Living a Gentle, Passionate Life

Book excerpt: Best-selling author of the acclaimed title After 50, Bob Wicks once again delivers his healing philosophy through poignant & often humorous stories that will stimulate & educate the heart. With a refreshing sense of simplicity, Wicks invites readers to seek perspective & develop a strong healthy inner life. The "journeys" traveled in this book help readers move beyond the vague desire to live more peacefully to actually living their dream. Wicks helps them resist yielding to resignation & instead to live more nobly & meaningfully, with a sense of joy, hope, & commitment. This is his life's work; though not autobiographical, the book breathes with the ideas, themes, & truths he has lived through his long, distinguished career. The book shows how to - find the curative value of listening to others & ourselves; discover single-heartedness & simplicity; appreciate the gift of new; find in solitude a "good loneliness"; use both detachment & acceptance when choosing friends for our spiritual journey; learn to accept life's intertwined emotions of joy & pain in order to better survive reality & to flourish; discover spiritual freedom & greater meaning in daily life.