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The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections
Tarcher
September 2013
On Sale: August 27, 2013
352 pages ISBN: 0399163719 EAN: 9780399163715 Kindle: B00AEBESTY Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction | Self-Help
The noted research psychiatrist explores how life's
disappointments and difficulties provide us with the lessons
we need to become better, bigger, and more resilient human
beings. Adversity is an irreducible
fact of life. Although we can and should learn from
all experiences, both positive and negative, bestselling
author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, believes that adversity is
by far the best teacher most of us will ever encounter.
Whether the adversity one experiences is the
result of poor decision-making, a desire to test one’s
mettle, or plain bad luck, Rosenthal believes life’s most
important lessons—from the value of family to the importance
of occasionally cutting corners—can be best learned from
it. Running counter to society’s current
prevailing message that “excellence” must always be aspired
to, and failure or mistakes of any sort are to be avoided at
all costs, Rosenthal shows that engaging with our own
failures and defeats is one of the only ways we are able to
live authentic and meaningful lives, and that each different
type of adversity carries its own challenges and has the
potential to yield its own form of wisdom.
Using stories from his own life—including his childhood
in apartheid-era South Africa, his years after suffering a
violent attack from a stranger, and his career as a
psychiatrist—as well as case studies and discussions with
well-known figures like Viktor Frankl and David Lynch,
Rosenthal shows that true innovation, emotional resilience,
wisdom, and dignity can only come from confronting and
understanding the adversity we have experienced. Even when
life is hardest, there are meanings to be found, riches to
be harvested, and gifts that can last a
lifetime. Rosenthal illustrates
his message through a series of compact, memorable chapters,
each one drawn from episodes in the lives of his patients,
colleagues, or himself, and concluded with a take-away maxim
on the lesson learned.
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