I listened to the audio book version of “This I Believe” book, which was narrated in most cases by the original authors of the essays. Very enlightening to hear people’s stories and how they became what they believed. Some of them are funny: be cool to the pizza delivery dudes; it’s a practice of humility and forgiveness. Some are American patriotism like forgiving some young foreign visitors tab when they ate at a restaurant more than they could afford. Some are in parenting: believing in handing off the world to our next generation in a better form than we received it. There is one essay on believing in their parents who believed in them. Some are about optimism: believing in a better days ahead. Some believed in religion and some believe in non-religion.

There are several essays from famous people like Bill Gates, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller, and etc, though the audio quality of the older essays (due to reproduction from the old “This I Believe”) were poor and hard to understand.

Overall it was a treat to hear the diverse beliefs from a diverse set of people and their stories. This brings up the interesting question about what I truly believe.What do I believe? I believe we only live on this earth once and we ought to give it our best to learn, enjoy, love, and be loved and make the world a better place than we found it.

This is book is highly recommended.