Do you really think “The 48 Laws of Power” is an Evil Book ??

“When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others”

“The 48 laws of power” is a humongous book to read. There are 48 rules that the author Robert Greene wants to tell you, so he has divided the book into 48 chapters.

It is a heavy book, philosophy-wise, so it is a book that you can’t read it at one go. Don’t take it on ego.

Of course, you can read it at one go. You can do whatever you want to do.

What I mean was that the theories in the book will start hitting your brain so hard that you would require some time to think about it.

More than that, a good book should be read patiently with its concepts properly absorbed rather than finishing it for the heck of it.

The book talks about rules citing stories from 3000 years of history of human civilization and gives you 48 principles to attain and remain in power with the help of stories from that history.

At times the book appears to be going against the normal human values; at times you would feel that the book is more about manipulating other people than about power; at times you will simply feel that some rules are against the traditional values your parents had installed in you.

This book is not a take-every-rule as it is or take none at all. For different people, different rules will be useful based on what they want to do in life or how they want to treat other people.

Released in 1998 by a failed screenwriter who had done more than a hundred-odd job in his lifetime but was also an avid reader, Robert Greene; the man has gone through tremendous effort to compile a book like this. As an author, I know what kind of effort it takes to write a book this huge.

From my personal experience, the rules mentioned in the book are highly effective and after reading the book, you will start seeing the world in a completely different manner.

For ages what philosophers have been trying to do is to give you specifics on how to control your life and I agree that it cannot be controlled merely in some laws or few rules.

Even after that, there are certain rules that seem to work all the time and one should know about them.

Those rules are not something that are just made up rather they are wisdom pearls of hundreds of years of experimenting and testing. There will be exceptions to them as there are exceptions to every rule but that doesn’t make the rule any less relevant as it works a majority of times. So many successful people can couch for that.

The book is no compendium of life rules. I believe that the unpredictability of life is what makes life more interesting yet ironically I still want more control over my life.

I truly believe that every human goes through the same confusion in his life.

The book is favourite of Hollywood biggies like Will Smith and pop stars like JayZ and is widely popular in the underground world of Pick Up Artists. The strength of the book is that it is pragmatic so the people who have very strict beliefs of life will never like it.

This book is not for people who want to please everyone and keep everyone happy. This book is more about achieving power over other people, situations, circumstances and life.

This book will help you in your business dealings and negotiations as most businesses go downhill because the business owners use more emotions than are necessarily required to run a business.

This book reminds me of the philosophies of Machiavelli and Chanakya, who also didn’t write to please others but preached what they think was the most practical thing to do, to get, hold and remain in power.

There will be times when you will have to sacrifice the most precious thing you have for power, the book says — do it.

There will be times when you have to get humiliated in order to survive, the book says — do it; as surviving is better than dying, of course.

The book as touted by some people as “evil” and by some critics as “sociopath’s handbook”. I don’t agree with that.

With that logic, anything can be used as a justification to do a crime. Books are like fire, you can burn yourself with fire or you can cook your food. The choice remains with the person using it.

I have felt that the rules in the book actually work for you. It tells you how to get your way and get what you want, sometimes taking the immoral ways but then again what is morality but man-made principles. When I was personally reading this book, I felt that I was reading the biography of a Scorpion (the sun sign). The scorpions are very aggressive, goal-oriented and they always get what they want.

As far as my view of the book is concerned, I simply loved the book because I like to be in control of my life, all the time. Of course, these rules don’t work as simply in real life as they are written in the book but then that is where wisdom comes in.

I think there are people who take this book far too seriously to call it evil but I have no doubt that if someone follows the book word by word then there are only two extreme ways to go in life — the highway or the crime way.