Making the Good Life Last: Four Keys to Sustainable Living (AGENCY/DISTRIBUTED) - Softcover

"Sustainability isn't only, or even mainly, about light bulbs. It's about patience and prudence and the other virtues described in this book--it's about becoming mature as people and as a society. That's hard work but good work, and this is the manual."
--Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy and The End of Nature

"Sustainability requires each of us to rethink our moral and spiritual relationships with the planet, with each other, and with ourselves. No one understands this better than Michael Schuler. He tells of his efforts with friends and family to enact these values in his own daily life. It is an inspiring story."
--William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of Changes in the Land

"Organize a study group around this book! Schuler has provided one of the most persuasive, cogent, readable, useful guidebooks I have ever seen to what really sustains an ecology, an economy, a society, and a human life that really matters."
--John Buehrens, Past President, Unitarian Universalist Association

So many of us are beset by anxiety, depression, loneliness, and spiritual malaise, tense and unhappy despite our gadgets and goodies. Michael Schuler, leader of the nation’s largest Unitarian Universalist congregation, says it’s because, urged on by an aggressively materialist culture, we too often opt for short-term gratification and long-term denial. In this thoughtful and deeply honest book, he helps us find a life path that leads to treasures of perennial value: a beautiful and healthy earth home, enduring relationships, strong communities, work that contributes to the common good, and play that restores our bodies and lifts our souls.

Deconstructing the assumption that consumption, stimulation, and constant motion comprise the good life, Schuler urges the wholesale embrace of sustainability as both an operational principle and a life-sustaining core value. His book presents sustainability as a coherent frame of reference that can ground us spiritually, heal us internally, and deepen our relationships. Schuler identifies four behavioral principles for living sustainably Pay Attention, Stay Put, Exercise Patience, and Practice Prudence and shows how to apply them in our daily lives. He uses stories from his own life to illuminate the rewards and challenges of sustainable living and shares insights from environmentalists, social commentators, writers, poets, businesspeople, and spiritual leaders.