Customer Reviews

Everyday Commitments: Choosing a Life of Love, Realism, and Acceptance

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Clearly written, a good guide to examining life and improving the way you live. I am using one affirmation a week for 52 weeks...and will start over again next year.

David Richo is a sound psychologist, a loving and wise human being, and totally non-dogmatic. He encourages you to make up your own mind...not take anyone else's word for how to live your life.

I have a few of David Richos books, and I have to say that I think the guy is an undiscovered genius. He seems to have an phenomenal ability to integrate both spiritual and ethical principles into psychological and material reality (the real world). This is not a spiritual book in the normal sense of the word, but in my experience most of the information that is in overtly spiritual books ends up staying in the book, not making it from the conceptual domain, and not embodying in our lives in a real way. His work and the distinctions contained in this book seem to me to cross that barrier between the spiritual and the real, in part because he makes no attempt to deny or ignore our humanity, and understands that acknowledging seeming imperfection and lack of control is the great paradox of spirituality. Who would have thought that perfection and imperfection would have so much in common? I am at pains to do this book justice. As with any 'self help' book, the great danger is that the information is used to effectively beat yourself up in more erudite and advanced ways. This is the great failing of almost all self help books, that the seeker seeks them because he/she feels there is something wrong with them, and ends up continuing that process, a process of self hatred, only now they have more advanced information with which to continue the process. If this book is used with love and kindness, the distinctions and information contained here are simply profound. They are not simplistic, more simplicity, and show great depth and insight into the human condition. As the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes says: 'I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity'. And to me that is what David Richo has, the simplicity on the other side of complexity. Of course using it with love and kindness is another matter, but worth the effort. I would recommend Cheri Hubers book - There is Nothing Wrong With You, Moving Beyond Self Hate, to work on that possibility. Another priceless book, together you may not need so many other books, is The Spirituality of Imperfection. Useful in countering what can happen when western intellects (such as me) spend too much time studying Zen, and start to become a know it all, when (maybe) Zen is not about knowing what Life is, but what it is not. Profound as Zen is, I do not see that it is the whole picture. Buy this book, at least, and wear it out completely, with kindness to yourself - so that it falls apart, rather than you.

A well written guide to making good choices and living better. My favorite quote:
There will never be only love or only peace, but there can be more love than we got here and more peace because we stayed here.

This is a book, that will lift your day, and give you a real sense that your life starts with the right perspective.

Every page reveals a wisdom I've always known and seldom remember. A gift of the spirit.