Review: Reflections from Life: A Muslim’s Guide to Inspiration

Reflections from Life: A Muslim’s Guide to Inspiration is a self-help book written by Aisha Idris. It’s her debut self-help book and you can find it on Amazon here. I was sent a soft-copy to review a little while back, which some of you may know as I’ve mentioned it previously.

The author recommends not diving head first into this book over one session but rather spreading out the reading of it. After having read it myself – admittedly, quite quickly – I can understand why. Reflections from Life is packed full of good advice and life lessons and they’re the type that lend well to further introspection.

Despite having read this book fast in order to be able to get my review up, I’ve already decided to give it a reread in order to let myself appreciate it as a whole better – which should clue in as to my feelings about it.

I was actually contacted by someone regarding this title before I’d even finished it asking my opinion and I’m going to cheat a bit and regurgitate to you what I told that lovely lady. I told her that what I like most about this book is that the personal experiences are balanced well in between the advice and because of that, it doesn’t come across as preachy.

This is a common trap for self-help books to fall into; they somehow strike a note that suggests that the author speaks from a place of superiority. By being candid about her own experiences and simply in the way they’re written on the page, Aisha has neatly avoided that trap and instead, her book reads like a well-compiled set of lessons along with some real-life examples to illustrate the point behind each lesson.

There are some real gems in this book but I’ll only share my very favourite:

Be content with your own journey and compete only with the person you were yesterday.

I really love that piece of advice. It seems simple on the surface. I mean, of course competing with others will breed resentment. But how many of us take that to heart? It’s a key reminder for how to ensure you’re never a victim to the discontent that plagues so many.

I’m sure it’s obvious by now – I really, really enjoyed this book.

Final rating: 5 out of 5 book dragons.