The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life: Old-Fashioned Wisdom For A New-fangled World

The early New Englanders knew how and when to be satisfied. Rarely feeling sorry for themselves, they had a clear sense of place and how they fit into it. As Heinrichs, notes, we can benefit from their sensible attitudes, practicing a little "Yankeefication," which we can accomplish without actually moving to rural New England.

In The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life, Heinrichs offers a variety of practical and unusual ways to begin practicing Yankee ingenuity. He shows us how we can:--convert desires into goals and transform negative experiences into the seeds of personal success (much like Daniel Webster, whose childhood rickets made his forehead protrude, giving him a prominent brow that many found godlike later in his life).

--improve our weaknesses and develop strengths systematically (much like Benjamin Franklin, who decided elaborate charts would lead to moral perfection; of the thirteen virtues he charted, he only failed with "Chastity," though he ended "a better and a happier man" than he would have otherwise).

Jay Heinrichs made the switch from city dweller to rural New Englander through a process he calls "Yankeefication." He is editor of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine and his articles have been published in national magazines. He and his family live in Etna, New Hampshire.