It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

by Melanie Dale

Overview

Hey, you. Are you debating whether to destroy something with your bare hands or curl up on the couch for a decade or two?

This book will solve all of your problems. (Sheesh, that's aiming a bit high.)

This book is a cup of hot coffee, a ginormous bar of chocolate, or the magical fairy that comes over and does your dishes while you lie in the fetal position clutching a fluffy pillow.

Sometimes when life falls apart the only acceptable response is hysterical laughter. When things get so far gone, so spectacularly a world away from any plans you made or dreams you dreamed, you feel it bubbling up inside of you and you scream, "It's not fair!" And it isn't. Fair is an illusion, and life is weird.

This book will help you laugh at life's absurd backhands. This book is an empathetic groan of our collective unfairnesses. You might want to throw it across the room, and you might want to hug it like your new best friend. This book is about us sitting down together in our shared mess, taking a deep breath, gripping hands, looking the hard stuff in its beady little eyeballs, and bahahahaaing at it.

Life's not fair, but we can learn to love this life we didn't choose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310342144
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	08/16/2016
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	317,942
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Melanie Dale is a minivan mama and total weirdo who stinks at small talk. Her laugh is a combination honk-snort, and it’s so bad that people have moved away from her in the movie theater. She adores sci-fi and superheroes and is terrified of Pinterest. Author of Women Are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends, she loves speaking, writing for Coffee+Crumbs, and advocating for Children’s Hope Chest. Living in the Atlanta area with her husband and three kids, she blogs at Unexpected.org.

Table of Contents

Part 1 The Part of the Book Where I Explain the Book a Lot

1 A Help-Each-Other Book 13

Part 2 All the Feels

2 I Feel Your Pain 27

3 The Heart Cry of the Entire Human Race 41

4 How to Fall Apart Like a Boss 52

5 Digging Out from a Good Wallow 58

6 Complaint as a Spiritual Discipline 61

7 So Totes Righteously Angry on Your Behalf 69

Part 3 Coping Mechanisms for the Horribly Mangled

8 Fighting Emotional Gangrene 81

9 Comfort Foods That Will Help You Eat Your Feelings 90

10 Because Sometimes Suffering Is Funny 95

11 Don't Make Me Come Over There 104

12 Living Like a Cadbury Egg 110

13 Count the Wins (Even While You're Losing) 115

Part 4 Hell is Other People… or is it Heaven?

14 Things You Should Say If You Want a Good Face Punch 127

15 Faking Healthy and the "I'm Fine" Smile 139

16 Awkward Hugging 145

17 The Two Most Powerful Words 147

18 100 Things You Can Do to Help. 152

Part 5 On God, Suffering, and Other Easy Subjects

19 Her Cupcake Is Better Than Mine 161

20 You Went to the Zoo 172

21 Why Do Bad Things Happen? 178

22 Failure, Doubt, and Being Bananaballs 193

23 Everything Will Be Okay If 197

24 A Bunch of Bible Stuff for All Your Various Moods 205

Part 6 What's Next?

25 How to Survive the Death of a Dream 217

26 Steering into the Surprise 226

27 The Excruciating Pain of Joy 235

28 Where Do We Go from Here? 239

Acknowledgments 245