Compass — For Those Who Want to Find Themselves Again
Good Fit
- Readers who forget themselves to please others and can't say no
- Anyone looking for a self-help book written like a friendly chat
- Those interested in family and social pressure in a Turkish cultural context
Not a Fit
- Readers expecting evidence-based psychology or therapy
- Those bothered by repetition and loose structure
- Anyone sensitive to factual accuracy — the book contains unverified stories
The book opens with the author's personal story: writing is harder for her than speaking; she lived as someone 'grinding herself down in the gears of time'; reading an American woman's tragic life story struck her 'like lightning' and brought her to her senses. This opening is sincere and sets the book's tone: this is not an expert's textbook but a friendly conversation in which one person describes her own path.
«Why Can't We Say No?» is the most useful chapter. The author locates the problem in culture: we were taught that living for others is a virtue, so everything we do for ourselves breeds a hidden guilt. As a result we suffer whether we say yes or no. A friend's words capture it exactly: 'Even if I turn the guests away, I can't relax — yes or no makes no difference to me.'
The path the author proposes is simple and practical: when we regret an unwilling 'yes', instead of scolding ourselves ('Stupid me!'), we should ask a non-judgemental question — 'Why did I really do that?' On an evening when we are tired, we should be able to tell a friend who wants to visit 'I've set this evening aside for myself' without inventing excuses. The key idea is this: saying no rejects not the person but their request, and being able to make that distinction is a sign of emotional maturity.
The chapter is enriched with Nasreddin Hodja's anecdotes about 'drying flour on a clothesline' and 'your turban looks like mine', an example from Montaigne's «Essays», and Paulo Coelho's line about making sure that when you say yes to others you are not saying no to yourself. The example from the author's own life — trying to understand a relative who used her as an excuse, rather than getting angry — is convincing and illustrates the book's 'understand without judging' approach well.
The chapter's serious problem is the two 'true' stories told to prove the law of cause and effect. The first — a drunk driver, Sophie Lagoa, killing with her car the lawyer who had saved her from punishment — is an unsourced story circulating online. The second — a poor farmer named Fleming saving the young Churchill from a bog, Churchill's father paying for Alexander Fleming's education, and penicillin later curing Churchill — is a famous legend long debunked by historians. The author's statement that 'both stories are true' damages the book's credibility.
Overall the book is warm and heartfelt, and some lines stay with you ('If reason is a filter and conscience a scale, it's heaven; if reason is a veil and conscience guilt, it's hell'). But the same ideas are repeated many times, some paragraphs reappear on the page as pull quotes, and there is no clear system across the chapters. It may be a good starting point for readers facing the inability to say no for the first time; the facts, however, need checking separately.
- Written in the first person, in the tone of a chat between friends
- Examples from clients and from the author's own life
- Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes and well-known quotations
- Short, self-contained chapters
Another self-help book on fear, self-acceptance and making peace with life — reviewed on our site
Another book by a Turkish author on inner emptiness and self-knowledge — reviewed on our site
To show the link of cause and effect the chapter brings two «true» stories: that of the drunk driver Sofi Lago, who later runs over with his car the lawyer who saved him from punishment, and that of the poor farmer Fleming who saves the boy Churchill from a bog, Churchill's father pays for Alexander Fleming's education, and penicillin later cures Churchill.
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