Being Perfect and A Short Guide to a Happy Life

At the heart of this beautiful and insightful audiobook lies "the perfection trap"–what it is, how to avoid falling into it, and how to instead shape a life that is uniquely yours. In Being Perfect, Ann Quindlen gives a name to, and invites us to laugh at, a lifestyle that is all too familiar to many people, one that emphasizes the pursuit of trying to be perfect in the eyes of others, and to win the world’s good opinion, rather than focusing on the most important goal of all: "Giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." With wit and wisdom, Quindlen offers a keen understanding of how to create a life that is rich in meaning for you, by living on your own terms and by listening to your own deepest instincts, rather than to the demands and values of the world outside. This audiobook is an inspiring guide to living a rewarding and happy life, a life fulfilling in all its flaws, a life that is truly yours.

In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen reflects on what it takes to "get a life"–to live deeply every day and form your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. "Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us," Quindlen states, "because unless you know the clock is ticking, it is so easy to waste our days, our lives." Her mother died when Quindlen was nineteen: "It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason I learned something about enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted." In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.