are murdered and your death is not counted,you are murdered and your death is not investigated, you are murdered and someone is framed for your death. This is Juárez, the jewel of our free trade theories. This is a book everyone should read. And then wonder about the United States and Mexico and this hell of dead women they paper over with lies."

-- Charles Bowden, award-winning author of Down by the River

"The Daughters of Juárez is a crucial, chilling, and detailed account of the mutilations and murders of hundreds of women and girls in Juárez, Mexico. It is a cry for an end to these atrocities and it is a righteous call, after all these years of horror, for justice now."

One Hundred Years of Solitude - A Novel written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Amazon.com review :

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:

A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.

The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."

DEMIAN - A Novel written by Hermann Hesse

Plot summary from wikipedia.org :

Emil Sinclair is a young boy who was raised in a bourgeois home described as a Scheinwelt, "Scheinwelt" being a play on words and means world of light as well as world of illusion. Through the novel, accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate Max Demian, he descends from and revolts against the superficial ideals of this world and eventually awakens into a realization of self.

SNOW - A Novel written by Orhan Pamuk

Plot summary from wikipedia.org :

A poet who goes by the name Ka returns to Turkey after a twelve-year political exile in Germany. A friend in Istanbul who works for a newspaper suggests that he go to the town of Kars, near Turkey's eastern border of Armenia and Georgia, posing as a journalist. Recently, the suicides of a number of young women in the area have brought attention to the small town. Ka begins to interview residents and learns what he can about the deaths. The suicides are causing much controversy among local Muslims as suicide is forbidden in the religion.

Ka reunites with a woman named İpek, whom he once had feelings for and whose father runs the hotel he is staying in. İpek had married a man named Muhtar, but the two are now divorced, partly due to Muhtar's newfound interest in political Islam. While İpek and Ka are in a café, they witness a shooting of the local director of the Institute of Education by a Muslim extremist from out of town who blames the director for the death of a young woman named Teslime, claiming she killed herself because of the director's ban on head-scarves in school. After the incident, Ka visits Muhtar, who tells him about his experience of finding Islam, which relates to a blizzard and meeting a charismatic sheikh named Saadettin Efendi. The police pick up Ka and Muhtar due to the killing of the minister. Ka is questioned and Muhtar is beaten.

Though most of the early part of the story is told in the third-person from Ka's point of view, an omniscient narrator sometimes makes his presence known, posing as a friend of Ka's who is telling the story based on Ka's journals and correspondence. This narrator sometimes provides the reader with information before Ka knows it or foreshadows later events in the story.

Though he has suffered from writer's block for a number of years, Ka suddenly feels inspired and composes a poem called "Snow", which describes a mystic experience. Other poems follow. At İpek's suggestion, Ka goes to see Sheikh Saadettin and confesses that he associates religion with a backwardness that he does not want himself or Turkey to fall into. But he feels a sense of comfort with the sheikh and begins to accept his new poems as gifts from God.

Other significant characters Ka encounters include a wanted Muslim radical named Blue and İpek's younger sister Kadife, who has joined and become the leader of the "head-scarf girls", those who insist upon being "covered." Through Kadife, he meets another head-scarf girl, Hande, who suggested suicide to Teslime but insists she did not intend for the girl to follow through. Throughout the book, the act of insisting upon wearing a head-scarf, which places these girls in a head-on collision with the state authorities and entails enormous pressures and sacrifices, is described as an act of empowerment and assertion of their identity as women; in one passage, Ka refers to them as "Islamic Feminists".

Ka is impressed by Necip, a student at the religious high school, who, like many of the young Muslims at the school, is quite taken by Kadife. The narrator lets the reader know that Necip will die soon. Growing tensions between secularists and Islamists explode during a televised event at the National Theater, during which one secular group puts on a classic play condemning head scarves. When Muslims protest, three nationalists take the stage and start firing. Necip is among those killed. The police and military establish martial law, and Ka is taken in for questioning because he has been seen with Islamists. He is shattered to find Necip's body in the morgue and identifies him as the one who led him to Blue.

