Start Where You Are

Book Title: Start Where You Are: a Journal for Self-exploration
Author: Meera Lee Patel
Publisher: Perigee
ISBN: 978-0-399-17482-7

“It’s impossible to follow a dream that has no shape or outline.” This is a powerful book that is magical! It is full of colorful illustrations with quotes written on them along with an exercise for applying every quote. The exercises range from knowing to healing oneself.  There is a quote by Kazuo Ishiguro: “There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.” This is followed by an exercise on the next page in which one has to find something to be grateful for amidst the darkness.

The exercises make it a very practical book. They can be used in different stages of life. One can give a concrete plan to an amorphous dream; dissolve fear when terrorized and even watch the Sun to de-stress. Therefore, it is the practical magic added with beautiful colors that make this book outstanding.

This book also encourages a person to be brutally honest with oneself. Meera Lee Patel writes: “If you’re honest with your thoughts, these pages will serve as a mirror. You’ll become privy to various pieces of yourself-some that you know very well and others, previously gone unnoticed.”
However, the book could have been more organized and helpful had it got a page for ‘Contents’. The book would have been divided under various headings and sub-headings such as planning and healing.


If you are at a stage of life in which you are about to give up, have self-doubt or do not know what your life wants from you, this book will help you gain clarity. It will give you hope to “take your time. Use what you have. Start where you are.”

                                                                                                      -Kriti Malhotra

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