Thankful Thursday: Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It by Alan H. Cohen

This is funny. My BFF loaned me this book and I read it a while back. I realized the other day that I need to (1) get the book back to her and (2) get the book out of my house since I’m trying to reduce clutter. So I open it up to any random page in preparing to type up this post. Of course it is the part on page 143 that says “You Identify Yourself as a Savior”.

Yep. That about sums up why I was meant to read this book. It says, “If you have been a mother, therapist, doctor, minister, or teacher for a long time, you may become so immersed in your role as a helper that you don’t know who you are without it.” Yes, this is why I try to “rescue” my kids from situations they don’t need rescuing from. This is why I try to mother everyone I meet and always have, even before I had kids. This is why I see someone kinda getting picked on in a homeschool group and I feel like I have to be the one to step up, to fix it. After all, if I don’t do it, who will? I’m HELPING someone who is being BULLIED, right? Not always, not really.


[Let me stop here and insert something my mom has made me think about. She wants to know, basically, about standing up for others who might not do it themselves. How long do you stand by? I liken it to America helping out in WWII ... if we had not, how many would have died? And yet you can't save everyone. Keep in mind the author is not married and does not have children, so he can afford to let it go and be a little selfish. Let's see how he behaves when he has children or a wife who is getting crapped on verbally or emotionally by someone ...]

There are a lot of good things about this book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with anything. It’s like a cheap dose of mini-therapy. This book will speak to you in a different way than it spoke to me, I’m sure, but here are some other things in the book that really hit home for me:

Stop trying to please everyone. Just be yourself because you will never get 100% of people you know (or don’t know, if you blog!), to like you.

“Honesty builds strong and reliable relationships. You win more by standing in your truth than by saying what is expected.” How can someone trust your YES if they never hear your NO?

“Rote facts stimulate the mind, but leave the soul wanting. Skills go a longer way.” Like how I took typing at the urging of my dad in 8^th grade. That skill has always kept me employed and helped me with my being able to write quickly. Memorizing dates of battles and the Pythagorean Theorum, not so much.

Chapter titles include:

You Give Your Power Away

You Expect It To Suck

You Get Fooled by Appearances

You Waste Your Energy on Things That Suck

You Keep Trying to Prove Yourself

You Say Yes When You Mean No {guilty!}

You Think You Have to do It All Yourself

You Try to Fix Other People

You Starve Your Soul

You Forgot To Enjoy the Ride


I give this book 3.5 Dove chocolate hearts because much of it is common sense that we just need to hear again and again!