Would you rather be....

right or happy?

I have been chewing on this one for some time.  Sadly, I know too many situations where right wins. 

But does it?

It's complicated and yet so simple at once.  Sometimes, in giving up the fight, you gain a chance to really live rather than stewing in what you think SHOULD BE.  

Why am I talking about this?  Well, there's this book...and with me, there is always a book so I may as well just put it out there.  

Here it is,


and it is full of advice to people who write to "Dear Sugar" seeking some help, some clarity, some way out of places that just seem impossible and I have to tell you, I have fallen for Sugar. She speaks from a sincere, compassionate place, but she is not full of bullshit. She tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you have one beautiful life to live so you should live it. And, living and stewing are not the same thing.

And there are times, she suggests, when only you know what you need and to hell (nicely, of course) with what others think you need.  There are questions from people who have lost babies and spouses and mothers and from twenty-somethings so spun out on love that they can't see one hour in front of them. There are pleas from 50 and 60 year olds who want love again or a life again after giving too much of it to the wrong person or people.  

Sugar stays the course on all of them. Be you. Be the beautiful person you were meant to be even if it means doing the hardest thing you will ever have to do. Even if it means laying down the bottle for the last time, telling your spouse you cheated, crying one more time for the dead mother who will never come back, giving up a grudge that has eaten your core, saying good-bye to someone who was supposed to be a role model and fails repeatedly. Be you.  Do it, she urges, because you only have one life.

Big Man and I have battled over this book. I read a few chapters, he picked it up and started in,  I snatched it away and hid it, and now it is back in his hands. We agree that Sugar could rule the world, or at least heal a lot of pain in this world. Not all of the situations hit me, but there is something in her voice, in her coaxing, in her  own revelations of pain, that just calls to me, to both of us, and I swear, it seems we are re-framing our own life as we speak.

I just freaking love this about books. You just never know what they might do.
   


Comments

  1. Isn't this the woman who also wrote the bestseller about hiking the colorado trail or something like that? I've been meaning to buy bother this book and that other one since I read about her in Time magazine. If you have copies at the store, I'll have to stop in and pick up both when I drop off your copy of my friend's book. :) Thanks for commenting on my blog.

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  2. @Barb yes she wrote wild a memoir on hiking the Pacific-crest-trail the Book Shelf has it

    My favorite Dear Sugars are http://therumpus.net/2011/05/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-72-the-future-has-an-ancient-heart/ and http://therumpus.net/2010/08/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-48-write-like-a-motherfucker/

    I didn't know these columns would be made into a book but I often thought of writing in asking for advice

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  3. I loved Wild, so I'm sure this book will not disappoint. I can't wait to get it! Strayed writes from the heart and does not sugar coat (no pun there) life.

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