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

Kushner, Harold S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375431373 ISBN 13: 9780375431371

Publisher: Random House Large Print, 2001

Synopsis

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

In this timely and compelling book, Harold Kushner addresses our craving for significance, the need to know that our lives and choices mean something. We do great things, and occassionally 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, and prove that we do in fact matter.

Persuasive and sympathetic, anecdotal and commonsensical, Living a Life that Matters inspires and uplifts.

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 Back Cover

"Living a Life That Matters is a wonderful, much-needed primer on the truly important things in life. Many thanks to Harold Kushner for reminding us what we should never forget: that success is not in the bulk of your wallet, but in the weight of your character."
--Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie

"Rabbi Kushner's new book is full of the great stories and subtle wisdom that makes him a genuine spiritual leader for us all in a time of considerable confusion. He blends limitless compassion with sharp analysis to offer a way toward integrity. This is a book you don't want to put down or allow to be too far from you in times of crisis."
--Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul
From the Hardcover edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Large Print
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375431373
• ISBN 13: 9780375431371
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240