2012-06-05-philplait.jpg (980×6931) Living With Less. A Lot Less. 31908_10151477049436122_532501797_n.jpg (797×531) How to stay sane. “I pray to Jesus to preserve my sanity,” Jack Kerouac professed in discussing his writing routine. But those of us who fall on the more secular end of the spectrum might need a slightly more potent sanity-preservation tool than prayer. That’s precisely what writer and psychotherapist Philippa Perry offers in How To Stay Sane (public library), part of The School of Life’s wonderful series reclaiming the traditional self-help genre as intelligent, non-self-helpy, yet immensely helpful guides to modern living.
At the heart of Perry’s argument — in line with neurologist Oliver Sacks’s recent meditation on memory and how “narrative truth,” rather than “historical truth,” shapes our impression of the world — is the recognition that stories make us human and learning to reframe our interpretations of reality is key to our experience of life: Our stories give shape to our inchoate, disparate, fleeting impressions of everyday life. Perry concludes: Artwork by pennylrichardsca. Work-life crunch: why you shouldn’t spend fewer hours at work. Photo by Siri Stafford/Digital Vision/Thinkstock. Would I be happier if I spent less time at work? Surely we have all asked ourselves this at one time or another. Perhaps during a fit of pique about a ridiculous deadline or the idiot who works in the next cubicle over. But even when things are going well, you might still wonder: Would I be happier if I worked less? After all, there are other things in life one might want to do during the daytime hours—hang out with the children, climb Mt.
Everest, sit in a café and read a book—all of which seem, in theory, more pleasurable than racking up more hours at the office. Before my daughter arrived it hardly ever occurred to me to work less, but since she came along, I’ve given it more thought. If you asked me which gives me more joy, my work or my family, there is no question that it’s my family. How can this make sense? When I teach this, it’s usually in the context of consuming things—say, oranges.
The same logic works with time.