THE IMPERATIVE HABIT

An engineer distills the life advice he has absorbed from noted spiritual thinkers.

Drawing heavily on the work of Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer, Rossi condenses the lessons he learned in a time of personal and professional upheaval in this debut self-help book. Rossi’s one complaint about the books that helped him to learn mindfulness, develop acceptance, and change his thought processes is “the lack of a prescribed ‘practice’ or steps to follow to instill into our life the excellent teaching the books espoused.” The foundation of his approach involves developing “the imperative habit,” Rossi’s term for the seven concrete skills—acceptance, not fearing the outcome, happiness as a practice, being present, not judging, responding with compassion, and having faith—the book is intended to teach. Rossi lucidly explains the psychology of conditioning behavior and developing habits, and he encourages readers to apply those techniques—for instance, asking themselves what they hope to achieve when taking a challenging class instead of assuming that they will fail—in order to make the elements of the imperative habit part of everyday life. The subjective nature of these skills, however, means that some readers may find that this book, like other similar titles, ably shows the value of mindfulness without elucidating the concept in a replicable manner. The book has its moments of dissonance (for instance, Chapter 1 opens with an apocryphal anecdote about European contact with the Americas that is weighted with stereotypes). Minor errors, like the frequent misspelling of Tolle’s first name, also detract from the book’s authoritativeness. On the whole, though, the text is highly readable, and as it takes a somewhat more practical and less metaphysical approach to mindfulness than the books Rossi draws from, it’s likely to appeal to readers who understand mindfulness but would like examples of its use and will appreciate the clear enthusiasm and focus of Rossi’s authorial voice.

An enthusiastic, often successful outline for forming habits conducive to mindfulness.