The Joy of Not Working
An odd mix of amateur psychology and self-help is offered by this engineer happily and creatively unemployed for 14 years. His clear-as-a-bell message is that making the most of leisure involves knowing yourself inside and outside of work. And that, for most overworked and undersatisfied Americans, amounts to an overwhelming task. To some extent, Zelinski tames the process with a combination of humor, cartoons, quotes from the famous (and the not so), fan mail excerpts, and a host of exercises to try. Explored in depth are the nature of boredom (complaining is one sure sign), the value of work, inner passions and goals, and the potential maleficence of money. None of these thoughts are new; Abraham Maslow, for one, advocated the stages toward healthy humanity. Nor are the statistics, remarks, or observations unique. But the notion of how to enjoy free time is finally geared to a mass market.Barbara Jacobs