Download or read book A Meaningful Life written by L.J. Davis and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2010-07-21 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: L.J. Davis’s 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’s novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his wife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, and spends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: he will dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur. He will make good on everything that’s gone wrong with his life, and he will even murder to do it.

Download or read book Hero on a Mission written by Donald Miller and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller shares the plan that led him to turn his life around. This actionable guide will teach you how to do the same through journaling prompts and goal-planning exercises. There are four characters in every story: The victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide. These four characters live inside us. If we play the victim, we’re doomed to fail. If we play the villain, we will not create genuine bonds. But if we play the hero or guide, our lives will flourish. The hard part is being self-aware enough to know which character we are playing. In this book, bestselling author Donald Miller uses his own experiences to help you recognize if the character you are currently surfacing is helping you experience a life of meaning. He breaks down the transformational, yet practical, plan that took him from slowly giving up to rapidly gaining a new perspective of his own life’s beauty and meaning, igniting his motivation, passion, and productivity, so you can do the same. In Hero on a Mission, Donald’s lessons will teach you how to: Discover when you are playing the victim and villain. Create a simple life plan that will bring clarity and meaning to your goals ahead. Take control of your life by choosing to be the hero in your story. Cultivate a sense of creativity about what your life can be. Move beyond just being productive to experiencing a deep sense of meaning. Donald will help you identify the many chances you have of being the hero in your life, and the times when you are falling into the trap of becoming the victim. Hero on a Mission will guide you in developing a unique plan that will speak to the challenges you currently face so you can find the fulfillment you have been searching for in your life and work.

Download or read book Meanings of Life written by Roy F. Baumeister and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who among us has not at some point asked, what is the meaning of life?' In this extraordinary book, an eminent social scientist looks at the big picture and explores what empirical studies from diverse fields tell us about the human condition. MEANINGS OF LIFE draws together evidence from psychology, history, anthropology, and sociology, integrating copious research findings into a clear and conclusive discussion of how people attempt to make sense of their lives. In a lively and accessible style, emphasizing facts over theories, Baumeister explores why people desire meaning in their lives, how these meanings function, what forms they take, and what happens when life loses meaning. It is the most comprehensive examination of the topic to date.

Download or read book Making Life Meaningful written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. This book was released on 2001 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LYWA) is the collected works of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Kyabje Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. The Archive was founded in 1996 by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, its spiritual director, to make available in various ways the teachings it contains. In this book, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gives us the answer to the perennial question of how to integrate Dharma with our daily lives - not only Dharma, but the best Dharma, bodhicitta: the determination to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It contains a public talk explaining the purpose of life in general and the practice of guru devotion, a wide array of techniques for transforming ordinary actions into causes for enlightenment and advice on establishing a daily practice. By putting these precious teachings into practice, beginners and advanced students alike will truly be able to make the lives highly meaningful.

Download or read book A Wonderful Life written by Frank Martela and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of essays that explore the notion of what brings significance to our existences, clarifying why we have this longing beyond the present moment and an insatiable dissatisfaction with where we are, scholar Frank Martela tackles the subject of finding meaning in life. With beautiful decorative elements and an engaging design, the book approaches its subject in a readily digestible form. It grapples with some of life’s most pressing questions, like "Is happiness a worthy goal?" and "What is the foundation for meaning in a secular society?" and "Is life an existential void?" yet Martela answers these questions and more in a relaxed, conversational tone and with a wry sense of humor, placing some of life’s greatest philosophical concerns and quandaries into a modern-day context. Martela quickly and concisely gets to the heart of the matter: your place in the world and how to find meaning in life as countless thinkers and philosophers have done before, yet the emphasis here is on what we do with the life we have and how we can make it more meaningful. Part prescriptive and part armchair philosophy book, A Wonderful Life is accessible to everyone, from the well-read scholar to the apprentice as well as anyone curious about how to extract the greatest meaning and sense of purpose from their existence.

Download or read book Designing Your Life written by Bill Burnett and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Download or read book The Power of Meaning written by Emily Esfahani Smith and published by Crown. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a culture obsessed with happiness, this wise, stirring book points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life. Too many of us believe that the search for meaning is an esoteric pursuit—that you have to travel to a distant monastery or page through dusty volumes to discover life’s secrets. The truth is, there are untapped sources of meaning all around us—right here, right now. To explore how we can craft lives of meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith synthesizes a kaleidoscopic array of sources—from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists to figures in literature and history such as George Eliot, Viktor Frankl, Aristotle, and the Buddha. Drawing on this research, Smith shows us how cultivating connections to others, identifying and working toward a purpose, telling stories about our place in the world, and seeking out mystery can immeasurably deepen our lives. To bring what she calls the four pillars of meaning to life, Smith visits a tight-knit fishing village in the Chesapeake Bay, stargazes in West Texas, attends a dinner where young people gather to share their experiences of profound loss, and more. She also introduces us to compelling seekers of meaning—from the drug kingpin who finds his purpose in helping people get fit to the artist who draws on her Hindu upbringing to create arresting photographs. And she explores how we might begin to build a culture that leaves space for introspection and awe, cultivates a sense of community, and imbues our lives with meaning. Inspiring and story-driven, The Power of Meaning will strike a profound chord in anyone seeking a life that matters.

