How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World
448How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World
448Paperback
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Overview
What does it take to achieve a successful and satisfying life? Not long ago, the answer seemed as simple as following a straightforward path: college, career, house, marriage, kids, and a secure retirement. Not anymore. Staggering student loan debt, sweeping job shortages, a chronically ailing economy—plus the larger issues of global unrest, poverty, and our imperiled environment—make the search for fulfillment more challenging. And, as Colin Beavan, activist and author of No Impact Man, proclaims, more exciting.
In this breakthrough book, Beavan extends a hand to those seeking more meaning and joy in life even as they engage in addressing our various world crises. How to Be Alive nudges the unfulfilled toward creating their own version of the Good Life—a life where feeling good and doing good intersect. He urges readers to reexamine the “standard life approaches” to pretty much everything and to experiment with life choices that are truer to their values, passions, and concerns.
How do you stop placing limits on your potential impact? How do you make your choices really matter in everything from your clothing purchases to your career? How do you find the people who will most support you in your quest for a good life? To answer these questions and more, Beavan draws on classic literature and philosophy; surprising new scientific findings; and the uplifting personal stories of real-life “lifequesters”—people who are breaking away from those old broken paths, blazing fresh trails, and reveling in every step along the way.
“There is a movement afoot for a better life and Colin Beavan is its prophet, with a new book as powerful as his already classic No Impact Man.”—John de Graaf, coauthor of Affluenza
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780062236715 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins |
Publication date: | 01/31/2017 |
Pages: | 448 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.40(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Kind of Life Do You Want? 1
Part I The New Facts of Life
1 The Awful Stories We Tell Ourselves to Make Ourselves Small 35
2 Understanding the Truth of Your Relationship to the World 60
3 The Lifequester's Mind Hacks 67
4 The Unifying Theory of Changing Your Life and Your World 84
Part II How to Want What You Really Want
5 The Coolest Part of Being a Lifequester 89
6 What Are People For? 96
7 How to Know How Many Regrets You Will Have on Your Deathbed 104
8 What Science Says About Where You Will Actually Find Purpose and Meaning 110
9 Why Most of Humanity Seems to Be Headed Straight Toward Those Deathbed Regrets and How to Change Course 136
10 A Last Word on Why the World Would Be Safer and Happier If We Wanted What We Really Want 147
Part III The Gentle Path
11 A Journey of a Thousand Miles, Etc., Etc. 151
12 Identifying the Easy Parts 157
13 Eat How You Want to Live 174
14 Own What Really Makes You Happy 198
15 How to Get Around and Where to Stay Put 226
16 How to Become a True Citizen 241
Part IV Finding Your People
17 The "Real" Thing in Relationships 255
18 When the Black Sheep Finds Its Flock 258
19 Success in Everything That Matters 272
20 Build It as You Like It 289
Part V Who to Parent
21 The Many Ways of Parenting (Including Not Having Kids) 303
22 Some Reasons People Do and Don't Have Children 311
23 Parenting Other People's Children (and Letting Others Parent Yours) 324
24 Deciding Whether to Be a Bio Parent 338
Part VI Walk Your Path
25 Learn to Discern 347
26 How Can I Help? 351
27 The Life of Your Time 372
28 Thriving in Your Corral 383
29 Building a Corral Where You Live 397
Part VII Rise Above the Noise
30 What It's Like to Be Human 407
31 The Freedom of No Escape 414
32 The Science of Truth 419
Epilogue: The Last Word 428
Resources: How to Join the Ongoing Conversation and Get the How to Be Alive Workbook 434
Acknowledgments 435