A More Exciting Life: A guide to greater freedom, spontaneity and enjoyment

by The School of Life, Alain de Botton (Editor)

Overview

A guide to living a more joyful and interesting life.

In pursuit of a more exciting life, we often seek external experiences to fulfill us. We take trips, parachute out of airplanes, and buy the latest technology. But the keys to a more joyful, thrilling, and beautiful life are already within us.

This inspiring book from The School of Life is a guide to the psychology of fulfillment. It presents readers with a chance to accept our desires and aspirations, nurture our inner liberation, and have the courage to set ourselves free.

• A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH to a more meaningful life.
• PRACTICAL TIPS ON NAVIGATING ANGER, INTIMACY, AND EXCEPTIONALISM
• A GUIDE TO FINDING EXCITEMENT at work, in relationships, and within.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912891252
Publisher:	The School of Life
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfillment.

The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socializing, finding calm, and enjoying culture through content, community, and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events, and one-to-one therapy sessions.

The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 174,000 Instagram followers and 166,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.

Read an Excerpt

Learning to be angry

There are many reasons to believe that one of the dominant problems in the world today is an excess of anger. We know all about the very shouty and their antics: their tantrums, their lack of reason, their unwillingness to compromise. Furthermore, this threatens to get a lot worse. We seem locked into a set of dynamics (political, technological, environmental) that promises an ever less patient, ever less serene, and ever less forgiving future.

However, it may be more realistic, albeit odd-sounding, to insist on the opposite: that whatever the impression generated by a publicly vocal angry cohort, the far more common problem is a widespread inability to get angry: a failure to know how to effectively mount a complaint; an inarticulate swallowing of frustration; and the bitterness, subterranean acting out and low-level depression that follow from not expressing our rightful sorrows. For every one person who shouts too loudly, there are at least twenty who have unfairly lost their voices.

We are not talking here of delirious rage – the sort that injures innocents and leads nowhere. The point is not to rehabilitate barbarism; it is to make a case for an occasional capacity to speak up, with dignity and poise, in order to correct a reasoned sense that something isn’t right and that those around us need to take our opposing perspective on board.

As a rule, we are hopeless at being angry, and from the very nicest of motives. In part this stems from a belief in the complexity of situations and the minds of other people, which undercuts enthusiasm for anything that smacks of self-righteousness or pride. We tell ourselves, in relationships or at work, that others must have good reasons for behaving as they do, that they must be essentially kind and good, and that it would be an insult to their efforts to raise our hand about a problem that we surely don’t understand entirely.

We tend to import our modesty from childhood. It is a privilege to allow a child to manifest their frustration – and not all parents are game. Some are keen on having a ‘good’ baby. They let the infant know that being ‘naughty’ isn’t funny and that this isn’t a family where children are allowed to run rings around the adults. Difficult moods and tantrums, complaints and rages are not to be part of the story. This certainly ensures short-term compliance; however, paradoxically, preternaturally good behaviour is often a precursor of bad feelings and, in extremes, mental unwellness in adulthood. Feeling loved enough that one can tell parental figures to sod off and occasionally fling something (soft) across the room belongs to health; truly mature parents have rules and allow their children (sometimes) to break them.

Otherwise, there is a species of inner deadness that comes from having been forced to be too good too soon and to resign one’s point of view without a flicker of self-defence. In relationships, this might mean a tendency to get taken for a ride for many years – not in terms of outright abuse (though that too), but the kind of low-level humiliation that seems the lot of people who can’t make a fuss. At work, an unwavering concern for politeness, empathy and gentleness may end up providing the perfect preconditions for being walked all over.

We should try to relearn the neglected art of politely being a pain. The danger of those who have never shouted is that they might, in compensation, end up screaming. That isn’t the point either. The goal is a firm but self-possessed protest: ‘Excuse me, but you are ruining what’s left of my life’; ‘I’m so sorry, but you are cauterising my chances of happiness’; ‘I beg your pardon, but this is enough...’

We think a lot about going on holiday and trying new activities. There is a lot of enthusiasm for learning other languages and attempting foreign dishes. But true exoticism and adventure may lie closer to home: in the emotional sphere, and in the courage and originality required to give contained anger a go, perhaps tonight, after supper. We have the speeches written in our heads already. There is likely to be a spouse, a parent, a colleague, or a child who hasn’t heard enough from us for far too long, and with whom it would be of incalculable benefit to our heart rate and our emotional and physical constitution to have a word. The timid always imagine that anger might destroy everything good. Because their childhoods encouraged them to, they overlook the fact that anger can also be a fertiliser from which something a lot less bitter and a lot more alive can emerge.

Table of Contents

1) OTHERS
i) Learning to lie a bit less often ii) Leaning into Vulnerability iii) On Self-Assertion iv) What everybody really wants v) Getting Expectations Right
2) SELF
i) Learning to be Angry ii) Escaping the Shadow of a Parent iii) On Friendliness to Strangers iv) Dealing with Depression
3) RELATIONSHIPS
i) Arguing more Nakedly ii) The Stranger You’ve been Living Alongside for Years iii) Learning to lay down Boundaries iv) The Benefits of Insecurity v) Untragic Endings vi) The Hardest Person in the World to Break Up With vii) Beyond Masochism viii) Why, once you understand love, you could love anyone ix) Intimacy and Closeness x) Accepting ourselves Sexually xi) An Attractive Mindset
4) WORK
i) You could finally leave school!
ii) Overcoming the Pressure to be Exceptional iii) The Hard Work of Laziness iv) Learning to listen to your boredom
5) PLEASURE
i) Getting More Serious about Pleasure ii) A More Spontaneous Life iii) Small Luxuries iv) Learning to be More Selfish
6) FREEDOM
i) How to Lengthen your Life ii) A Few Things Still to be Grateful For iii) Twenty Signs of Emotional Maturity iv) Taking it a day at a time

Editorial Reviews

"A More Exciting Life was incredibly insightful, and I found myself highlighting entire pages Unlike therapy appointments where I forget what was discussed as soon as I leave, this book is a treasure that I will keep with me always." - NetGalley Review

From the Publisher