Ka is taken to meet Sunay Zaim, an actor whose group put on the play at the National Theater and who is now orchestrating the round-ups and investigations of suspicious persons. Sunay is a staunch Turkish Republican, who had often played with great conviction revolutionaries and dictators such as Robespierre, Napoleon and Lenin, but whose dream to play Attaturk, the founder of the Turkish Reublic, was frustrated. As the snow has made the roads and railroads impassable, no outside authorities are able to intervene in the coup. The isolation of Kars and Sunay's old friendship with the senior military officer left in charge of the local garrison enabled him to become a revolotionary dictator in real life as well as on the stage, for a for at least a few days - his act being simultaneously a coup d'état and a coup de théâtre.

Ka is then taken by Kadife to speak with Blue, who is Kadife's lover. Ka convinces Blue that he has a contact at a newspaper in Germany who will be willing to print a statement denouncing the coup if Blue can get support from non-Islamists. To further this fiction, Ka returns to his hotel to convince Kadife and Ipek's leftist father Turgut Bey to collaborate on the statement. After the father and Kadife leave, Ka's longing for İpek is fulfilled when the two make love.

At this point, the narrator, who identifies himself as a novelist named Orhan, flashes forward four years and relates that Ka spent the last years of his life obsessing over İpek and writing unsent letters to her before being murdered in Frankfurt. The narrator will play a much larger role in the story in the later chapters of the novel. We are clearly meant to identify the narrator with Orhan Pamuk himself as he later identifies The Black Book as one of his works, as well as Museum of Innocence which he would later publish in 2008.

Turgut Bey attends a meeting at which representatives from the various factions opposed to the coup, including Islamists, leftists, and Kurds, attempt comically to produce a coherent statement to the European press denouncing the action. After Blue is arrested and held by the nationalists, Ka negotiates a deal with Sunay Zaim that will result in Blue's release but only if Kadife agrees to play a role in Zaim's production of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and remove her head-scarf on live television during the course of the play. Both Kadife and Blue agree.

Ka is soon picked up and beaten by two policemen who are trying to keep tabs on Blue. He is also given the devastating news that Ipek was Blue's mistress during her marriage to Muhtar and still keeps in contact with him. Ipek confesses the affair and further indicates that Kadife only got involved with Blue out of envy. Ka's jealousy is intense and the two fall asleep after weeping together. She still believes that they can go to Frankfurt and be happy, and he eventually comes around to believing it again too. However, before they can leave he must convince Kadife to not take her head-scarf off during the play as both Ipek and Turgut Bey have become very concerned at the possible reaction of the students from the religious school. Despite Ka's urging, Kadife insists upon uncovering herself during the performance.

After a scene in which Ka is seen confused and tormented by feelings of pain and jealousy, the narrative describing events from his point of view abruptly breaks off. The narrator explains that Ka had left behind a detailed account of his acts and feelings while in Kars, but that there was no reference to his last hours in the city, and it is left to his friend Orhan to try to reconstruct these by following in Ka's footsteps, visiting the places where he had been and meeting the people he had met.

Ka's actions immediately after leaving the theater remain a mystery which is never completely untangled. Orhan is, however, able to establish that Ka was later taken by the military to the train station, where he was put on the first train scheduled to leave now that the routes from the town are open again. Ka complied but sent soldiers to retrieve İpek for him. However, just as İpek is saying her farewells to her father, news arrives that Blue and Hande have been shot. İpek is shattered and blames Ka for leading the police to Blue's hideout. Instead of going to Ka, she and her father go to the theater to see Kadife.

The novel's narrator then describes events at the theater as if he has reconstructed them from various sources. Kadife and Zaim have an on-stage discussion about suicide and the different reasons why men and women kill themselves. A garret and noose are set up, and Zaim hands Kadife a gun after he demonstrates that it is not loaded. When Kadife shoots Zaim much of the audience assumes his death is staged, and even Kadife appears to be surprised that the gun is in fact loaded. Zaim had clearly prepared and orchestrated his own death on stage, "pushing art to its farthest limits" and preferring to die at the peak of his theatrical and political career. Soon afterwords, as the snow has subsided, Ka's train departs and local authorities enter the town to stifle the coup and restore order.

