Review of The Not So Big Life - Making Room For What Really Matters
By Sarah Susanka
Read an Excerpt of The Not So Big Life
Review by D. Prince
T
here arent't too many of us who haven't thought about removing the clutter and excess from our lives and paring down to a smaller, more meaningful existence. Sarah Susanka, an architect who's written several books, tells us how to embrace what really matters and move into the lives we were meant to have before things got so out of hand.
Following up on the best-selling
The Not So Big House, which examined "fully inhabitating our homes,"
The Not So Big Life is for those who feel like they've lost touch with what's important and want to go from the bigger is better mentality to embracing quality over quantity. It tells us to be mindful, follow our passions and "fully... [inhabitate] each moment of our lives."
Susanka tells us that we can remodel our lives just like our homes, and she visually shows you how to achieve this with exercises and practical, doable advice. While you may think it's like comparing apples and oranges, she reveals the similarities between designing the life you want and the house of your dreams. The concept of turning the different aspects or parts of your life into something manageable and comfortable just as you would a house makes perfect sense once the light bulb goes on.
Her blue print for the simple life is one of slowing it down and looking around you to find meaning and joy in each and everyday instead of the hurry-up-and-go existence most of us lead. With the list making exercises that encourage you to examine your life, what's lacking and what it is you want from life, you can create your own blue-print for change. But this is more than mere list-making, it's rather a point upon which to examine, reflect and make you aware of things. Susanka suggests usig a notebook to jot down your thoughts and gives you phase by phase advice from the remodeling to the maintainance of your new life within the twelve chapters:
• Developing a Blueprint for a Better Way of Living
• Noticing What Inspires You
• Identifying What Isn’t Working
• Removing the Clutter
• Listening to Your Dreams
• Learning to See Through the Obstacles
• Improving the Quality of What You Have
• Creating a Place and a Time of Your Own
• Proceeding Through the Construction Process
• Moving Into Your Not So Big Life
• Maintaining Your Newly Remodeled Live
• Being At Home in Your Life
Okay, so you may know nothing about architecture, but structure and design in a home also applies to creating the life that feels like home to you. Just as with a home, it's not about filling your life with excess, but surrounding yourself with what is meaningful to you. The idea is that with every moment, every experience - by being in it completely - you get a fuller, more richer life.
So if you're harried, hurried, frazzled, or if you've ever asked the question, Is this all that there is, then this book may well be the inspiration for a life-makeover.
The Not So Big Life is welcomed advice in these times where everyone is so busy with the obligations of life, there's hardly time to enjoy the small things. It's about taking our finger off the "go" button, slowing it down and finding some breathing space. Soulfully written, this book is beautiful inside and out, much like the life Susanka wants us to be able to create for ourselves.
Read an Excerpt of The Not So Big Life.
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