It's not you, it's everything What our pain reveals about the anxious pursuit of the good life
Book - 2022
"If we can agree on anything, it's that we are not okay. Our culture is reeling from the ravages of a global pandemic, a precipitous rise in depression and anxiety, suffocating debt, white supremacy, hypercapitalism, and a virulent political animus--to name a few. But what if it's not us? What if it's... well, everything? What if trying to conform to a sick culture is actually making us sick? It's Not You, It's Everything is a timely and incisive inquiry into the anxious pursuit of happiness at all costs. Psychotherapist and former pastor Eric Minton claims that the pernicious melding of capitalism and Christianity means a world of competition, perfection, and scarcity disguised as self-help and self-care. Rath...er than shaming, silencing, or medicating away our disappointment at not having obtained the happiness we were promised, however, Minton posits a radical alternative. In an impertinent, droll, yet pastoral voice, Minton suggests that our "not-okayness" will require rethinking everything we thought we knew about God, depression, the economy, culture, education, technology, and happiness. Our angst--and that of our children and teenagers--is telling us the truth about the kind of world we've created. By naming all the ways we're not okay, we move away from fear and shame and toward love, and trust, and trustworthiness. We'll need nothing less than hip-hop, Mr. Rogers, liberation theology, and Jesus to get us there. But on the other side of our pain is a radical "okayness" that might just set us free"--
- Subjects
- Genres
- Self-help publications
- Published
-
Minneapolis :
Broadleaf Books
[2022]
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- vi, 198 pages ; 23 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-198).
- ISBN
- 9781506471914
- 1. How (Not) to Float
- 2. Why Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?
- How Children Became Investments
- 3. Why Is Everyone Yelling on the Internet?
- How People Became Brands
- 4. Why Does Heaven Seem So Out of Reach?
- How Capitalism Became Religion
- 5. Why Does God Seem So Depressed?
- How Christianity Became Anesthetic
- 6. What If We Can't Keep Doing This?
- How to Survive the Death of Your God
- 7. What If We Weren't Afraid of Our Feelings?
- How to Listen to Our Pain as an Act of Resistance
- 8. What If We Weren't Afraid of God?
- How to Reparent Ourselves
- 9. What If We Weren't Afraid of Dying?
- How to Do More Than Live Forever
- 10. What If We Weren't Afraid of Each Other?
- How to Be Complicated
- 11. Why the Jar Is Always Smaller Than the Sky
- Acknowledgments
- Notes