Years later, the narrator goes to Kars to uncover details on Ka's story. He meets with many of the principals, including Kadife, who served very little time for what was ruled an accidental homicide and is now married to a student from the religious school. Meeiting Ipek, the narrator himself falls deeply in love with her and becomes intensely jealous of his dead friend (and of the dead Blue). In his talk with İpek he tells her that Ka was a shattered man who never forgot about İpek but was prevented from returning to Kars due to a warrant for his arrest. İpek is still convinced that Ka betrayed Blue. Indeed, the narrator soon finds evidence that suggests that Ka went back to talk to the police after his visit to the theater and probably told them where to find Blue. İpek has remained unmarried, does not expect to ever find love again, and devotes herself to her nephew.

In the end it is disclosed that a new group of Islamic militants was formed by younger followers of Blue who had been forced into exile in Germany and based themselves in Berlin, vowing to take revenge for the death of their admired leader. It is assumed that one of them had assassinated Ka and taken away the only extant copy of the poems he had written in Kars. Thus, while much is told about the names of these poems, their themes and the circumstances under which each was written, the poems themselves are lost.

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING - written by Milan Kundera

Plot from Wikipedia.org :

Part One: Lost Letters

The first section occurs in 1971 and pertains to the story of Mirek, a former supporter now found to be treasonous, as he explores the depths of his memories pertaining to one woman named Zdena. In his attempt to better his life, knowing that he loved the ugly woman left a blemish, and it was his hope to rectify this through destroying love letters that he had sent her. While he travels to her home and back, he is followed by two men, one of which is described as "a man in a gray jacket, white shirt and tie, and brown slacks." The men make their intentions obvious, even so far as sharing a laugh with Mirek when he manages to lose their tracking thanks to a sports car. Mirek is arrested at his home after several items are confiscated and then sentenced to jail for six years, his son to two years, and ten or so of his friends to terms of from one to six years.

Kundera also describes a photograph from 21st of February 1948, where Vladimír Clementis stands next to Klement Gottwald. When Vladimír Clementis was charged in 1950, he was erased from the photograph (along with the photographer Karel Hájek) by the state propaganda.
This short example from Czechoslovak history underlines the motif of forgetting in his book.

Part Two: Mother

Marketa invites her mother-in-law to visit her and Karel's home after her mother did nothing but complain. Inviting her to stay for a week - although contending that she must leave Saturday because they had somewhere to be on Sunday - the mother forces her way to stay until Monday. On Sunday morning, Eva - a friend of Karel and Marketa - arrives and is introduced to the mother as Marketa's cousin. Through narration the reader is told that Eva had met and made love to Karel, who then arranged for Eva and Marketa to meet. Through Marketa's suggestion, the three have conducted a sexual relationship over the years. Mother almost catches the three in the act, but instead realizes that Eva reminds her of a friend of hers from Karel's infancy. This makes Karel even more attracted to Eva, and after the mother leaves, they continue with a new force.

Part Three: The Angels

This section is mostly narration concerning events after the Russians occupied Czechoslovakia, especially Kundera's attempts to write a horoscope under an associate's name. A big deal was made when the boss - who had studied Marxism-Leninism for half of his life - requested a private horoscope, which Kundera extended to ten pages long, providing a template for the man to change his life. Eventually, Kundera's associate - code named R. - is brought in for questioning concerning Kundera's clandestine writing, causing them to stop their laughter and start worrying. Kundera also describes 'circle dancing' wherein the joy and laughter build up to the point that the people's steps take them soaring into the sky with the laughing angels.

Part Four: Lost Letters

Tamina, a woman who works in a cafe, wants to retrieve her love letters and diaries in Prague through her customer who will be going to Prague, Bibi. Also, another customer, Hugo, who secretly loves Tamina, offers to help her if Bibi cannot go to Prague. One day, Hugo invites Tamina to dinner and they visited the zoo together. A group of ostriches move their mute mouths vigorously to Hugo and Tamina as if to warn them of something, which gives Tamina a bad feeling about the letters and diaries in Prague. As these items, which Tamina describes as packed in a parcel, are in her mother-in-law's, she phoned her father to take it from her mother-in-law, so it will be easier for Bibi to get them. After a lot of pleas, her father agreed to send Tamina's brother to take them. It turns out that the items are not packed in a parcel, and Tamina fears that her private letters and diaries are read by others. The situation turns worse as Bibi gets fed up with her husband and refuses to go anywhere with him, which means the trip to Prague is canceled. Hugo offers to help and once again invites Tamina to his house. Hugo tries desperately to win her heart. Tamina later has sex with Hugo, but cannot keep her mind off her deceased husband. Hugo senses her uneasiness and stops having sex. Again, Hugo chats with Tamina and tries saying things that please her. However, Tamina is not interested in his talk but only in Hugo's trip to Prague. Hugo gradually knows that and his speech gets weaker and he starts to get angry. Tamina is increasingly disgusted by his talk and eventually vomited in the toilet. Hugo knows that she has absolutely no interest in him and refuses to help her. At the end, the letters and diaries remain in Prague.

