Saturday, May 26, 2007

The Not So Big Life

book cover - The Not So Big Life

I'm not so fond of The Not So Big Life, by Sarah Susanka. However, it did have a few words, phrases and sentences that really resonated with me - and they made it worth the read.

Sarah writes about "the life I had fallen into" and how it was "overstuffed." She goes on to say, "My life was so frenetic . . . that the pace of it was the single most salient quality."

As a way of improving this, she writes about doing a "life remodeling."

Regarding the stuff in our lives, she writes, "When we own stuff, we have to maintain it. We also have to earn enough money to procure it, house it, keep it clean, and insure it against theft or loss. So every purchase has strings attached. It will require a long-term commitment from you if you become its owner, and that in turn will keep you a little busier than you would otherwise have been."

A question: "What would happen if we stopped to consider the possibilities inherent in the word 'enough'?"

Regarding multi-tasking: "It is now normal practice to send instant messages during conference calls and meetings. . . . It's the adult version of exchanging notes during class in grade school."

2 comments:

Blue Yonder said...

Just curious, what did you dislike about this book? Does it suffer from the "bad sequel" syndrome?

Jeri Dansky said...

Hi Blue Yonder,

It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why this book didn't resonate with me. And since I've given it away on Freecycle, I can't go back and re-read portions to help me out. I wish I could be more helpful . . .


Jeri