The Little Book on Meaning: Why We Crave It, How We Create It (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. An aspiring actress turned interfaith minister and life coach, Fortgang (Living Your Best Life) knows what it is to struggle to find meaning in life. The yearning, she says, can swallow you whole. Posing such questions as What makes a meaningful relationship with another person? and What constitutes meaningful work? her lovely guide shows that meaning has five components: Mystery probes life's puzzles; Minister describes transactions between human beings (to tend to another holding the space for their divinity and innocence to shine through); Magnificence (to see the divine, the good, the right... in every person); Mind covers meditation (What awaits us in the silence is ourselves); and Mystic concludes that a New Spirituality is emerging: The modern mystic is integrated—the worldly self and the spiritual self working as one. The modern mystic is you. Throughout, she writes honestly about exiting the maze of her own despair and depression as she demonstrates ways to embrace life more fully. Fortgang's writing is moving in its simplicity and sincerity, and like her ministry, her message crosses religious borders; even nonbelievers will find basic truths. (May)
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Product Description

A wise and passionate meditation on what truly matters in life.

As a prominent self-help author and a pioneer in the field of life coaching, Laura Berman Fortgang has spent decades helping people figure out what they want to do with their lives. And so it was a bit of a surprise when a theme she heard repeatedly from her clients emerged in her own thinking and would not be dismissed: Her work didn't feel as "meaningful" to her as it once had. It was one of those big realizations one has from time to time. The funny thing was, though, that it turned out the "solution(s)" to her problem were actually quite small. . . .

In The Little Book on Meaning, Fortgang reveals that while our hunger for a "meaningful" life can be enormous, our desire for meaning is usually satiated by small, bite-size morsels of meaning-the little, almost incidental events or "achievements" that comprise the fabric of our lives. According to Fortgang, meaning is where you look for it and through tenderly drawn stories from her own life and the lives of those around her, she shows readers how they too can peek around corners to discover the small elements of their lives that truly matter. Where are some of the easiest places to look? Fortgang takes readers through five other "M words" beyond the godfather of them all-Meaning-that will serve as markers on the path:

* Mystery: Many of us are so busy searching for answers that we fail to consider the questions.
* Minister: Caring for others can be the best thing we can do for ourselves.
* Magnificence: If we will just open our eyes-and truly look-beauty and purpose are everywhere!
* Mind: Tangled up in our thoughts, we lose the experience of the moment.
* Mystic: Learning to see the world through the eyes of a mystic, suddenly everything holds meaning.

The Little Book on Meaning is an invaluable guide and companion for anyone seeking greater meaning and purpose in their life.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (April 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585427152
• ISBN-13: 978-1585427154
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #284,336 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Food for Thought on Meaning, May 4, 2009

By	Story Circle Book Reviews (www.storycirclebookreviews.org) - See all my reviews

Laura Berman Fortgang wrote The Little Book on Meaning: Why We Crave It, How We Create It shortly after being ordained an interfaith minister. In it, she undertakes a quest for sources of individual meaning in the hurried, contemporary world. She writes, "Jewish boys don't ride motorcycles and Jewish girls don't become ministers... But my brother owns a Harley and I've become an interfaith minister. My Jewish father doesn't quite know what to make of it..." Fortgang herself didn't, for many years, quite know what to make of life itself. This book records her thoughts after exploring what it might mean to be human. Thanks to her training in interfaith ministry, she draws sustenance from the faith traditions of cultures around the world through time, from sources like A Course in Miracles and from understanding the value of gratitude.

In looking for meaning, she's looking for ways to "ease the pain," she says, to find an inner source of joy, especially in twenty-first-century North American culture, where humans often need help to do that--help that many people find outside traditional religions. Already a life coach before she completed her seminary course, Fortgang evidently wanted to go to deeper levels in her desire to help people succeed. She was, of course, also working to help herself.

Fortgang arranges this spiritual exploration of meaning into five sections: Mystery, Minister, Magnificence, Mind, and Mystic. Each begins with a brief thought or story to set the stage, a quotation, and a prayer addressed to a general higher power (referred to with a name like Energy of All Things or Great Mystery). The sections contain between two and four chapters. Each feels to me like a sermon on an aspect of the topic being considered. The tone walks an interesting line, sharing personal experiences of how each concept has played out in her own search for meaning while remaining a book about the general human condition. She mentions the challenges she has faced--giving up an early set of career dreams, depression including suicidal thoughts, anorexia and bulimia, parenting a child with significant health issues--in passing, almost as if they were credentials for speaking as she does (which, of course, they are).

Fortgang flat-out poses the question, "So what is this mysterious thing called Meaning?" She leaves the question hanging and circles it repeatedly, leaving the reader to gather thoughts toward a definition along the way: a sort of spiritual groundedness, a sense of connection, and a feeling of having a unique and solid place in the world. Near the end of the book (in the "Mystic" section), she comes closest to articulating a definition: "The emerging new spirituality is a desire to get rid of pretense and be real...Meaning...comes in the experience and the moment...Being full of love, peace, hope, compassion, patience, and appreciation for everything and connection to all things. These feelings make up meaning." While these statements feel like old news, in the preceding chapters Fortgang has earned the right to claim their rediscovery.

