Surrendering to Marriage


Iris Krasnow - 2001
    The truth is that bliss may be there at dawn and gone by lunch, she admits, and there are as many times that you feel like saying Screw you as you feel like saying I love you. In this book, Krasnow leads us through all of it -- the bliss and the blunders -- and with her we journey to the heart of the mystery. It s boring, confusing, sexy, stupid, hilarious, dark, and overwhelming; it s marriage.Through a series of interviews with those who have married, cheated, divorced, and remarried, Krasnow pieces out a shattered portrait of what we can expect from our vows. Each marriage is different, Krasnow shows us; some rest on friendship, while others crackle with sexual tension. But each is battered by a similar struggle. As remarried couples therapist Dr. Isaiah Zimmerman explains, At the heart of most problems is anger that you aren t getting what you think you are entitled to. We struggle with marriage, says Zimmerman (and Krasnow), because that s how we finally grow up.Krasnow wanders among different kinds of marriages, offering us perspective and thoughtful reflection. That is what is moving about this book: Like marriage, it s a container for divergent, warring perspectives that can never be totally resolved. It s not easy, but it opens our eyes to the dark beauty of love.

No-Fail Habits


Michael Hyatt - 2020
    Our work follows us home, even on weekends and vacations.The result is stress, burnout, and strained relationships. Ironically, burning the candle at both ends makes work quality suffer too.Days full of busyness, where you go to bed wondering where all the time went and why so little got done, is primarily the product of habit. One action triggering another that fills every moment of the day, crowding out anything that's not an emergency.It's automated overwork. And when a person succumbs to the stress and leaves for greener pastures, this “burnout pattern” follows them around from one job to the next.But there's good news . . .Self-automation can become your advantage as well.And it's all laid out in the newest book from Michael Hyatt & Company, No-Fail Habits.No-Fail Habits reveals how you can permanently drop habits that don't serve you.You'll also discover how to identify negative triggers and replace them with actions, habits, and rituals that free your time and give you the mental space for deep work—the fertile soil of accomplishment.No-Fail Habits is the blueprint for leveraging habits to build a life of success at work and in your personal life. No-Fail Habits will help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Loveability: Knowing How to Love and Be Loved


Robert Holden - 2013
    It is the purpose of your life.  It is the key to your happiness and to the evolution of the world.”     Loveability is a meditation on love. It addresses the most important thing you will  ever learn. All the happiness, health, and abundance you experience in life comes from your ability to love and be loved. This ability is innate, not acquired.     Robert Holden is the creator of a unique program on love called Loveability, which he teaches worldwide. He has helped thousands of people to transform their experience of love. “Love is the real work of your life,” says Robert. “As you release the blocks to love you flourish even more in your relationships, work, and life.”     In Loveability, Robert weaves a beautiful mix of timeless principles and helpful practices about the nature of true love. With great intimacy and warmth, he shares stories, conversations, meditations, and poetry that have inspired him in his personal inquiry on love. Key themes include:Your destiny is not just to find love; it is to be the most loving person you can be. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Self-love is how you are meant to feel about yourself. It is the key to loving others. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ When you think something is missing in a relationship, it is probably you. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Forgiveness helps you to see that love has never hurt you; it is only your misperceptions of love that hurt. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ The greatest influence you can have in any situation is to be the presence of love.

The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing


John R. Perry - 2012
    Or Hillary Clinton, or Steven Spielberg. Clearly they have no trouble getting stuff done. For the great majority of us, though, what a comfort to discover that we’re not wastrels and slackers, but doers . . . in our own way. It may sound counterintuitive, but according to philosopher John Perry, you can accomplish a lot by putting things off. He calls it “structured procrastination”:In 1995, while not working on some project I should have been working on, I began to feel rotten about myself. But then I noticed something. On the whole, I had a reputation as a person who got a lot done and made a reasonable contribution. . . . A paradox. Rather than getting to work on my important projects, I began to think about this conundrum. I realized that I was what I call a structured procrastinator: a person who gets a lot done by not doing other things.Celebrating a nearly universal character flaw, The Art of Procrastination is a wise, charming, compulsively readable book—really, a tongue-in-cheek argument of ideas. Perry offers ingenious strategies, like the defensive to-do list (“1. Learn Chinese . . .”) and task triage. He discusses the double-edged relationship between the computer and procrastination—on the one hand, it allows the procrastinator to fire off a letter or paper at the last possible minute; on the other, it’s a dangerous time suck (Perry counters this by never surfing until he’s already hungry for lunch). Or what may be procrastination’s greatest gift: the chance to accomplish surprising, wonderful things by not sticking to a rigid schedule. For example, Perry wrote this book by avoiding the work he was supposed to be doing—grading papers and evaluating dissertation ideas. How lucky for us.