Lisa notes

As a young girl, I fell hard for Rob Lowe. Maybe first in St. Elmo’s Fire? Then I grew up and realized he’s just a person like every other person with his own set of problems. 

But when I heard he’d written an autobiography—and I kept hearing it was good—I wanted to catch up on him again. Not as a star, but as a very interesting person who’s had a very interesting life.

I don’t read many celebrity memoirs, but I am often delightfully surprised when I do. That’s what happened to me with this one, Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe.

I actually listened to it as an audiobook, read by Rob Lowe himself. His stories were fascinating and Lowe was very humble in the telling of them.

In the end, even though our experiences may vary wildly, our basic humanity is more alike than different.

Quotes from Stories I Only Tell My Friends 

“I followed my heart and stayed out of the results.”

~ * ~

“So I came to the realization: Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life.”

~ * ~

“I’ve learned to only concern myself with my end of any transaction. I do the best job I can and then let the results be what they will. I am out of the people-pleasing business.”

~ * ~

“If you can’t get honest with yourself, if you can’t look yourself in the mirror, no matter how much money they pay you, or how much you are lauded, you are literally putting your life at risk.”

~ * ~

“Anyone can run a career when the going is good. But it’s in the down times, the quiet times, that long-term careers are really made. You need to find ways to stay in the conversation, to be current and to reinvent yourself.”

~ * ~

“You can’t build a life on a backstage pass or free swag at Sundance.”

~ * ~

“The best part is not the biggest, it’s the one that’s most memorable.”

What celebrity memoir would you recommend? I also recommend Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run. Share in the comments. 

You are on Day #19 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Previous:
“I Take My Coffee Black” {Book 18}

Next:
“Beating Guns” {Book 20}

You might know Tyler Merritt from his Instagram account. Or his viral video “Before You Call the Cops.” (Haven’t seen it yet? Watch it here.) Or maybe now as the boyfriend of Jen Hatmaker.

However you know him—or even if you don’t know him at all—listen to Tyler’s bottom line message:

Get close enough. To see each other. To hear each other. To love each other.

I’ve been rereading my notes from Tyler Merritt’s book, I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America. (Tyler is also an actor, entrepreneur, social activitist, and a Youtuber.)

Tyler says:

“Proximity for the win. Because proximity breeds empathy. And with empathy, humanity has a fighting chance.”

There are some things we can’t just phone in. We need to get near each other in space and time.

Who can you show up for today?

3 Excerpts from I Take My Coffee Black 

“I was thinking that maybe if you got to know me, you wouldn’t be frightened. Or better yet, maybe you’d see that we have more in common than you thought.

Or at the very least, the next time a six-foot-two black man comes near, you might think to yourself: ‘Maybe he’s listening to Bring It On: The Musical.’

And maybe we’d grab a cup of coffee, and you and I could laugh about it. Because I think you’d like me if you took some time to get to know me.”

~ * ~

“Because I’ve been black all my life, and that happens so much, you think maybe by now I’d be used to it. But I’m not. It still hurts.

Why did that couple that was jogging smile at me, when this lady in the blue-and-white older-model Ford truck got so scared? I don’t know. I was only a few feet away from her, but the separation was immense. Worlds apart.

If she would just get close enough to really talk and really see me, I bet we’d realize we have so much in common. So much. Like you and me.”

~ * ~

“And I would hope that if things got tough for me… Maybe really tough… Maybe because of the color of my skin… Maybe because some people don’t see me as a real person because of my melanin… It’s my hope that you’d stand.

And that you would say. In a loud and clear voice. Stop. I know that man. He’s a mix of the good and the bad, for sure. But I know him. And he’s my brother.

I hope that you’d stand with me. You better believe that I would stand for you. That’s what I hope for, that somehow by sitting across from each other, we’d end up side by side.”

Who are you near today? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Read More:

• What Is a Normal Reaction to Being Falsely Accused? Review of I Take My Coffee Black

You are on Day #18 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Previous:
“The Book of Joy” {Book 17}

Next:
“Stories I Only Tell My Friends” {Book 19}

Do you see the glass half-full or half-empty?

I can’t vouch for other countries, but in the U.S., our culture tends to celebrate the half-full crowd and feel sorry for the half-empty folks.

But is there a downside to always thinking positively?

In this intriguing book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, the late Barbara Ehrenreich (she recently died from a stroke in September 2022) writes that positive thinking is a “mass delusion” that we need to recover from.

When Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was immediately plunged into the world of positive thinking. She was told by some that cancer isn’t a problem at all, but “a gift, deserving of the most heartfelt gratitude.” She said it was enough to make you “want to go out and get an injection of live cancer cells.”

But while having a cheery attitude might make you easier to be around (maybe?), this sugar-coating of real-life problems such as cancer can be dangerous.