Download or read book The Wisdom of a Meaningful Life written by John Bruna and published by Central Recovery Press, LLC. This book was released on 2016-07-25 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the keys to genuine happiness? In contrast to stimulus-driven pleasure, genuine contentment comes from living a life of meaning that aligns with one's values. John Bruna provides readers with the practical wisdom and methods to cultivate deeper satisfaction and contentment in everyday experiences. He identifies common traps people fall into looking for happiness that actually create stress, worry, and fear, offering authentic mindfulness-based solutions to counteract them. The increasing popularity of secular mindfulness in the United States mainstream has unfortunately produced a wide variety of teachings that water down and sometimes misrepresent this important philosophy and approach to living. In direct contrast, this invaluable book maintains the substance of the entire teaching as a program that is accessible to people of all spiritual traditions or no spiritual tradition. John Bruna is a counselor, educator, and mindfulness and spiritual teacher. In 2005, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition through the Gaden Shartse Monastery in India. In 2012, he became a Certified Cultivating Emotional Balance Mindfulness Teacher via the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. Currently, John is the director of the Way of Compassion Foundation and cofounder of the Mindful Life Program.

Download or read book Minimalism Live a Meaningful Life written by Joshua Fields Millburn and published by Asymmetrical Press. This book was released on 2015-12-20 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can make room for life's most important things—which actually aren't things at all. At age 30, best friends Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus walked away from their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on what's truly important. In their debut book, Joshua & Ryan, authors of the popular website The Minimalists, explore their troubled pasts and descent into depression. Though they had achieved the American Dream, they worked ridiculous hours, wastefully spent money, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Instead of discovering their passions, they pacified themselves with ephemeral indulgences—which only led to more debt, depression, and discontent. After a pair of life-changing events, Joshua & Ryan discovered minimalism, allowing them to eliminate their excess material things so they could focus on life's most important "things": health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.

Download or read book What Color Is Your Parachute for Retirement Second Edition written by John E. Nelson and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plan Now for the Life You Want Today’s economic realities have reset our expectations of what retirement is, yet there’s still the promise for what it can be: a life stage filled with more freedom and potential than ever before. Given the new normal, how do you plan for a future filled with prosperity, health, and happiness? As a companion to What Color Is Your Parachute?, the world’s best-selling career book, What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement offers both a holistic, big-picture look at these years as well as practical tools and exercises to help you build a life full of security, vitality, and community. This second edition contains updates throughout, including a section on Social Security, an in-depth exercise on values and how they inform your retirement map, and the one-of-a-kind resource for organizing the sea of information on finances and mental and physical health: the Retirement Well-Being Profile. More than a guide on where to live, how to stay active, or which investments to choose, What Color Is Your Parachute? for Retirement helps you develop a detailed picture of your ideal retirement, so that—whether you’re planning retirement or are there already—you can take a comprehensive approach to make the most of these vital years.

Download or read book How to Live a Meaningful Life Focusing on Things that Matter written by Tim Sledge and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-15 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After my life of faith collapsed, I picked up the broken pieces and tried to envision a new way of living. Faced with a multitude of choices about what the new version of me might look like, I began to think for myself about how to build a meaningful life. I decided that if I could describe a religion-not-required way of finding meaning in life by focusing on things that really matter, it would be something worth sharing-especially if it could make sense and work for anyone, regardless of religious beliefs, political stance, personality type, lifestyle, or generational label. And that's how this book came to be. Regardless of whether you're a free-thinking skeptic or a person of faith, my hope is that in these pages you can discover new pathways toward values, purpose, and meaning as you consider what matters most in your life. Tim Sledge

Download or read book Toward a Meaningful Life written by Simon Jacobson and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toward a Meaningful Life is a spiritual road map for living based on the teachings of one of the foremost religious leaders of our time: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Head of the Lubavitcher movement for forty-four years and recognized throughout the world simply as “the Rebbe,” Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in June 1994, was a sage and a visionary of the highest order. Toward a Meaningful Life gives people of all backgrounds fresh perspectives on every aspect of their lives—from birth to death, youth to old age; marriage, love, intimacy, and family; the persistent issues of career, health, pain, and suffering; and education, faith, science, and government. We learn to bridge the divisions between accelerated technology and decelerated morality, between unprecedented worldwide unity and unparalleled personal disunity. Although the Rebbe’s teachings are firmly anchored in more than three thousand years of scholarship, the urgent relevance of these old-age truths to contemporary life has never been more manifest. At the threshold of a new world where matter and spirit converge, the Rebbe proposes spiritual principles that unite people as opposed to the materialism that divides them. In doing so, he continues to lead us toward personal and universal redemption, toward a meaningful life, and toward God.

