U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life? [Hardcover]

Bruce Grierson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 3, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1582345848 | ISBN-13: 978-1582345840 | Edition: First Edition

Every day, in almost every field, someone perceives themselves to be on the wrong side of a psychic divide. The "second brain" in their gut tells them their life must change. Bruce Grierson draws on over 300 hundred stories of u-turners, including famous cases like Gandhi and Gauguin  as well as a host of other gripping tales of people who have risked everything to answer life's wake-up call: people who change political parties and careers, people give up their jobs as doctors to become poets, men who become women, professional athletes who quit to spend more time with their families, mothers who quit their families to pursue careers, people who suddenly become revolutionaries for a cause they didn't care about the day before.
 
Grierson examines the u-turn from all angles--philosophical, scientific, literary and psychological--beginning with premise that the wake-up call is the secular equivalent of the religious epiphany, the moment when a person is "born again." When does the wake-up call happen? Often in mid-life, but not always. Is it a good thing? Yes and no. Who does it happen to? Potentially any of us, under the right circumstance. Is America ready for a mass u-turn? Maybe. In chapters that address everything from the neuroscience behind epiphanies (the eureka moment) to the possibility of "forcing" a u-turn, Grierson brilliantly describes and elucidates this powerful, mysterious phenomenon, and in doing so illuminates all or our continual struggles with life choices and identity.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

What Grierson dubs a wake-up call others may deem a religious epiphany. Either way, it means the call to live an authentic life. For this richly anecdotal book, Grierson interviewed dozens who have heard such a call, religious or otherwise. He asks why wake-up call recipients make U-turns in their lives, and about forming, creating, and sometimes reinventing one's identity. Some of those he profiles are famous (e.g., astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who underwent a profound religious experience in space), but as many and perhaps most are ordinary men and women who dared to turn their lives around, such as the Harvard psychologist who, in an afternoon, completely changed his mind about his life's work and how he wished to spend the rest of his life. Grierson also looks at the neuroscience behind what he calls the aha moment. What all the U-turners he presents seem to have in common is the ability to take a leap of faith and make a commitment to an uncertain future. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Once a staple of the American Dream, change and rebirth are increasingly derided as dangerous or silly, a manifestation of a life “crisis.” In his fascinating, balanced, thoroughly researched and readable look at the “U-Turn,” Bruce Grierson gives this phenomenon its due. His view of the “wake-up call” as the secular equivalent of the religious epiphany is brilliant. U-turns are not always good or beneficial, but almost always significant, frequently life-altering. This book is essential for anyone contemplating meaningful change.” –Jon Katz, author of Running to the Mountain and A Good Dog

“U-Turn is a very smart, grounded, wise, well-written and important book. Using compelling human-scale stories, Bruce Grierson explores the dynamics involved in making major life-changes. The result is not only a fascinating study of other people's lives. Here is a map that offers guidance to anyone tempted to take a detour en route to who-knows-where.”—Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach

“Grierson has pulled together a remarkable collection of tales of dramatic personal transformation, in which people appear to make sudden u-turns in their lives. These mysterious epiphanies challenge our fundamental beliefs about human nature and the stability of human personality. In this engaging book, Grierson examines how and why people undergo profound changes in thought and action, providing surprising insights into the human condition along the way. A very enjoyable read.”—Todd F. Heatherton, Champion International Professor, Dartmouth College

“Rarely can a writer capture the complex and often times inchoate process of change, whether on a large sweeping scale, or at the level on which a single individual lives his or her life. In this book, however, Bruce Grierson has accomplished just such a feat, illuminating for the reader the basic who what why and where’s of the sudden shifts few of us have the courage to make. U-Turn is a map of transformation; it tells the extraordinary tales of individuals who have made extraordinary, Kierkegardian leaps of faith, leaps accompanied with Kierkegardian anxiety, which makes the leapers only braver, and that much more inspiring. You can read this book for the tales it tells, for the inspiration it imparts, or for the knowledge it so generously gives.”—Lauren Slater, author of Opening Skinner's Box and Welcome to My Country

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582345848
• ISBN-13: 978-1582345840
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,820,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "U-Turn" inspired my own change of direction. July 23, 2008

By Erik Olson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

After hitting forty in 2006 I had the usual male "mid-life crisis." Buying a Harley three years before hadn't headed my mantastrophe off at the pass, and I began to ask various questions: Am I doing what I should be doing? Do I really believe in the faith of my youth? How come forty doesn't look like I imagined it would be at twenty? I looked for some good books to help me with my angst, and when I laid eyes upon "U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?" I eagerly grabbed it. I'm glad I did, because it was a catalyst for a major quest that resulted in a momentous U-turn.

