101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think

In this section, Wiest increasingly utilizes repetition and numbered lists as tactics to help change her reader’s mind. Early on and often afterward, she tells her reader that in order To Change Anything, Change Yourself. Wiest’s essays build her relationship with the reader by reiterating key ideas in various similar forms—through short essays, personal stories, lists of what to do, and lists of what not to do. She intentionally repeats concepts in different contexts and forms to give the reader different avenues to think about these ideas. For example, in “102 Ways Not to Let Irrational Thoughts Ruin Your Life,” she offers advice that mirrors the advice she has already given in earlier essays. Number 4 states, “Fire can burn your house down, or it can cook your dinner each night and keep you warm in the winter. Your mind is the same way” (105). She compares a fire to a person’s mind, putting forth an idea she has already begun to express that develops the theme that one must Embrace Pain to Experience Happiness. In other words, every emotion or experience can be a problem or a pathway for growth, and the difference between people is only how they view it. The metaphor gives the reader a different avenue from which to draw the same conclusion: Perspective is everything.

In most essays of this section, Wiest chooses to write in the second-person voice, directly addressing the reader. This style is an extension of the rhetorical questions common in the first section of the book. This decision regarding the point of view in which she writes brings her closer to the reader, as if in conversation. The second person makes her writing feel more intimate and more personalized, encouraging the reader to open up and more readily accept the advice she gives, letting them begin to change their minds.

Wiest also writes in the first-person singular, and this choice seems designed to establish ethos (authority and trust) in her writing. By speaking in her “own” voice, she practices vulnerability, exposing her own journey in order to gain the trust of the reader. The essays in the first-person singular also cite sources and philosophies more often, making them more traditional essays that rely on evidence and demonstrations of knowledge and status. When Wiest divulges what has helped her in her own journey, she often makes traditional references to balance her personal experience with established thought. She cites psychologists, philosophers, and writers from a broad range of periods and approaches, including Carl Jung, Alan Watts, Marcus Aurelius, Gay Hendricks, Ira Glass, and David McRaney. In referencing these names, Wiest presents herself as knowledgeable and as part of a line of trusted thinkers.

In an adapted process of establishing ethos, Wiest sometimes uses the first-person plural pronoun “we” in order to feel closer to the reader. By writing from this point of view, she puts herself on the same side as the reader, reminding them that she struggles with the same things they do. Often, Wiest does this also to soften criticism or negative identification. In the first paragraph, she says, “[Creativity] has always been a process we naturally prioritize…but we’ve mistakenly grown to regard it as some form of luxury” (121). She points out a mistake that the reader likely made, but it’s difficult to feel defensive when the narrator made the same mistake. On this topic especially, Wiest holds authority because she is actually writing, doing the creative thing, in front of the eyes of the reader. Through writing in first-person plural, conspiring with the reader, she establishes ethos and further connects with them.

The order of her essays sometimes creates patterning. Essay 22 explores the act of creating and its importance in offering people an opportunity for awareness. She explores the idea of creating without judging and mentions that doing the same with one’s feelings is the path to inner peace. Immediately afterward, in Essay 23, she discusses a mindset shift that revolves around a lack of judgment of one’s experiences and feelings. If a person can refrain from judging and categorizing, and if they can believe that everything truly will benefit them, then they can live that truth and become a person who uses every situation to become better. Essay 24 goes on to focus on an adjacent topic—she lists beliefs that, if applicable, prove that a person is the only one holding themselves back from the mindset shift discussed in Essay 23. The sequence of these essays encourages a process of growth and understanding, as the lessons they describe are layered.

This section expounds on the theme that one needs to Embrace Pain to Experience Happiness. In Essay 32, “Signs Your Mental Breakdown Is Actually an Emotional Breakthrough,” Wiest reframes a series of emotions that some people interpret as a breakdown and reframes them as a breakthrough. For example, Number 4 states, “You feel irrationally angry,” and goes on to reframe anger, an emotion that often causes difficulty for people (153). She says that anger is important because, contrary to how it may feel, it is actually directed at oneself, like all emotions are. A few essays prior, in Essay 26, “The One Question to Ask Yourself if You’re Tired of Fighting for Someone’s Love,” Wiest argues that the only way to get more love is to give more love. If a person wants someone else’s love to fill a void for them, they actually need to fill it themselves. In the same way, anger at the world is actually anger at oneself. This essay reaches the reader at a vulnerable moment: At this point in the book, it seems Wiest hopes that the reader has begun reconsidering their beliefs, assumptions, and decisions, and this process can be painful. She puts into words these complex feelings and reframes them as positive changes rather than painful realizations and asks the reader to do the same.