A guide to achieving the more joyful and interesting life that we know is within our grasp.

One of the things we all deeply crave is a more exciting life. We know that many things have to be routine, hard and a little boring. But we also sense that, if only we could find a way, our lives could be rendered more joyful, intense, thrilling, and beautiful.

This is a guide to the more exciting life we know could be ours. It isn’t about the outward things we might do: travel, parachute out of airplanes, or learn a foreign language. This is a book of psychology, teaching us how we can nurture a sense of inner liberation, accept our desires and aspirations, and then have the courage to set ourselves free. Perhaps we have resigned ourselves to things that aren’t fair or necessary; we have felt too constricted (and perhaps unloved) to communicate well with others, and the proper expansion of our characters has been sacrificed for the sake of compliance.

Now is a chance to recover some of our spirit and become open to the full intensity, beauty, and mystery of life and to the richness of our own possibilities. Here is a guide to that more exciting life that should—and could—be ours.