Download or read book Design Your Life written by Cornelia Shipley and published by 3c Consulting. This book was released on 2014 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It really is possible to live a life of YOUR design! To craft a career that empowers you to your unique definition of success and fulfillment! To truly live out your dreams - daily, rather than waiting for "some day." In Design Your Life: How to Create a Meaningful Live, Advance Your Career and Live Your Dreams, Cornelia Shipley gives you the exact tools and formula to do just that! Cornelia's message is simple: You can be the architect of your own existence. In this book, you will learn the tools and processes she uses to guide her private clients to finally make the shifts in their life that leave them feeling successful, happy, fulfilled, and in charge of their future. You will learn: - How to define and build your strongest foundation - allowing you ACT from confidence - How to create your Personal Brand - establishing what you stand for & what others can expect from you - How to define your Personal Operating Principles - allowing you to make powerful choices of what's exactly right for you - How to create your Personal Definition of Success - ensuring that the results you achieve are the results YOU want, not what another might want for you - How to establish your Personal Reward System - ensuring that you stay motivated along the journey - How to develop your Success Mindset - giving you the power of your own thinking to propel you forward to your designed life. Along the way, you'll find "Designed Action" exercises that easily guide you toward designing your future. This is a discovery process that you will not only enjoy, but that have a positive impact on your life and future like no other! Whether you desire to move up the corporate ladder, find a new creative outlet, or simply learn to love the journey, Your Life: How to Create a Meaningful Live, Advance Your Career and Live Your Dreams provides a clear and infinitely practical program that will allow you live on purpose, with passion and powerful intentions for everything that matters most to you.

Download or read book Life Purpose Boot Camp written by Eric Maisel and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A no-excuses, cut-to-the-chase program for defining, training for, and achieving your goals As life gets busier and more complicated we crave something larger and more meaningful than just ticking another item off our to-do list. In the past, we’ve looked to religion or outside guidance for that sense of purpose, but today fewer people are fulfilled by traditional approaches to meaning. Bestselling author, psychotherapist, and creativity coach Eric Maisel offers an alternative: an eight-week intensive that breaks through barriers and offers insights for living each day with purpose. Once you understand how meaning operates, how meaning and life purpose are related, and what concrete steps you can take toward fulfilling your purpose, you will never run out of meaning again. This program will develop self-awareness and self-confidence and give you what you need to fully live the best possible life.

Download or read book Born to Be Good The Science of a Meaningful Life written by Dacher Keltner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-10-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A landmark book in the science of emotions and its implications for ethics and human universals.”—Library Journal, starred review In this startling study of human emotion, Dacher Keltner investigates an unanswered question of human evolution: If humans are hardwired to lead lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short,” why have we evolved with positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, and compassion that promote ethical action and cooperative societies? Illustrated with more than fifty photographs of human emotions, Born to Be Good takes us on a journey through scientific discovery, personal narrative, and Eastern philosophy. Positive emotions, Keltner finds, lie at the core of human nature and shape our everyday behavior—and they just may be the key to understanding how we can live our lives better. Some images in this ebook are not displayed owing to permissions issues.

Download or read book Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion written by Robert Firestone and published by Amer Psychological Assn. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clinical psychologists identify and describe the defensive process that constrains people from making positive changes in their lives. They summarize the insights they gained while developing a more decent and respectful way of living as a response to the destructiveness of society.

Download or read book 10 Foundations for a Meaningful Life No Matter What s Happened written by Pam Cordano Mft and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IT'S ONE THING TO WANT A MEANINGFUL LIFE; IT'S ANOTHER TO KNOW HOW TO CREATE ONE. In this personal, wise, and generous book, Pam Cordano, MFT outlines 10 Foundations anyone can follow to build a meaningful and joyful life, despite loss and suffering. Drawing from her personal story as the first woman in four generations not to lose a baby to authorities, Pam shares insights from her beginnings as a perpetual outsider, to her young adulthood as she struggled with addiction and aimlessness, to her awakening at 46 years old when she finally and definitively chose life. Pam was deeply moved by Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. In it he wrote, "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us." These words provided the impetus for Pam to find out what life was asking of her. She devoted herself to discovering how to live a life of meaning, and how to help others do the same. Based on her work with cancer patients, widows, and adoptees, this book distills the day-to-day methods to get unstuck and find meaning, no matter what's happened. AMONG PAM CORDANO'S MOST VALUABLE INSIGHTS: Why we can heal only when we're in Direct Experience How responsibility bolsters true freedom How to tap into the wisdom of our Future Self How to distinguish between our Coping Identity and Essence Identity Why Meaning is the only antidote to despair