Choose Yourself, by James Altucher, is the most timely read of this quarantine

HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. – About 200 pages into Choose Yourself, written by James Altucher, I was going to give it a fairly modest review. Three out of five maybe. It was good, not great. The message got a little redundant here and there. Altucher’s writing, which I’ve loved for so long on his blog — he’s also excellent on podcasts — would zig here and zag there in chapters that I wasn’t so sure needed to be included.

But then last night I could hardly sleep.

Ideas were popping into my head – ideas for books, for shows, for movies, for businesses. They just kept on coming, relentless. I could hardly keep up, jotting them down in my journal. Which is exactly what Altucher advises, more than anything in all of his writing: Come up with ideas.

Ten ideas a day is his thing. Could be anything in the world. Recipes. Beach volleyball drills. New routes to work. Ways to be productive in quarantine. If you can’t come up with 10 ideas, he says, then come up with 20.

It doesn’t make sense until you try it. Then it makes perfect sense.

Now Altucher has my mind perpetually racing about things I could do. It’s an absolute blast. This hopefully brief epoch of Covid-19 and quarantine is stressful for essentially everyone. A record number of people have been laid off, including me, though my situation is far more fortunate than most, so I’m not seeking pity or anything. The economy is tanking. We have no idea when we will return to normal, or what normal even means anymore.

It’s perhaps the easiest time in my lifetime, right up there with 2008, for everyone to freak out.

And yet, after reading Altucher’s book, which is written in much the same fashion and tone and direction as his wonderful blog, I find it exciting.

What better time is there to come up with something new? I have an abundance of free time on my hands, much of which I have chosen to dedicate to writing for a few different start-ups of sorts. I’m working on various other projects that I’d describe as entrepreneurial, including a new book that will be out ideally within a month or so (if any publishers are seeking a young adult chapter book, feel free to reach out).  

Sometimes I feel bad about it. Shouldn’t I be using this time to look for “real jobs” with a corporate safety net and a regular income? Isn’t it risky to continue working on projects that may or may not pan out?

Both of those questions could be answered with yes, and they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But reading Altucher’s book was an excellent reminder that the safe choice is rarely, if ever, the best one. If I were to take a normal job immediately, I’d inevitably become restless. It wouldn’t take long for me to resent it. I’d look for a different one, and a different one after that.

The process reminds me of something Jim Carrey said in his commencement speech at Maharishi International University. His father could have enjoyed immense success as a comedian. That is, obviously, a risky route to take. So he took the “safe” choice as an accountant. When Jim was 12, his dad was fired from the “safe” job, and it left the family scrambling to survive.

“You can fail at doing what you don’t like,” Jim said. “So you may as well do what you love.”

Or, as James Altucher says, you may as well Choose Yourself.

You can buy Choose Yourself, by James Altucher, below.

Previous book review: Where the Crawdads Sing