Part Five: Litost

It starts with introducing Kristyna, who develops a love relationship with a student studying philosophy and poetry. Then, it explains the Czech word Litost, which the writer states that he hasn't found any substitute for the word in any other languages yet. Litost is "a state of torment upon by the realization of one's inadequacy or misery". Litost seems to be always present in the student whom Kristyna loves, and this feeling is also one of the reasons that he broke up with his former girlfriend. His professor, nicknamed Voltaire, invites the student to an evening gathering of the great poets of the country. However, the student has a date with Kristyna that night and refuses to go to the gathering. He then meets Kristyna on the day the gathering is held and tells her about it. Kristyna is fascinated by it and wants the student to go there so as not to miss the chance. The student agrees and goes to the meeting. He meets the great poets and listens to their arguments and insults to each other. Through this he learns a lot of things. He asks one of the poets, named Goethe by the author, to inscribe on one of his books and give the book to Kristyna as a gift. He returns to his home and finds Kristyna waiting for him. She is moved by the inscription. They do not have sex but feels each other's immense love. The student tries several times to get Kristyna to separate her two legs, but Kristyna fears that this will make her pregnant, which threatens her life. So she keeps saying that by doing this she will die. The student misinterprets that she will die from the immense love from him if they are separated from each other for a long time. He is deeply moved. He soon falls asleep and wakes up next morning, finding a note in his coat from Kristyna. After thinking over their night, he realizes that he misinterpreted her statement last night. He feels Litost but cannot take revenge for Kristyna has already left. One of the poets approaches him and fills him with glory, making the student no longer feeling despair.

MY NAME IS RED - A Novel written by Orhan Pamuk

here is the outline from wikipedia.org :

The main characters in the novel are miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire. The events revolve around the murder of one of the painters, as related in the first chapter. From then on, Pamuk — in a postmodern style reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges — plays with the reader and with literary conventions in general.

The novel's narrator changes in every chapter. In addition to character-narrators, the reader will find unexpected voices such as the corpse of the murdered, a coin, several painting motifs, and the color red. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, opening a window on the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III during nine snowy winter days in the Istanbul of 1591.

Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a famous Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. The most important of these is the fact that part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, a murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine in general, that the souls of the dead linger on earth and can hear the living.

Pamuk suggests that viewing miniatures is a way to achieve a kind of eternity. Thus Shekure seeks to look upon the reader like women who view miniatures of a distant time and place do, thereby escaping time and place - 'just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place.' The murdered Elegant Effendi accused his murderer of sacrilegious illustrations offending Allah or God. Is true art an expression of the individual artist or is true art a close to perfect representation of the divine in which the individual artist has succeeded in overcoming his personal vanity? This question becomes an existential question in Pamuk's tale.

Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata

Here is the review from Wikipedia.org :

Snow Country (Yukiguni) is the first full-length novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel established Kawabata as one of Japan's foremost authors and became an instant classic.

Snow Country is a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha that takes place in the remote hot spring (onsen) town of Yuzawa (Kawabata himself did not mention the name of the town in his novel).

The hot springs in that region were home to inns, visited by men traveling alone and in groups, where paid female companionship had become a staple of the economy. The geisha of the hot springs enjoyed nothing like the social status of their more artistically-trained sisters in Kyoto and Tokyo and were usually little more than prostitutes whose brief careers inevitably ended in a downward spiral. The choice of one of these women as the heroine lends a sense of tragedy to the atmosphere of the book.

