The Emotion Machine

Review: 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life

When I found out that one of my favorite writers Dragos Roua had a book called, “100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life,” I knew I had to get a piece of the action.

To start, the title is something that immediately grabbed my attention. Not because I like to screw up my life, but because I am somewhat of a cynic, and one of my favorite hobbies is to push people’s buttons. I knew that this book was written for people like me.

This book is specifically designed to stir up people’s feelings and – in the process – create a lasting change.

Dragos calls this book the “dark side” of his original work, “100 Ways To Improve Your Life,” but despite the negative tone of the title, this book is intended to create positive change.

Some of the book creates feelings of aversion. It negatively frames certain behaviors so that you don’t want to do them. Here is a peak:

“Daydreaming is good. It opens your heart to new universes and goals. But daydreaming without action is useless. Sitting on your fat ass while waiting for all your intentions to manifest, without taking the smallest action for moving things forward, won’t change anything. Oh, sorry, it will change something: your ass will be fatter.”

As you can see, sometimes the book can seem a bit cruel, but it is all done in a humorous and entertaining way. That is part of what makes it such a joy to read.

Each page is dedicated to one way in which you can screw up your life, but they all end by telling you how to use this advice to actually improve it. Because of this, the book’s main premise is really about inspiration and self-improvement, something we could all probably use a little more of in our lives.

Here is an example of some of the more uplifting passages of the book:

“The only moment you aren’t improvable anymore is when you’re dead. You can’t really do anything to improve yourself after you’re dead. So, being criticized is a sign of being alive. Don’t waste that chance by rejecting your critic’s voice. Just listen, confront them and engage in an honest conversation. And if they’re still wrong, walk away.”

Despite being a frequent reader of Dragos Roua’s blog for the past few months (one of the few blogs I go to on a daily basis), this was the very first book I have read by him. Frankly, I was impressed. It illustrates the best of Roua’s down-to-earth personality, and each page touches upon powerful and energizing ideas. It was nothing but a pleasure to read.

But of course nothing is perfect and there were some minor pitfalls. Here is a quick outline of what I consider to be the main pros and cons.

Pros

+ Motivating and inspirational
+ A good touch of cynicism and humor
+ You will walk away feeling good
+ Easy to read
+ Cheap price
+ Good replay value

Cons

- Some grammatical and spelling errors
- Relatively short read

Overall Rating = 8.0 = Great

Despite the couple cons, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the fun that can come from a little pessimism, and at the same time is interested in turning their life around for the better.

This is one of those books that is great to read and reflect upon one page at a time. I think it could even be a good idea to try reading this book one page each day; that way you can let each of these big ideas soak in, then gradually apply each one to your life.

This book also excels in what I call “replay value.” This means it is easy to re-read. It is one of those books you can just randomly flip through, read a page, and then be reminded of an important lesson.

Where to purchase

Does this book sound like something for you? If so, you can click here to purchase directly from PayPal, or if you’d like you can view more details directly on Dragos’ site.

As a side note: if you go to the bottom of this page, you will find Dragos Roua’s “Brilliantly Bundled” deals, where you can save money by purchasing all four of his books at once.

Price: 9.99 USD

Other books by Dragos Roua include:

- 100 Ways To Improve Your Life
- The 7 Ages Of An Online Business
- 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset

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