The reader also gradually collects a concept of the framework within which Fortgang is examining life. She believes in a higher power. She believes that humans have souls, and that each soul has an individual identity and dignity and, by implication, purpose. She believes that we have free will. She believes that many faith traditions have sustenance to offer.

I found the book intriguing, and also slightly frustrating. These are topics I care about a great deal and have for many years--and therein may lie my problem. The generalizations Fortgang offers rang true, although I found myself thinking, "Yes, but..." For example, she describes the goal of meditation (under "Mind") as a feeling of being mentally "blank": ("Yes, but...") At times, I also felt that Fortgang's realizations were colored by her own personality. For example, describing a stressful situation, she says, "I felt the normal, human pull to want to annihilate this person." My reaction in the same situation would have been different--perhaps because I was raised female in the Midwest, instead of Manhattan.

Overall, I see two great values to this work. One is for the individual seeker who finds that Fortgang's way of presenting the material is both comforting and challenging. Another is for small groups who may want to use it as source material for discussion about the deeper questions of life. I especially enjoyed the times when she drew together thoughts from disparate spiritual traditions. Whether readers agree with Fortgang's particulars or not--whether, as Quakers say, it speaks to the reader's condition--the book poses interesting questions and presents one human's path to some working answers.

I read this book in uncorrected page proofs. There were indications on the printout that additional clarification of some points would be taking place. Any writer who takes on matters of great complexity and scope with integrity deserves good, careful editorial reflection to help the final presentation be as precise as possible. I hope that occurred during the last stages of production for this title. What I saw in the rough pages was an honest, wide-ranging work that could be taken up a notch by fine editing.

by Deborah Robson
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little book, huge on meaning., May 4, 2009

By	Ruby Bayan (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

'The Little Book on Meaning' is literally a little book but actually a huge quest on meaning. How do you put meaning in your life? Why and where do you find it? Profound questions that Laura Berman Fortgang answers in five words all beginning with M: Mystery, Minister, Magnificence, Mind, and Mystic.

Fortgang elaborates on how knowing does not always provide meaning. She explains that one of the best ways to find meaning in our lives is to give of ourselves to others. She also opens our eyes to the beauty of the world around us and within ourselves. By shutting our mouths and meditating, she says, we create a blankness that becomes the core of our life meaning. And by opening our minds to a higher level of consciousness and interconnectedness, "the worldly self and the spiritual self work as one."

Laura Fortgang's impact in this book comes from her personal experiences and challenges in life. She shares her bouts with depression and self-doubt, as well as her journey from darkness into light. Her insights into discovering meaning are drawn from her own transformations. She relates memorable and life-changing episodes that revealed special significance in her path from ordinary person to life coach to interfaith minister.

'The Little Book on Meaning' requires a slow and introspective read. It's not one that should be browsed or read in one sitting. Fortgang divulges her life's challenges, which we can easily relate to, but dovetails them with involved and pensive insights, which need to be deeply reflected on. Searching for meaning is a huge endeavor; this 'Little Book' is the best place to start. - Ruby Bayan, OurSimpleJoys.com

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meaning Tumbles Forth from Connection, May 26, 2009

By	Janet Boyer "JanetBoyer.com" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"It is one of the great ironies that while our hunger for a `meaningful' life can be enormous, these days, more and more, our desire for meaning is ultimately satiated by the smaller, quieter aspects of our lives. Meaning is where you look for it--and also how you look for it. Meaning is actually all around us, and the circumstances surrounding it can be like an Escher print. Life can look quite meaningless until we focus on a certain point or points and the picture changes." - From the book

As she began writing The Little Book on Meaning, spiritual coach and interfaith minister Laura Berman Fortgang found that additional "M" words flooded her thoughts--words such as Mystery, Magnificence and Mind.

In the complexity and hurriedness of modern life, attempting to determine Meaning--big M--may seem overwhelming, frustrating and, well, meaningless.

Helping readers refocus with a sure, gentle and (self admittedly) flawed hand, Fortgang reminds us that meaning is actually experienced during everyday occurrences. After all, much like a treasured keepsake, meaning is derived from context--for example, the who, where and why that's associated with a particular object or memory.

In The Little Book on Meaning, the author reveals the myriad opportunities for creating meaning. From food to relationships, service to embracing wounds (others and ours), meaning exists wherever we enlarge our focus, soften our gaze, suspend judgment, and open our hearts.

Even amidst challenging circumstances--such as parenting a disabled child, dealing with illness, losing a job, or navigating crushing disappointment--meaning can be created, encourages Fortgang.

Replete with mystical insight from worldwide spiritual practices, as well as personal anecdotes, vulnerable admissions and compassionate counsel, The Little Book on Meaning delivers chewy, soul-nurturing morsels for those ready to slow down, look around, and create meaning from the raw material of "ordinary" life. As The Little Book of Meaning says, "Meaning is a state of consciousness. It comes tumbling forth from connection--to ourselves, each other, the earth, spirit, work, or even an inanimate object."

-- Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book