Last week I jumped on the bandwagon and listened to the book “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins. I was intrigued after hearing a teaser online. Grief is usually the only self-help style book I pick up and finish.

I downloaded the audiobook, set it at 1.4x speed and I was off to the races. It only took me 2 or 3 evenings to finish the whole book. Then everywhere I turned my peers were also reading it. At least two of my neighbors have started it. I went to dinner with some of my friends from high school last weekend and one of them brought up the book.

So much of it rang true for where I am in life right now. Mid-forties and knee deep in trying to do it all between work, kids, self, friends, and sometimes dating. I will never be perfect at all of these at the same time, none of us will. We deserve people in our lives who will grant us grace and assume good intent.

The main theme of the book is that when things go awry, the only thing we can control is how we react. We have no control on how someone reacts to us. But there is always a choice in how we react.

It is also up to us to build what we want out of life. Reach out to the old high school crew and grab dinner. Start working towards whatever project you’ve been putting off, that might be something grand like writing a book, or maybe it’s just throwing away his old toothbrush. You get to decide what’s next and don’t think anyone gets to dictate what you should do or how you should feel.

I just took a 10-hour book and summed it up very imperfectly in less than 300 words. If you are intrigued; I’d encourage you to look up her book or at least her podcast. Maybe you’ll get something entirely different from it.