Samara’s Reviews > Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living > Status Update

My prayer is that this book will be a thousand invitations, springing up from every page, calling you to leave behind the heavy weight of comparison, competition, and exhaustion, and to recraft a life marked by meaning, connection, and unconditional love.

The two sins at play here, I believe, are gluttony and pride-the desire to escape and the desire to prove, respectively…The opposite of gluttony is sobriety…And the opposite of pride, one might say, is vulnerability-essentially, saying this is who I am ... not the sparkly image, not the smoke and mirrors, not the accomplishments or achievements. This is me, with all my limitations, with all my weaknesses.

Richard Rohr says the skills that take you through the first half of your life are entirely unhelpful for the second half…They made me responsible and capable and really, really tired.

This book is an account of my winding, messy journey from exhaustion to peace, from isolation to connection, from hustling and multitasking to sacred presence. And this book is an invitation, too—a hand reaching out across the pages, inviting you into that same journey, because it has been the greatest, most challenging, most rewarding sea-change of my adult life.

I loved my life, but I had become someone I didn't want to be around. I had become someone I didn't want to be.