U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?

Description

In this impressively researched and incisive book, Bruce Grierson draws on over three hundred stories of so-called "U-turners," who have risked their livelihoods to answer a sudden wake-up call. We meet people who change political parties and careers, doctors who quit to become poets, men who become women, people who suddenly become revolutionaries for a cause they didn't care about the day before. In chapters that address everything from the neuroscience behind epiphanies to the possibility of "forcing" a U-turn, Grierson brilliantly describes and elucidates this powerful, mysterious phenomenon, and in doing so illuminates all of our continual struggles with life choices and identity. PRAISE: "Once a staple of the American Dream, change and rebirth are increasingly derided as dangerous or silly, a manifestation of a life "crisis." In his fascinating, balanced, thoroughly researched and readable look at the "U-Turn," Bruce Grierson gives this phenomenon its due. His view of the "wake-up call" as the secular equivalent of the religious epiphany is brilliant. U-turns are not always good or beneficial, but almost always significant, frequently life-altering. This book is essential for anyone contemplating meaningful change." -Jon Katz, author of Running to the Mountain and A Good Dog "U-Turn is a very smart, grounded, wise, well-written and important book. Using compelling human-scale stories, Bruce Grierson explores the dynamics involved in making major life-changes. The result is not only a fascinating study of other people's lives. Here is a map that offers guidance to anyone tempted to take a detour en route to who-knows-where."-Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, and The Courage to Teach "Grierson has pulled together a remarkable collection of tales of dramatic personal transformation, in which people appear to make sudden u-turns in their lives. These myste Read this book for the tales it tells, for the inspiration it imparts, or for the knowledge it so generously gives.-Lauren Slater, author of Welcome to My Country