What’s the upside to the global financial crisis? Count on John Robbins to credibly write a book exploring this topic. At 21, this heir to the family’s Baskin Robbins brand walked away from his father’s ice cream business and riches to live simply as a writer. He again faced financial difficulty when he recently lost all his life savings due to the Madoff scandal. His book The New Good Life: Living Better than Ever in an Age of Less is apt for those dealing with a financial collapse in their lives.
Robbins’ outlook on money and living is definitely unconventional. He suggests that your relationship to money can be a doorway into greater consciousness, into greater integrity and into greater freedom. He wisely recommends a “new frugality” that can be “an adventure and a great deal of fun”. He writes: “The object of the game is to see how much you can lower your spending while raising your quality of life.”
The first part of the book covers how to heal your relationship with money. The second part deals with shifting perspectives on how to live the new good life. Robbins tackles our biggest expenses: housing, transport, eating, and even having children. Committed to saving the earth, the author even recommends safe and natural cleaning products to buy.
The best feature of the book is challenging readers’ perception of happiness. While many of us have bought into the notion, “he who dies with the most toys wins,” Robbins quotes the wisdom of the Dalai Lama, Henry David Thoreau and Maya Angelou to remind us of the deeper meaning of life. Ultimately, it is the author who sums it up best: “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and frankly, being rich is easier. But I have also seen poverty of a rich society, and I have learned that you don’t need gobs of money to do great things and to help others.”
Maida Pineda
