Excerpt: What does ‘living a good life’ mean to you? Read 7 of our favorite quotes from How To Live A Good Life by Jonathan Fields and live better.
Book Overview: Seriously . . . another book that tells you how to live a good life? Don’t we have enough of those? You’d think so. Yet, more people than ever are walking through life disconnected, disengaged, dissatisfied, mired in regret, declining health, and a near maniacal state of gut-wrenching autopilot busyness. How to Live a Good Life is your antidote; a practical and provocative modern-day manual for the pursuit of a life well lived. No need for blind faith or surrender of intelligence; everything you’ll discover is immediately actionable and subject to validation through your own experience.
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Great on Kindle. Great Experience. Great Value. The Kindle edition of this book comes highly recommended on Amazon.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“We are all capable of contributing to the world in a way that makes a profound difference. A rare few go big. Make the big gesture. Take the big risk. Expose themselves on a grand scale. Create and then ride the big wave. But most of us, myself included, take a different yet equally valid path. It’s the path of the ripple. Simple actions, moments, and experiences. Created, offered, and delivered with such a purity of intention and depth of integrity and clarity that they set in motion a ripple that, quietly, in its own way, in its own time, expands outward. Interacting with, touching, mattering to people we’ve never met in ways we never conceived.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Knowing what you want out of life, and who you want in it, means nothing if you can’t also say no to everything but those people and things. Until you cultivate the ability to say no to the things that fill your life but not your soul, you’ll never have the space to bring into it the things you desperately want to say yes to.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“When we think about giving, we often think about grand gestures, setting aside hours or days to volunteer, mentor, or contribute to some person or group we want to see rise. Or we think about specific charities, foundations, and organizations to donate to. But giving even on the smallest level has power. So often, we miss the momentary opportunities to contribute, the countless moments to be generous, to help, to be of service in the moment, for a moment.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, via How To Live A Good Life
“It is so easy to make a life and a career out of sitting in the bleachers… There are people who have amazing gifts, who could make the world an incredibly better place, who won’t put their work out there for [fear of judgement]. And that’s a loss. And whether we know what that work was or not, we miss it and grieve it every day. There are songs that we need to hear, there are stories that need to be told, that we’ll never see or know because there are so many people out there who are so reflectively cynical and critical and mean-spirited. I don’t like it.” ~ Brené Brown, via How To Live A Good Life
“To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.” ~ Picasso, via How To Live A Good Life
“What if you don’t so much have a passion or purpose as much as you pursue something, or a bunch of things, with passion and a sense of purpose? And what if the deeper you get into that exploration or pursuit and the more competent you become, the more interested you get in doing and learning and discovering on a fiercer, more engaged, dare I say a more ‘passionate’ or ‘purposeful’ way?” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Simply having a phone on the table or within reach keeps the conversations shallow. None of this would be a big deal if mobile and app-based conversation were complementing rather than replacing face-to-face conversation, but that’s not the case. In fact, so many people are turning to digital to have potentially messy and emotional conversations in a less messy and emotional way. It may bring more calm to a relationship, sure, but it also strips the vulnerability and revelation that come from looking someone in the eye, seeing how your words land, seeing how their body responds, hearing the catch in their breath, understanding what is truly going on between you in a way no emoji chain or composed text could ever express. That emotional, messy, hard, exhilarating, don’t-know-what’s-coming-next space is where the moments that make life most worth living lie. Kill the space, kill the moment. Hello, tidy matrix and numbed-out life.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Simple truth: fast and busy are a choice. We choose to go fast and be busy because we think it’ll get us what we want. All too often, it doesn’t. Fast and busy makes life brittle. It makes us feel like every inch of space in life is locked in and there’s no room to move. Instead of unlocking productivity and potential, it throttles both. It deludes us into feeling like we’re getting more done faster, but in reality, we could get the same done in the same or less time with more grace by dialing it back, not forward. In the end, we’re left feeling dissatisfied and helpless to extract ourselves from the process. Except we’re not. It’s all an illusion.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Remember, the thing you strive for isn’t perfection; it’s not the easy win or the avoidance of failure. It’s the gift of growth, the opportunity for evolution. Life in a box is not life well lived.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard, via How To Live A Good Life
“There is no magic to awesome outcomes. Whether we’re looking to build a great career, a great relationship, great health, or a great life, it’s all about consistent action over time. It’s about coming back after things blow up, over and over and over. Because they will, and we’ll need a way to reclaim our daily routine.” ~ Jonathan Fields, How To Live A Good Life
“There is vitality, a life force, energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open…” ~ Martha Graham, via How To Live A Good Life
