The Way of the Small: Why Less is Truly More
by Michael Gellert
Summary
Addressing the search for finding true happiness, meaning and success, “The Way of the Small” gives us new perspectives based on old wisdom on what makes for a truly lived life. A practical and spiritual guide to fulfillment, it illustrates that happiness is found in “the small"-in ways to celebrate the precious small gifts of ordinary life and experiencing the sacred in all aspects of life. We are reminded that “Less Is More, Simpler Is Better.”
“The Way of the Small” teaches ways to embrace even life’s more difficult passages such as aging, failure, illness, or the loss of a loved one, making even our pain a path to the sacred that helps us find meaning in life as it happens. Especially relevant for mid-lifers, the book offers 22 key principles to activate the way of the small.
Excerpt
This book is a journey into the small. It draws upon the age-old teaching that simplicity is the key to a good life. When we live small, we live with limits and according to our means, in a way that is not inflated either economically or psychologically. This helps us to find success and happiness not only materially, but spiritually. It also helps us cope with such diminishing ordeals as failure, illness, the loss of a loved one, and aging. Living small raises the monotony of daily life to a godly level and reveals God in the little and difficult things. It makes everyday life sacred.
Although I was familiar with this simple and ancient way of living from my work as a Jungian analyst and my training in Judaism, religious studies, and Zen, it wasn’t until a personally trying period of darkness that I truly discovered its dynamic principles. Brain surgery, a divorce, some other heartbreaking disappointments, and 9/11—all occurring close together—had left me with haunting feelings of vulnerability, failure, and emptiness. Each successive event further convinced me how small and insignificant my life was, and I fell into a depression.
After two years in this state of diminishment, I came to the conclusion that the only honest way to deal with it was to squarely face its victory over me. “This is it,” I said to myself, “this is my life.” Accepting this defeat was difficult, and for some time my sadness was coupled with brooding. Eventually, however, it became clear to me that the diminishment itself was what was significant here. There was something very sobering and freeing about seeing how small I was. The pressure to be anything other than what I was had been lifted. By embracing the smallness of my life, the situation gradually shifted from being a problem to being a deeper way of living, even if that way was constricted. This did not magically transform my hardships, but altered my view of them. Instead of being unwanted intrusions in my life, they became a source of mystery and meaning—that is, sacred.
Finally one day, with these hardships no more resolved or under control than before, I recognized an old, familiar feeling but in a new form: I was happy. What was new was that it was unattached to any particular event, person, or situation. Paradoxically, I was able to experience a sense of well-being even though I was suffering. This was how I came to understand the relationship between the way of the small and happiness. True happiness is an acceptance of life as it is given to us, with its diminishment, mystery, uncontrollability, and all. Darkness, too, is a part of everyday life, and the suffering it brings needs to also be made sacred. This attitude makes possible the kind of joy that endures hardship and the vacillating fortunes of life. This book explains the basic principles of being small and the practical skills to make everyday life sacred. These allow grace to come into our lives and bless us with happiness.
It is impossible to speak about this way without mentioning the everyday world we actually live in—a world plagued by complexity, strife, and darkness….
©2008 Michael Gellert
Reprinted with permission of RedWheel/Weiser/Conari
http://www.redwheelweiser.com
Reviews
"This is a jewel of a book. There is a pearl inside it...elusive, precious, and tiny"--Thomas Moore, author of “Care of the Soul” and “Dark Nights of the Soul”
""A bold, persuasive book"--Rabbi harold Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”
"[A]n invitation to set down our self-importance and embrace the limits of our humanity"--Connie Zweig, Ph.D., author of “Romancing the Shadow”
Author's Biography
Michael Gellert is a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles and a certified Jungian analyst in private practice. He has been a college professor and a mental health consultant to the University of Southern California and Time Magazine. He is the author of “Modern Mysticism” and “The Fate of America”.