This is one of those books that a lot of people say you MUST read, or that is literally life changing. It is a collection of what Naval Ravikant has said about money, happiness, and having a reason for living. Naval Ravikant's tweets are famous for a specific "wise" element, as many people wonder how he says so much with so few words. So, I picked this up because of the hype I saw for the book and the author on social media. I had so little knowledge of this book that social media made me believe it's written by Ravikant himself. But no, the author is Eric Jorgenson, who compiled the philosophies of Ravikant here.

The term, "almanack" refers to the yearly calendar with statistics about things like the phases of the moon, sunrise and sunset times, tides, anniversaries, and so on. In this book, this word has been used to describe Ravikant's life course; especially his ups and downs and ups again.

The author does a good job of putting together Mr. Naval Ravikant’s tweets, podcasts, and interviews to make this book. It is a collection of Naval Ravikant's most important lessons. Naval Ravikant shows people how to build wealth and be happy for the long term by working on a few essential skills and learning the secrets of living a good life. Ravikant's perspective on living a successful life was straightforward. He focuses on five mantras. And the effective practice of these five steps makes a person wealthy (not necessarily rich though). His advice is,

Finding out how you may generate wealth: Ravikant believes, renting out time will never lead to financial success. To gain financial independence, wealth must be continuously acquired, even when people are sleeping. So, 9-5 jobs are never going to work out. Rather, he suggests taking business risks as much as possible. Profit, share, and equity are what turn money into wealth.

Building judgment and judge every decision: The ability to exercise good judgment is necessary to make good decisions. It is the knowledge required to make the most appropriate decision in order to make the most of one's activities. In this day and age, where leverage is prevalent, one move can make people win or lose everything. There, you need good judgment to always make the best choice, preferably before other people.

Acquiring the skill of making choices: In life, there are a lot of choices to be made with lots of options and opportunities. We must learn, how to make a hard choice. Ravikant advises taking the path that hurts more in the short term. Because he believes, easy choices lead to a hard life. Tough choices, easy life. And if you can't decide on anything with 100% assurance, you should always say "no."

Getting in the habit of reading for pleasure: Ravikant believes, books should be interesting and absorbed slowly. But books that make only one point, should be flipped ahead and speed read until that one point is clear to the reader.

Recognizing that your happiness is a choice you can make for yourself: People have 3 choices in every situation. They can change it, accept it, or just leave it. So, in any situation, being happy has these 3 options. People can change the situation if it contradicts their being happy, or they can accept the situation and try to be happy by conforming to it and leaving the situation that is not letting them to be happy. But remaining happy, is always possible.

Apart from the philosophical discussions, the author mentions Ravikant's idea of the future of work and jobs. He thinks, it will be hard to get rich in jobs where your inputs and outputs are closely linked. For example, in a corporate 9-to-5 job, the worker exchanges the exact number of work hours for his hourly salary. So, if being wealthy is the dream, this is a big No. You need to find ways to make a difference in the world while spending little time or energy on it. Here, the input and output are not equal. Instead, the impact of the output is greater than the input. This is the only way to be wealthy, and by wealth he doesn't mean riches and fancy stuff; he means the life of a dream. I found this book extremely realistic, even in a cut-throat way in some pages. If you are a realist, you will love this book; if you are an optimist, you will love this book; if you are an individualist, you will love this book. But for conformists, observers, and philosophers, this book may be confusing and create a dilemma between your id and superego. But a good read anyway.

8/10