The good-enough life

The good-enough life

Avram Alpert, 1984-

Book - 2022

"How an acceptance of our limitations can lead to a more fulfilling life and a more harmonious society"--

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Subjects
Self-realization.
Ability.
Conduct of life.
Self-help publications.
Genres
Self-help publications
Published
Princeton : Princeton University Press [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Avram Alpert, 1984- (author)
Physical Description
vii, 323 pages : 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780691204352
  • Introduction
  • 1. Why Greatness Is Not Good Enough
  • The Origins of "Good Enough"
  • A Long History of Overcoming Greatness
  • Recalibrating
  • The Two Economies
  • Lost Einstein Myths
  • But, Come On, Aren't There Good Forms of Greatness
  • Cold, Broken, But Still Hallelujah
  • A Good-Enough Life for All
  • 2. For Our Selves
  • In the Beginning
  • It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid
  • The Return of Virtue
  • Meritocracy, No. Greatness, Maybe.
  • Virtues beyond Greatness
  • The World As It Already Is
  • Satisfaction Not Guaranteed
  • Philosophies Born of Struggle
  • 3. For Our Relationships
  • Romantic Stories
  • A Circular Journey
  • A Theory of Laughter
  • The Paradoxes of Kindness to Strangers
  • To Heaven or A-fishing
  • As Zhuangzi and Huizi Were
  • We'll See
  • If This Is Good Enough
  • A Good-Enough President?
  • 4. For Our World
  • The Path of Pinheads
  • The Road to Serfdom
  • The Good Enough Transformation
  • Why Philanthropy Is Not the Answer
  • Some Plans for a Good-Enough World
  • Limiting the Positional Economy
  • A Thought Experiment
  • 5. For Our Planet
  • Wired for Whatever
  • Surviving the Fittest
  • Evolving to Be Good Enough
  • The Risk of Great Green Revolutions
  • More with Less, or More from Less?
  • Sharing in the Burden and the Bounty
  • A Good-Enough Relation to Nature
  • The Good-Enough Sublime
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

This is an amazing and deeply inspiring book. Alpert (Princeton Univ.) employs a prose style that is wrought like fine gold jewelry. There is scarcely a page from which this reader does not wish to quote and share Alpert's wisdom with others. But wait: to respond to the book in this way could be to fall precisely into the mind trap the author critiques, urging readers to examine the effects of the concept of "greatness" in all its manifestations (from self-care how-tos to shaping the fate of the Earth) in their own lives and how its pervasiveness affects other people. To always strive for greatness, Alpert argues, to wish for nothing more than to be at the top of the pyramid of wealth, power, or spiritual attainment, involves leaving billions of others behind. The wealth of those at the top may indeed one day contribute to miraculous changes in the way some people live, but meanwhile such wealth and the achievements it supports obscure the poverty and injustice of most people's daily experience. Better, the author argues, to strive for a "good-enough life" for everyone on the planet, a life in which we can "reimagine the world as a place brimming with meaning, access, and creativity for all" (p. 38). Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Randolph R. Cornelius, Vassar College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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