The liaison between the geisha, Komako, and the male protagonist, a wealthy loner who is a self-appointed expert on Western ballet, is thus doomed to failure. The nature of that failure and the parts played by others form the theme of the book.

As his most potent symbol of this 'counter-Western modernity,' the rural geisha, Komako, of his novel Snow Country embodies Kawabata's conception of traditional Japanese beauty by taking Western influence and subverting it to traditional Japanese forms. Having no teacher available, she hones her technique on the traditional samisen instrument by untraditionally relying on sheet music and radio broadcasts. Her lover, Shimamura, comments that, “the publishing gentleman would be happy if he knew he had a real geisha—not just an ordinary amateur—practicing from his scores way off here in the mountains.”

Onsen geisha Matsuei, the actual person upon whom Kawabata based the character Komako in the novel.

Burger's Daughter - Nadine Gordimer

To me, this book is simply reserved for a long long holiday.. (:p)

Review from amazon.co.uk :

Rosa Burger grew up in a home under constant surveillance by the South African government. Her parents were detained for their political beliefs; her father died in prison, and her mother, whose health suffered from her time in jail, eventually dies. Rosa, a white South African in her early 20s, is left the only surviving member of her family. Yet even after her parents' deaths, the history of their anti-apartheid beliefs and practices have a daily impact on her life: it seems everyone has expectations of her and the government is still watching. A quiet, private person, Rosa constantly searches her memories to find herself, to grasp this heritage that weighs her down. Over a period of several years Rosa comes to understand the impact of the South African political climate on her and how she became who she is. The narrative style varies from straightforward storytelling to Rosa's most personal thoughts. In Burger's Daughter, Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer takes a situation most read about in newspapers and makes it real, creating a memorable story of coming to terms with circumstances over which we have little control, yet which directly affect our lives. --Holly Smith

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R Covey

I am frankly still stuck at Habit 2...
Here is the review from businessballs.com :

habit 1 - be proactive®

This is the ability to control one's environment, rather than have it control you, as is so often the case. Self determination, choice, and the power to decide response to stimulus, conditions and circumstances

habit 2 - begin with the end in mind®

Covey calls this the habit of personal leadership - leading oneself that is, towards what you consider your aims. By developing the habit of concentrating on relevant activities you will build a platform to avoid distractions and become more productive and successful.

habit 3 - put first things first®

Covey calls this the habit of personal management. This is about organising and implementing activities in line with the aims established in habit 2. Covey says that habit 2 is the first, or mental creation; habit 3 is the second, or physical creation. (See the section on time management.)

habit 4 - think win-win®

Covey calls this the habit of interpersonal leadership, necessary because achievements are largely dependent on co-operative efforts with others. He says that win-win is based on the assumption that there is plenty for everyone, and that success follows a co-operative approach more naturally than the confrontation of win-or-lose.

habit 5 - seek first to understand and then to be understood®

One of the great maxims of the modern age. This is Covey's habit of communication, and it's extremely powerful. Covey helps to explain this in his simple analogy 'diagnose before you prescribe'. Simple and effective, and essential for developing and maintaining positive relationships in all aspects of life. (See the associated sections on Empathy, Transactional Analysis, and the Johari Window.)

habit 6 - synergize®

Covey says this is the habit of creative co-operation - the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which implicitly lays down the challenge to see the good and potential in the other person's contribution.

habit 7 - sharpen the saw®

This is the habit of self renewal, says Covey, and it necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.

Stephen Covey's Seven Habits are a simple set of rules for life - inter-related and synergistic, and yet each one powerful and worthy of adopting and following in its own right. For many people, reading Covey's work, or listening to him speak, literally changes their lives. This is powerful stuff indeed and highly recommended.

This 7 Habits summary is just a brief overview - the full work is fascinating, comprehensive, and thoroughly uplifting. Read the book, or listen to the full tape series if you can get hold of it.

In his more recent book 'The 8th Habit', Stephen Covey introduced (logically) an the eighth habit, which deals with personal fulfilment and helping others to achieve fulfilment too. The book also focuses on leadership. Time will tell whether the The 8th Habit achieves recognition and reputation close to Covey's classic original 7 Habits work.

