Zusatztext Beautifully written ... Free of religiosity and cant! the book also is remarkably spiritual.... Bronson masterfully blends narrative and interpretation! coaxing his subjects to life in telling! resonant anecdotes. This is holistic writing of unique! encouraging power. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution This new title matches a worthwhile premisethe question of how we each find our personal mission in lifewith a tone refreshingly free of either sap or cynicism.... What [Bronson] finds is equally useful to middle-age folks and fresh college grads. Cleveland Plain Dealer ! Year's Best Books Informationen zum Autor Po Bronson is the author of Bombardiers, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, and The Nudist on the Late Shift. He is on the board of directors of Consortium Book Sales & Distribution and the editorial board of Zoetrope: All Story magazine, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Wired . He graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in economics and from San Francisco State with an M.F.A. in creative writing. He lives in San Francisco. Klappentext "Brimming with stories of sacrifice! courage! commitment and! sometimes! failure! the book will support anyone pondering a major life choice or risk without force-feeding them pat solutions."-Publishers Weekly In What Should I Do with My Life? Po Bronson tells the inspirational true stories of people who have found the most meaningful answers to that great question. With humor! empathy! and insight! Bronson writes of remarkable individuals-from young to old! from those just starting out to those in a second career-who have overcome fear and confusion to find a larger truth about their lives and! in doing so! have been transformed by the experience. What Should I Do with My Life? struck a powerful! resonant chord on publication! causing a multitude of people to rethink their vocations and priorities and start on the path to finding their true place in the world. For this edition! Bronson has added nine new profiles! to further reflect the range and diversity of those who broke away from the chorus to learn the sound of their own voice. Destiny vs.Self-Created Meaning An Ordinary Guy EVEN THE DESTINED STRUGGLE Wouldn't it be so much easier if you got a letter in the mail when you were seventeen, signed by someone who had a direct pipeline to Ultimate Meaning, telling you exactly who you are and what your true destiny is? Then you could carry this letter around in your pocket, and when you got confused or distracted and suddenly melted down, you'd reach for your wallet and grab the letter and read it again and go, Oh, right. Well, a friend of mine has such a letter. He's thirty-two years old and rents a bedroom from a nice lady in Phoenix near the base of Camelback Mountain. He's gray at the temples, wears Hawaiian shirts, and drives a dusty Oldsmobile that suffers from bad alignment. The car's tape player is broken, which is fine by me because I can't stand the soft rock he listens to. He loves America because friends here treat him like an ordinary person. He says being here has made him much more open-minded. He grew up in a refugee camp in southern India. When he got the letter he had just enrolled in a special school there, with the vague notion of eventually becoming a professor of Tibetan literature, though he admits he wasn't much of a student. But what else was there to do in life? No way was he going to be a farmer. Being a businessman meant having to sell, and he didn't study hard enough to ever become a doctor. He couldn't imagine sitting out his life in a government office job, filing forms. His name was Choeaor Dondup, but everyone called him Ali, after the boxer, because he was big. His h...

8220;Beautifully written ... Free of religiosity and cant, the book also is remarkably spiritual.... Bronson masterfully blends narrative and interpretation, coaxing his subjects to life in telling, resonant anecdotes. This is holistic writing of unique, encouraging power.”

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“This new title matches a worthwhile premise—the question of how we each find our personal mission in life—with a tone refreshingly free of either sap or cynicism.... What [Bronson] finds is equally useful to middle-age folks and fresh college grads.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Year’s Best Books”

Autorentext

Po Bronson is the author of Bombardiers, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, and The Nudist on the Late Shift. He is on the board of directors of Consortium Book Sales & Distribution and the editorial board of Zoetrope: All Story magazine, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Wired. He graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in economics and from San Francisco State with an M.F.A. in creative writing. He lives in San Francisco.

Klappentext

"Brimming with stories of sacrifice, courage, commitment and, sometimes, failure, the book will support anyone pondering a major life choice or risk without force-feeding them pat solutions."-Publishers Weekly

In What Should I Do with My Life? Po Bronson tells the inspirational true stories of people who have found the most meaningful answers to that great question. With humor, empathy, and insight, Bronson writes of remarkable individuals-from young to old, from those just starting out to those in a second career-who have overcome fear and confusion to find a larger truth about their lives and, in doing so, have been transformed by the experience.

What Should I Do with My Life? struck a powerful, resonant chord on publication, causing a multitude of people to rethink their vocations and priorities and start on the path to finding their true place in the world. For this edition, Bronson has added nine new profiles, to further reflect the range and diversity of those who broke away from the chorus to learn the sound of their own voice.

Leseprobe
Destiny vs.Self-Created Meaning

*An Ordinary Guy

• EVEN THE DESTINED STRUGGLE
  Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you got a letter in the mail when you were seventeen, signed by someone who had a direct pipeline to Ultimate Meaning, telling you exactly who you are and what your true destiny is? Then you could carry this letter around in your pocket, and when you got confused or distracted and suddenly melted down, you’d reach for your wallet and grab the letter and read it again and go, “Oh, right.”

Well, a friend of mine has such a letter. He’s thirty-two years old and rents a bedroom from a nice lady in Phoenix near the base of Camelback Mountain. He’s gray at the temples, wears Hawaiian shirts, and drives a dusty Oldsmobile that suffers from bad alignment. The car’s tape player is broken, which is fine by me because I can’t stand the soft rock he listens to. He loves America because friends here treat him like an ordinary person. He says being here has made him much more open-minded. He grew up in a refugee camp in southern India. When he got the letter he had just enrolled in a special school there, with the vague notion of eventually becoming a professor of Tibetan literature, though he admits he wasn’t much of a student. But what else was there to do in life? No way was he going to be a farmer. Being a businessman meant having to sell, and he didn’t study hard enough to ever become a doctor. He couldn’t imagine sitting out his life in a government office job, filing forms. His name was Choeaor Dondup, but everyone called him Ali, after the boxer, because he was big. His hair hung to his shoulders. He spent most of his time figuring out how to get into his girlfriend’s pants. He played soccer. He was scared of the dark. Then one day at school he received this let…