Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Ambition - Hardcover

Harold S. Kushner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0283073446 ISBN 13: 9780283073441

Publisher: Pan Macmillan, 2002

Synopsis

A person's longing for significance--which can lead to excessive ambition, moral compromise, and preoccupation with status--often stands in conflict with a longing to be good. In Living a Life That Matters , Harold S. Kushner (the Massachusetts rabbi whose bestselling books include When Bad Things Happen to Good People ) suggests that the most successful lives are the ones that most effectively manage and resolve that conflict. For example, Kushner retells the biblical story of Jacob, in a chapter whose lesson is named by its title, "How to Win By Losing." Hamlet, Dirty Harry, and Exodus are a few of the dozens of examples he cites while elaborating on the essential lesson of this that success and significance converge in every act of love, generosity, and self-sacrifice that we make for our families, friends, and communities. --Michael Joseph Gross

About this title

Review

A person's longing for significance--which can lead to excessive ambition, moral compromise, and preoccupation with status--often stands in conflict with a longing to be good. In Living a Life That Matters, Harold S. Kushner (the Massachusetts rabbi whose bestselling books include When Bad Things Happen to Good People) suggests that the most successful lives are the ones that most effectively manage and resolve that conflict. For example, Kushner retells the biblical story of Jacob, in a chapter whose lesson is named by its title, "How to Win By Losing." Hamlet, Dirty Harry, and Exodus are a few of the dozens of examples he cites while elaborating on the essential lesson of this book: that success and significance converge in every act of love, generosity, and self-sacrifice that we make for our families, friends, and communities. --Michael Joseph Gross

From the Inside Flap

author
4 cassettes/6 hours

From the author of the huge bestsetter When Bad Things Happen to Good People, a profound and practical audiobook about doing well by doing good.

In this timely and compelling audiobook, Harold Kushner addresses our craving for significance, the need to know that our lives and choices mean something. We do great things, and occasionally terrible things, to reassure ourselves that we matter to the world. We sometimes confuse fame, power, and wealth with true achievement. But finally we need to think of ourselves as good people and are troubled when we compromise our integrity to be successful and important.

Rabbi Kushner suggests that the path to a truly successful and significant life lies in friendship, family, acts of generosity and self-sacrifice, as well as God's forgiving nature. He describes how, in changing the life of even one person in a positive way, we make a difference in the world, give our lives meaning,

Edition details

• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0283073446
• ISBN 13: 9780283073441
• Binding: Hardcover