Meminta dan Mencinta - Amru Muhammad Khalid

Dalam buku ini, halaman demi halaman, Amru Muhammad Khalid seperti menggandeng tangan dengan cara yang indah, untuk segera laksanakan Shalat yang kenikmatannya sangat baik sekali beliau deskripsikan, berdo'a, zikir, Haji dan membaca Al-quran..

Sinopsis dari Serambi :

Menyenangkan dan menenangkan. Begitulah seharusnya kala kita melaksanakan ibadah. Tapi kenapa kita justru merasakan hal sebaliknya—berat dan terbebani?

Itu, tutur buku ini, karena kita belum mencicipi manisnya beribadah. Buku ini menuntun kita agar ibadah tidak lagi menjadi sekadar kewajiban atau karena takut terhadap siksa akhirat, melainkan sebagai wahana untuk menumbuhkan kemuliaan jiwa, ketenteraman batin, kesuksesan hidup, dan kebahagiaan manusia sebagai hamba Allah.

Dengan gaya ungkap yang dialogis dan memandu, ibada-ibadah ritual—salat, zikir, haji, dan membaca Quran—diulas tuntas tata pelaksanaan, keutamaan, dan manfaatnya, sedemikian rupa sehingga pembaca menyadari betapa semua itu adalah hadiah dan anugerah Allah bagi hamba-Nya yang beriman.

How could you do that?! - Dr. Laura Schlessinger

I ve only reached about 100 pages, and its getting hotter, Dr Laura advices people who "justify" their wrongs and give credit n spirit to ones doing right. So far i like the quotation from Abraham Lincoln's :

"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle."

Here is a description from Selfgrowth.com :

The reason so many Americans feel lost and unhappy, explains Dr. Schlessinger, is that we have abandoned the high road and indulged in the feel-good pop psychology of the last decade. Mistaking fun for happiness, we have set ourselves up for "short-term thrills and long-term agony."

"How could you do that?!" she asks. In this wise and witty book, she topples the lame excuses we try to make when we do the wrong thing. Americans know what the right thing to do is, she asserts. We just try to take the easy way out. In seven chapters, she challenges us to find our Character, Conscience, Courage, Self-respect, Morals, Integrity and Principles by discussing such issues as love versus lust, irresponsible parenting and the mindless pursuit of happiness at the expense of others. Her message is simple: If we discipline ourselves and accept responsibility for our actions, we will ultimately enjoy a life of richer quality and greater satisfaction.

Written in her unmistakably lively and outspoken style, How Could You Do That?! is a refreshing, and sometimes tough argument for the need for values and character. "Get a grip," says Dr. Laura, "it's time to grow up."

Lepas dari Penjara PIkiran - Alex Pattakos

Mudah2an buku ini oke, saya baca beberapa halaman terakhir (lho?) yang pasti ada prakata dari Stephen R Covey yang ternyata deket juga sama Viktor Frankl salah satu inspirator Alex Pattakos dalam buku ini.

Ringkasan Buku Lepas dari Penjara Pikiran dari book.store.co.id

Mengapa sejumlah orang sepertinya bisa lebih mudah menangani situasi-situasi yang kompleks dan menantang dibandingkan dengan yang lain? Mengapa sejumlah orang lebih mampu menghadapi tantangan dibandingkan dengan yang lain?

Diterapkan, untuk pertama kalinya di Inggris, sistem terapis yang diciptakan psikiater sekaligus filosof yang memiliki reputasi internasional, Viktor E. Frankl ini mengulas cara menciptakan makna dan kepuasan pribadi di dalam pekerjaan dan kehidupan sehari-hari Anda, dan meraih potensi tertinggi Anda!

Buku karya psikiater dengan reputasi dunia Viktor Frankl berjudul Man Search for Meaning merupakan buku terpenting di jaman modern. Buku, yang oleh Library of Congress disebut-sebut sebagai satu dari sepuluh buku yang paling berpengaruh di abad XX dan mengisahkan kehidupan pribadi Frankl dalam upayanya mencari alasan hidup di tengah situasi yang mencekam – kamp-kamp konsentrasi NAZI – ini telah menginsipirasi jutaan orang.

