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    The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
    Unavailable
    The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
    Unavailable
    The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life

    Written by Chris Guillebeau

    Narrated by George Newbern

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A remarkable book that will both guide and inspire, The Happiness of Pursuit reveals how anyone can bring meaning into their life by undertaking a quest.

    When he set out to visit all of the planet's countries by age thirty-five, compulsive goal seeker Chris Guillebeau never imagined that his journey's biggest revelation would be how many people like himself exist--each pursuing a challenging quest. And, interestingly, these quests aren't just travel-oriented. On the contrary, they're as diverse as humanity itself. Some involve exploration; others the pursuit of athletic or artistic excellence; still others a battle against injustice or poverty or threats to the environment.

    Everywhere that Chris visited he found ordinary people working toward extraordinary goals, making daily down payments on their dream. The more Chris spoke with these strivers--including a suburban mom pursuing a wildly ambitious culinary project, a DJ producing the world's largest symphony, a young widower completing the tasks his wife would never accomplish, a teenager crossing an entire ocean alone, and scores of others writing themselves into the record books--the more he began to appreciate the direct link between questing and long-term happiness--how going after something in a methodical way enriches our lives.

    He was compelled to complete a comprehensive study of the phenomenon and extract the best advice. In The Happiness of Pursuit he draws on interviews with hundreds of questers, revealing their secret motivations, their selection criteria, the role played by friends and family, their tricks for solving logistics, and the importance of documentation.

    Equally fascinating is Chris' examination of questing's other side, including questers' acute awareness of mortality, their struggle against monotony, and their wistful feelings once a quest has succeeded. What happens after the summit is climbed, the painting hung, the endurance record broken, the "at risk" community saved?

    A book that challenges each of us to take control--to make our lives be about something while at the same time remaining clear-eyed about the commitment--The Happiness of Pursuit will inspire listeners of every age and aspiration. It's a playbook for making your life count.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 9, 2014
    ISBN9780804165235
    Unavailable
    The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
    Author

    Chris Guillebeau

    Chris Guillebeau is the New York Times bestselling author of The $100 Startup and The Happiness of Pursuit, and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Born for This, among other books. He is the creator and host of the annual World Domination Summit, a gathering of cultural creatives that attracts such speakers as Susan Cain, Brené Brown and Gretchen Rubin. Guillebeau speaks at dozens of events, companies and universities, including Google, Facebook, SXSW, Evernote, LeWeb and more. He recently completed a personal goal of visiting every country in the world.

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    Reviews for The Happiness of Pursuit

    4/5

    65 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I've been following Chris Guillebeau for a while now so I was excited when I got the opportunity to read his new book. Additionally, the topic of it was something that I personally relate to and am excited about.

      As with some of his other books, Chris uses case studies to explain the concepts and to share what others are doing. He uses the word "quest" to describe the challenges people set for themselves. From his own quest to visit every country in the world, to the woman from Tasmania who lived in a tree for over a year to protest illegal logging, or the man who walked across the United States. Everyone he interviews and talks about has set out to do something amazing. He gives notes on how to find your own quest and backs them up with stories of others. But, he notes, you don't have to pack up your life and travel long distances to do something amazing. It can be done in one's own home, from the woman who decided to make a meal specific to every country, to the man who set out to learn the four-year MIT curriculum in a single year. It's merely a matter of challenging yourself and doing something crazy for the joy of it.

      Unfortunately, the book fell flat for me, as his other books have done before. I cannot pin point it but it just feels like there is something missing. In theory, I should love it. It has all the aspects I love - stories of people doing awesome things and steps to apply the things they've learned to my own life. I wish I was as excited after reading this book as I was before I started. It was still worthwhile to read, don't get me wrong, I just hoped to find a little more within its pages.

      *I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.*
    • 5/5
      An excellent book that will inspire even the most uninspired! It's worth reading just see what others do with their time and the many possibilities.
    • 5/5
      Great book! I found it very inspirational and loved it!
    • 4/5
      Listened for Review (Random House Audio)Overall Rating: 4.00Inspiration Rating: 4.00Story Rating: 4.00Audio Rating: 4.00 (not part of the overall rating)Read It File It (short review): The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau is one of those books that will inspire you take on a quest for your life. To pursue something you have always wanted and accept all the things that come with it. I was impressed that he tackled the highs and lows of questing. That made it all the more inspiring. It was a nice reminder that sometimes you have to give up things to get other things that will make you happy!Audio Thoughts: Narrated by: George Newbern/Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins George did a great job with this audiobook. He really made the individual stories come alive for me and I enjoyed listening to this one.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Less self-help or how-to than an encouraging ode to pursuit. Pursuits is Guillebeau parlance and refers to something bigger and more unconventional than a standard goal.The book profiles several people who have embarked on pursuits of different sorts, including Chris' own.Even if you aren't the type to chuck it all and scratch your wanderlust itch, it encourages deeper thinking about the life you really want to live. The bumper sticker sum of this book: dream big, live fearlessly.I've read all of Guillebeau's books and although they have similar underlying themes, they're bent into different shapes. Although most of the Pursuit-ers seem youngish (and probably most of Guillebeau's audience is, too), there is at least one (young) family profiled who embarked on a global adventure together. Some readers will have made choices or have responsibilities that preclude embarking on pursuit, so it would have been nice to feature how marrieds, mortgaged or older people can put the idea of pursuit into practice.Still, this is a harmless and pleasant read. Nothing wrong with encouragement to rethink the 'rules' you're living by. Recommended for anyone who hears the call to adventure and longs for a life less ordinary.
    • 3/5
      The Happiness of Pursuit takes us on a journey. It takes us on its author’s traveling adventures, the endeavors of normal individuals taking big risks, and motivates its readers to start passionately pursuing dangerous new possibilities.

      Every once in a while a book comes along that motivates us to embrace life and then there are those special books that reminds us that we are doing matters and encourages us not to give up. Chris Guillebeau’s new book does both! For me personally, the book was a reassurance that my recent quest of blogging and writing my first book is exactly what I should be pursuing. My favorite quotes include:

      Find what troubles you about the world, then fix it for the rest of us.

      The middle of the quest can be the hardest part. Don’t give up too soon!

      Cuillebeau’s inspiring words reminded me that the quest I took on to encourage Christian boys and men (in the midst of cultural or Christian masculinity stereotypes) is a worthy pursuit. They must hear from someone that they are NOT a male fail. I also can’t give up when it starts getting hard. The pursuit is worth the hard work, criticism, and sacrifice and part of the blessing is the journey itself. It is the risky that makes it an adventure and with no adventure, you truly aren’t living!

      If you feel like your life is stuck and taking you nowhere, this book is for you. If you want a guidebook to help you figure out who you are and what to do with your passions, I highly recommend this book. OR, if you are like me and you recently took on something big and risky and you are wondering if you need to keep pursuing, wait no longer and grab a copy today. Blogging for Books provided this book to me for free in exchange for an honest review.

      "There’s a mission out there that is greater than yourself."