In my last post, I mentioned that my book club did a Book Swap. B had brought a book that his colleague had written and that he, a clinical psychiatrist, had been asked to write a blurb for on the back cover. I ended up with The Tao of Life (according to Charlie) by therapist Charlie Shae Galvin, and I’m overall delighted with the read. It’s short but pithy and contains many excellent pieces of advice for learning to live with more intentionality.
Galvin’s book is set up as 365 pieces of advice, which seems to be no accident. Each piece is separate but contributes to the overall theme of life advice. Some have stories attached, and some are 1-2 sentences long. The varied length adds spice and variety to the book. The piece of advice about regret really stuck with me: I don’t have many regrets in my life, but I do carry a few. I really liked Galvin’s advice about using regret to fuel your best and most compassionate parts to be a better person and to fuel your best self. Yes.
One thing I do wish Galvin had done was develop each piece of advice more fully, so that this could have acted as a year-long devotional book, with a holy text or wise quote attached, so that anyone from any or no denomination could use this as bedside inspirational reading. That said, this is a book I’d like to return to, because it’s given me pieces of advice to think about and use to improve my own life and state of being. I think this might be self-published, but if you can get your hands on a copy (I could find a link on Amazon), I do think you will find it worth your time.
Cross-posted to my blog.