Di dalam bukunya Prisoners of Our Thoughts, Alex Pattakos – seorang murid yang sejak lama memelajari pemikiran-pemikiran Frankl, dan yang didorong olehnya untuk menulis buku ini – menunjukkan bagaimana pemikiran Frankl bisa membantu para pembaca menemukan makna di dalam kehidupan kerja sehari-hari mereka.

Disusun berdasarkan konsep karya-karya Dr. Frankl (dia menulis lebih dari 30 buku), Pattakos mengupas secara terperinci, tujuh ‘Prinsip Inti’ yang dia sarikan dari karya Dr. Frankl: (1) pilih perilaku Anda apa pun situasi yang dihadapi; (2) berkomitmen pada sasaran-sasaran dan nilai-nilai yang bermakna; (3) temukan makna dalam setiap momentum kehidupan; (4) belajarlah melihat bagaimana Anda bekerja melawan diri sendiri; (5) amati diri Anda dari kejauhan untuk memperoleh wawasan dan sudut pandang, sekaligus untuk menertawakan diri sendiri; (6) alihkan fokus perhatian Anda saat menghadapi situasi-situasi sulit; dan (7) menjangkau keluar dari diri Anda dan buatlah perbedaan di dalam dunia. Melalui sejumlah cerita, contoh, dan latihan yang merangsang pikiran, Pattakos menerapkan masing-masing prinsip tersebut ke dalam berbagai situasi kerja, sehingga para pembaca bisa memahami langsung prinsip-prinsip tersebut sekaligus memplajari, kapan dan bagaimana menerapkannya.

Dengan mengetengahkan dan memperkenalkan kepada pembaca yang luas karya Dr. Frankl sebagai bahan acuan dasar, Prisoners of Our Thoughts membuka banyak peluang baru untuk menemukan makna pribadi melalui pekerjaan dan untuk menjalani hidup yang otentik.

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl (still in my wish list)

Here is a review of a very interesting book written by Viktor Frankl.. i picked up from pak Google.
Link : http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?id=3455&type=book&cn=91

Man's Search for Meaning

This classic by the great Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl could be described as one of the most important popular books of the 20th century. It has an extraordinary message about the meaning of life and its psychological importance.

The first part of Man's Search for Meaning, a book which now has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, was originally published in German in 1946. It's Frankl's autobiographical account of his experiences of his three years in Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentrations camps, between 1942 and 1945. This part, along with a brief theoretical section, appeared in English in 1959 as From Death-Camp to Existentialism. The second part of the book is a synopsis of logotherapy, the major system of existential psychotherapy and psychology that Frankl went on to develop. The present edition, the sixth in English, includes a new foreword by the emeritus rabbi Harold S. Kushner, as well as a new biographical afterword by the philosopher, lawyer and psychoanalyst William J. Winslade.

The book's first autobiographical part provides unique and strong evidence for some of the principles of logotherapy summarized in Part II (this ranges from very philosophical ideas, such as the meaning of life, to descriptions of psychotherapeutic techniques, such as 'paradoxical intention'). This second part, which includes a paragraph for each of the important notions and principles of logotherapy, is highly condensed. Little wonder since it attempts to convey in a short space what required twenty volumes in German.

The autobiographical part isn't for the faint-hearted. For those who weren't sent to the gas chambers at the initial selection, the conditions in the camp were both physically and mentally extremely harsh. I shall only mention a fraction of them here. The prisoners faced horrible undernourishment whilst having to do hard manual labor for 12 hours a day. In winter, this would mostly be in sub-zero temperatures, yet they didn't have any winter clothes. They were threatened by death daily and hourly. And they had no news of their loved ones, who had either been sent to another camp or gassed immediately. (Frankl's parents, brother and pregnant wife all lost their lives.) As you would expect, the survival rate was very low -- only 1 in 28 survived, Frankl claims.

A lot of luck was required to survive. You had to avoid random killings. You had to avoid being selected for a work party with particularly hard labor or a particularly nasty foreman or Capo. You had to avoid getting frostbite in addition to the usual sores and abrasions. And similarly in countless of other cases.