Bruce Grierson indicates that a strong gut feeling is a sign that a potential U-turn is on the horizon. Symptoms can include anxiety, asking deep questions, and perhaps even an epiphany. However, we have to decide whether or not to acknowledge the gut feeling. If we put our head in the sand, then the U-turn can be smothered. But if we run with the gut, then we're on the path to course correction. In my case, it appears that the alarm of my "social clock" was blaring at full volume. I wasn't where I'd hoped to be, so I had to get there somehow - and I was ready to take a chance (an important aspect of the process). However, I wasn't sure what specific steps to implement. So for awhile, I kept reading, pondering, and arguing with myself over my next move.

As I continued through his book, I was afraid that Mr. Grierson's thesis would peter out and I'd be left high and dry. I'd had that happen before in books where the author's point merited an essay at best. Thankfully, that didn't happen with "U-Turn." He was able to propel his subject matter forward using different and interesting perspectives in each chapter. For example, "The Likely Candidate" asks if there is a U-turn "type"; "The Change of Heart" looks at emotion's role in change; and "The Parole Board's Dilemma" differentiates true U-turns from bogus ones. Page after page I found gold, and as I read I became surer that I needed to obey my gut and act decisively. But what should I do?

Eventually, the answer came to me within the text. Mr. Grierson mentions how taking a life-assessment time-out at the age of forty benefits a man. "U-Turn" was one of two books I read that discussed this idea, and it seemed like a sign. So in the summer of 2007 I took a leave of absence from my job to walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, a trek I had long considered doing. I stepped off from St. Jean Pied-de-Port on July 14th, and 500 miles later on August 24th I walked into Santiago, Spain. The Camino was worth the risk and effort because it stripped me down to a basic level and gave me plenty of time to silence my social clock and work through my pressing issues.

After I returned, I felt like I had completed an important quest. I'd done something arduous that people write books about, and I wasn't the same person as when I left. And what about my own U-turn? Well, the Camino led to that too. The major problem I wrestled with on the Way was my waning Christian faith. Over the years I had struggled with various problematic doctrines, infernal dogmas, and the disparity between faith and experience. Ironically, walking a religious pilgrimage trail served to lead me away from my long-held Christianity. Soon after returning from Spain, I left the Church and became an agnostic.

My fortieth birthday led to a couple of critical events, and reading "U-Turn" was an integral part of that process. It was one of the most helpful life-alteration books I read during my mid-life crisis. Another significant one was the humorous and insightful "Fat, Forty, and Fired" by Nigel Marsh. I recommend both titles for anyone who is reconsidering his or her life's road and looking for the off-ramp.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating insights drawn from fascinating lives May 15, 2007

By Barbara J. Winter

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Everyday I encounter people who have made U-Turns and their lives are richer and happier as a result. After reading Grierson's exploration of dozens of people who abandoned or reinvented their previous lives--often in dramatic ways--I am even more inspired and intrigued by the possibility of second chances.

Obviously, Grierson is a great listener and a wonderful storyteller. Unlike most non-fiction books I read, I found this one needed to be read slowly. After one or two stories, I had to stop and think about the tale Grierson had told. Equally inspiring is how obvious it becomes that anyone, anytime, anywhere can find themselves making a U-Turn into an authetic new life.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The title could be "Anatomy of a Life Change" November 18, 2010

By julie K. ayala

Format:Hardcover

Anatomy of a Life Change would be a good paraphrase title for this book. The real title is a bit misleading become some may think this book is a how-to guide on how to change your life. It's not. This is a journalist writing a huge thesis on life change, the people who do it, what they did, how they did it, why do they did it, including psychological and sociological analysis and so on. The book is an enjoyable read because it contains such a wide range of stories about people who did big life "u-turns". Grierson shows that a crucial issue for many "u-turners" (the authentic ones anyway) was that who they were did not match what they were doing and they hit a point where they could no longer tolerate the charade.

My only criticism is that at times the reader gets lost in all the detail that Grierson supplies and loses sight of the larger framework. Grierson obviously did mountains of research and talked to a lot of people. At times Grierson's rather urban intellectual slant shows, but this is minor and doesn't divert enough from the quality of the book, for me to say to reject it on this account.

The book gets five stars because I haven't found anything quite like this book. Reading this book helped me get perspective on the u-turns in my own life. More importantly, it helped me figure out what things I still have yet to do. I read this book twice and have recommended it to friends.