• Constant positivity can cause us to deny reality, preventing us from taking action when it’s needed.
• It can cause us to squash other genuine emotions, such as anger and frustration.
• It can cause us to blame ourselves (or our faith or our God) for not being positive enough if the healing doesn’t occur (in which case you are encouraged to think even more positively).

According to Ehrenreich, “The failure to think positively can weigh on a cancer patient like a second disease.”

This book is about more than just cancer diagnoses though.

Ehrenreich walks you through many ways that positive thinking is becoming an obligation we impose on each other.

But is the antidote to embrace despair instead? No. Ehrenreich says,

“In fact, negative thinking can be just as delusional as the positive kind.”

The sweet spot? Ehrenreich doesn’t clearly define one. But she does strongly suggest that instead of acquiring only the skills of positive thinking, we should be highlighting the skills of critical thinking. Raise better questions, even if they’re uncomfortable.

But the book isn’t a downer.

Actually it might help you feel better.

3 Excerpts from Bright-Sided

“Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a ‘gift,’ was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”

~ * ~

“Sometimes we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that includes absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of ‘negative’ people.”

~ * ~

“We cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.”

Are you a half-full or half-empty type? Share your thoughts.

You are on Day #16 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“No Time Like the Present” {Book 15}

Next:
“The Book of Joy” {Book 17}

I struggle to stay present in this moment. My mind drifts forward to things I want to do tomorrow. Or floats backward to a conversation I had last week.

Of course we need to think about the past and the future in the present.

But staying anchored in this moment is where we’re likely to find the most peace when everything else feels out of control. This is the moment where God is with me, where Love is lingering.

There will never be another moment exactly like this one.

“To become free of the tyranny of time, become interested in the present.”
– Jack Kornfield

This book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are, helps me stay more aware of this one special moment.

I love the gentle yet powerful wisdom of Jack Kornfield in his writings and his podcasts. This book takes us through stories and examples on topics such as the dance of life, responding with love, aging with trust, and starting where we are.

Quotes from No Time Like the Present

“Whatever the situation, widen the space; remember vastness; allow ease and perspective. Spaciousness is the doorway to freedom.”

~ * ~

“When we honor our vulnerability and our dependence on the community of life, we open to love.”

~ * ~

“Yes, things are uncertain, but wisdom brings us love, perspective, and the ability to trust. Wisdom invites us to live with a trusting heart.”

~ * ~

“The stories we tell of our past are written on water. Research shows that much of what we remember isn’t true.”

~ * ~

“‘Letting be’ might express the freedom of release more accurately.”

~ * ~

“Forget the tyranny of perfection. The point is not to perfect yourself. It is to perfect your love.”

~ * ~

Do you think more about the past, present, or future? Share your thoughts.

Read More:

• Sometimes You Do Nothing
• This. Here. Now. 
• What Are Middles For? 

You are on Day #15 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“The Lives We Actually Have” {Book 14}

Next:
“Bright-Sided” {Book 16}

• Is your day going perfectly as planned?
• Is today all blue skies and rainbows?
• Is today your happiest day ever?

I can answer for you. No, no, and no. (But if I’m wrong, good for you!)

No day is ever perfect. It’s not how the world works.

Because of that, it’s in these regularly imperfect days of our lives that we most need to receive blessings.

So we ask for blessings and say blessings over each other.

If you need words for these blessings, you’ll find 100 beautiful blessings in this new book by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days. Each blessing is short, heartfelt, and sometimes funny, too.

The blessings are divided into 10 categories.

Which category applies where you are today?

• Bless this ordinary life
• Bless this tired life
• Bless this lovely life
• Bless this grief-stricken life
• Bless this overwhelming life
• Bless this painful life
• Bless this garbage life
• Bless the lives of others
• Bless this beautiful, limited life

And then a special category of readings for Lent and Advent:

• Bless this holy life

There’s something here for everyone, for every kind of day.

Quotes from The Lives We Actually Have

“Blessed are we who see that this present darkness is not all there is. Blessed are we who say: I am known. I am loved. I can love again. Even . . . especially . . . in this. God, have mercy.”

~ * ~

“Draw me closer to a different vision, one that sees that I don’t need perfection—I need love. Free me from the expectation that life should always be better.”

~ * ~

“God, erase my humiliation about being stubbornly finite. Remind me again how all these limitations can still be called blessed.”

~ * ~

“Love can break your heart. It’s probably in the fine print. Didn’t you click the box at the bottom of the terms and conditions?”

~ * ~

“Turn down the volume of my expectations, and let me hear the birds sing another lovely truth: I am deeply and wholly loved. I am beautiful and somehow delightful even as I am unfinished.”

Have you read a Kate Bowler book (Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved; No Cure for Being Human; Good Enough) or listened to her podcast, Everything Happens?

What kind of day are you having today? Is it ordinary or otherwise?

Share your thoughts here.

My thanks to NetGalley + Convergent
Books for the review copy of this book

You are on Day #14 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“How to Keep House While Drowning” {Book 13}

Next:
“No Time Like the Present” {Book 15}