Book Summary Review: The Noticer
Andrews’ (2016) ‘The Noticer‘ can be classified as a self-help book, written primarily with the objective of guiding readers into solving personal issues or problems. Andy Andrews is also the author of ‘The Traveler’s Gift.’ This book sold more than one million copies during the first year of its publication after fifty-one publishers rejected it for three and half years.
In “The Noticer’, Andrews presents the story of a mysterious old man called Jones, who has the tendency or the ability to appear in people’s lives when needed and offer priceless guides or lessons concerning life, love, and the significance of perspective. The author, Andrews, is the narrator in this story and will be referred to as the narrator, author, or Little Andrews.
The Opening Chapter
The setting of ‘The Noticer‘ is in Orange Beach, Alabama. According to Andrews’ description, Orange Beach is a simple town with simple people. However, people in this town all have a share of challenges ranging from marriages on the point of divorce, businesses in the process of going bankrupt, young people giving up on their dreams, and several other obstacles that life presents to the masses.
When everything appears to head in the darkest direction, a mysterious old man named Jones, miraculously appears to save the situation. In the book’s opening chapter, Andrews describes Jones as an old man whose age is challenging to quantify. Whether he was sixty or eighty or a hundred, one could not tell.
However, every time the narrator looks at Jones, he sees him with a brown suitcase close at hand. The author saw Jones for the first time at age 23. Jones held his hands, and for some reason, the interaction was a small miracle. Andrews describes Jones as a man of indiscriminate race and age, with white hair, often wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, and carrying a tattered old suitcase. The author also describes Jones as an exceptional soul with angelic-like characteristics.
According to Andrews, the mysterious character of Jones tells us that we sometimes need a little perspective. Jones says that he has the gift or ability to notice things concerning life that others miss. In Jones’ interactions with the narrator, he talks about the yearning in people to comprehend why things happen and the part they can play.
Based on an incredible true story, the book blends fiction, inspiration, and allegory. The author presents the simple but powerful peculiarities concerning love, integrity, and value and inspires readers to take the first step in making major changes to their lives with a little perspective.
What The Writer Tells The Readers
Andrews’s work, ‘The Noticer‘ tells the readers how they, like the author, can be transformed when another person notices and helps to transform their perspective, hence the subtitle “Sometimes, All A Person Needs Is A Little Perspective.” Half truth, half allegory, ‘The Noticer‘ described the author’s actual story as a homeless and directionless teenager living under a pier on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.
In this personal story, the author talks about a mysterious old man, Jones, who appears to deeply understand the author’s life and its mysteries. The author had been crying profusely, and the old man heard him. His cries were due to loneliness and discomfort, making him produce the kind of wail a person will let loose only if there is no one around. He had been spending his nights on a pier, and on the day of meeting Jones, Andrews was facing another night in the same place. Andrews’s mother succumbed to cancer years earlier, while his father succumbed to a tragic accident for neglecting to put on his seat belt.
The events left Andrews without parents, and in a couple of years, he found himself living in the Gulf Coast, homeless and without a vehicle or money and doing odd jobs such as setting bait for tourists.
According to the author, Jones’ visit when he saw little Andrews sobbing profusely, gave him a little perspective on his life. Due to Jones’ gift of noticing things other people miss, he noticed the young Andrews’s problems. Jones talks with the young Andrew, giving him wise advice: “Whatever you focus upon increases. When you focus on what you need, the need increases. If you focus on loss, you are more likely to lose (16).” Jones further told the young Andrews that having a grateful perspective leads to abundance and happiness in an individual’s life.
Jones observes that the narrator had his vision marked by cloudy moments. However, Jones tells the narrator that with a little perspective, it is possible to clear a pathway from the narrator’s head to his heart and into the future. Jones tells the narrator that, like many people, he has failed to see the positive perspective of his life, and he often pities himself because he lacks perspective.
Many people only disguise themselves or worry about their present situation but never stop to think about the millions who lack the opportunities and blessings they have, no food, no hopes, and nothing.
What The Book Offers Us
Andrews offers an exciting viewpoint on perspective and the power of an individual’s decisions. The wisest and most exciting point in the book is when Jones explains the idea of worry to another person, who like the narrator, appears to have lost track of his life and feels defeated. Jones deconstructs the worry into nothing. According to the book, many things we worry about do not happen.
In the book, Jones, the mysterious old man, advises thirty or forty percent of our worries do not happen. Reading through this thought multiple times or posting it where you can read it daily can help one evade unnecessary, unproductive worry that blocks progress and restricts people from achieving their full potential.
Andrews understands how a rich, prosperous life feels but also understands the experience of waking up full of doubts and fears and feeling demoralized. But he still inspires the readers with his philosophy that there is hope as long as you are still breathing.
The most crucial aspect of your life is yet to be lived. You may be depressed, broke, or old, but the most important thing is that you are still here. Your dreams can still be achieved if you have a little perspective. Overall, the book considers perspective the most important thing to realizing our full potential.
Takeaways
- Sometimes all humans want is just a little perspective to understand opportunities and the blessings before them to achieve their potential. We sometimes get stuck because we only focus on our problems and fail to examine the opportunities those problems might present.
- If you are breathing, that means you are still here. And if you are still here, that means you have not accomplished what you were put here to achieve. That means your purpose has not been fulfilled, so do not lose hope.
- Many of life’s treasures remain hidden, and we fail to discover them because we never search for them. In most cases, we fail to ask the right questions that can help us get answers to all our life challenges.
- In most cases, humans find themselves caught up in fear and regret to the extent that hope appears a foolish endeavor. Andrews tells us that this is proof hope is an overlooked law for many people, but hope can move mountains.
- Our fears do not happen in real life. Andrews deconstructed fears into zero, arguing that over 40% of the things we fear do not occur. The lesson is that we should stop living in fear and instead act on our intentions, for intentions without actions are insults to people who expect the best from us.