But even with such luck, how did anyone manage to survive? It's here that Frankl's philosophy of life and human beings comes in -- in three stages. Firstly, Frankl often uses a quotation from Nietzsche: 'He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.' I suggest we call this view (1) 'Nietzsche's thesis of existential endurance'. Having this 'why', a 'why' for one's existence, is having meaning in one's life. Secondly, the drive towards having meaning in one's life, the will to meaning, as he calls it, is the primary motivation in humans. (Correspondingly, the frustration of it, 'existential frustration', is in his view the main cause of neuroses and psychiatric problems.) Evidence for this claim is indicated both by the camp experience and by several empirical studies mentioned in Part II of the book. I suggest we call this view (2) the 'primacy of the will to meaning'.

Thirdly, Frankl maintains that there are three sources of meaning. The first is love. This is exemplified strongly by the experiences in the camp. In Frankl's own case, it's clear that he refers to the relationships with the ones closest to him, and in particular his love for his wife. Frankl mentions other examples of prisoners who, he claims, were able to survive the extreme conditions because of their connection to a loved one.

The second source of meaning is work. This too is exemplified strongly by Frankl's own experience as a prisoner. He had brought the manuscript for his first book on logotherapy, but one of the guards confiscated it. Not only did this give him the chance of a very concrete meaningful activity (e.g. when in a camp in Bavaria he fell ill with typhus, he jotted down on little scraps of paper notes intended to enable him to rewrite the manuscript should he live to the day of liberation). It also gave him a 'why' for his existence.

Accordingly, Frankl summarizes the status of love and work as sources of meaning like this: 'A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how".'

It's hardly unusual to claim that love and work are important to meaning. However, it's with the third source of meaning that Frankl becomes remarkable. This source is suffering. (Frankl stresses that he's talking about unavoidable suffering; suffering that is avoidable is simply masochistic.) There are two reasons why suffering can be a source of meaning. Firstly, because our inner freedom -- our 'spiritual freedom', as Frankl occasionally calls it -- to choose the attitude we have to things is absolute, as it were, we can choose which attitude to take to suffering. Secondly, and closely related to this Stoic view, we can choose to see suffering as our 'task'. This 'task' of suffering, the 'task' of bearing one's cross, enables a human being to suffer 'proudly'. Frankl quotes Dostoevski: 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.' Further, it enables a human being to make suffering into 'an achievement' -- which 'transforms a personal tragedy into a triumph'.

The significance of this third source of meaning was also exemplified in abundance by the camp prisoners. Of course, they suffered immensely, and they could do nothing to avoid it. But what they could do was to use their 'spiritual freedom' to change their attitude to their suffering so as to make it into a source of meaning. Those who didn't do this (and didn't have either of the two other sources of meaning) would give up and become moribund: remaining in their bunks, lying in their own urine and excreta, disobeying all orders to get up, smoking their last cigarette, waiting for death.

I suggest we call Frankl's view on what provides meaning (3) the 'triadic source of meaning'. The conjunction of this with the two other main theses of Frankl's philosophy of life and human beings, i.e. (1) Nietzsche's thesis of existential endurance and (2) the primacy of the will to meaning, is the central message of Man's Search for Meaning. This isn't something Frankl himself maintains explicitly, and there's of course an element of interpretation to it (especially so, as the book generally is loosely structured and uses very informal language). But I believe it's well supported by a careful reading.

Harold S. Kushner, the author of the book's foreword, is a man whose life, sadly, has put him in a position that one would think should increase the chance of appreciating the book fully: he's been struggling to understand the illness and death of his son. However, he finds it significant that whereas the foreword to the 1962 edition was written by a prominent psychologist, Gordon Allport, the present foreword is written by a 'clergyman', as he calls himself: 'We have come to recognize that this is a profoundly religious book.'

I couldn't disagree more. Frankl was deeply religious and this is shown at many points in the book. But what in my view is the book's central message -- to repeat, the conjunction of (1) to (3) above -- clearly neither mentions nor necessarily implies religiosity in any form. Even if all of Frankl's religious views were removed from the book, its essence would be entirely unaffected.

And it's because of this that I can end with an evaluation which I dare say is a privilege for a reviewer of a book: no human being should fail to read it. Read it -- and hope that, unlike Frankl, you'll never exemplify its message in the extreme.

© 2007 Bo Meinertsen