Like a libertarian with a compassionate streak, the author continually stresses the importance of personal responsibility and engaging in each moment with clear eyes and an open mind. Yes, "life itself is brutally, obscenely unfair," and Burroughs isn't here to deny or sugar-coat it with airy positive thinking. Burroughs is nothing if not wide-ranging, and "This Is How" contains easily digestible nuggets of solid advice on everything from love and marriage ("Long marriages have ended in ruin over tiny and insignificant grievances that were never properly aired and instead grew into a brittle barnacle of hatred"), to weight loss and body image, to the dangers of self-pity, which moves into victimhood without action, and the pitfalls of over-reliance on willpower ("Where there is willpower there is a Band-Aid that's eventually going to fall off"). They are a form of self-betrayal based on bogus, side-of-the-cereal-box psychology."įor the most part, Burroughs is able to avoid bald platitudes, but the onslaught of advice eventually becomes tiresome this is definitely a book to be read in small doses, consulted depending on the situation at hand. It's tough love, Burroughs-style, drenched in hard-won insights and sharp-tongued criticisms of traditional self-help methods - e.g., "Affirmations are dishonest. In a series of short chapters - all of whose titles begin "How to. . .," - Burroughs unfurls hundreds of brief, rapid-fire paragraphs designed to invigorate readers to take control of their lives.
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