Nation of Wimps: End

I feel like I’ve been reading this book for months. It seems so long ago when I was living in the fantastical setting of my fiction read. In my mind I’ve done so much but in reality I’m behind on the project, which is quite disheartening.

As far as the book, the author wrote an excellent concluding chapter. If you hadn’t read anything else, I think you could still pull almost all of the major ideas out of that last chapter. The core of the book was mostly concrete examples and opinions given by other experts. As I have already said, Marano connected the dots very well for the reader to follow, but it made the bulk of the story boring. I wouldn’t recommend this book unless you are very interested in the subject. If you’re somewhat interested, I’d read the introduction, conclusion, and whatever chapter titles sound compelling to you.

Going in to reading, I didn’t think that any of the topics would apply to me. I feel like my parents have raised me very well. I was right for the most part, except when the author wrote about why successful students in high school break down from stress in college. She writes, “Students are able to tolerate an enormous amount of stress in high school because… (c) there is some sort of cognitive setup that believes that they just need to “get out of the house” or “be on their own” or “out of high school” and then they will be free of their problems” (160). This was terrifying to read because I feel this way about high school often. I was excited to read this chapter because I was hoping I would get some sort of insight into college like this.

Beyond just talking about spoiled kids and bad parents, there is an interesting section about obtaining true happiness through struggle and getting past it. The author quotes another psychologist, “Satisfaction comes less from the attainment of a goal and more from what you must do to get there” (204-5). At first I thought this section was off-topic, but then I realized I would never be happy if my parents hand-fed me all the answer growing up. When I do things for myself, I feel the happiest. The section gave me something to think about.

Well, on to the next… as they say. I’ll read a “classic” next, and I’m thinking about Huckleberry Finn.