Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living

“When you die, God and the Angels will hold you accountable for all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself.”

We are all imperfect. Beautifully imperfect. Much of life is composed of what you don’t expect to happen. In fact, some of life’s greatest joys are stumbled upon in moments of haphazard action and instinctive, emotional indulgences – such as laughter and love and honesty and sex and sleep and art and writing and music. Should we dare to allow ourselves to simply live our lives imperfectly?

Let us believe that the greatest sin one can commit is letting precious moment after moment – moments of pleasure and opportunities for joy – slip away.

Life is what you make of it. And the time you have, for yourself and with those you love and adore, is both unpredictable and finite. Enjoy today because there are no promises about tomorrow. In borrowed words from my uncle Keith, “I realize that I would never say at the end of my life, gee I wish I had worked more.”

Charmingly candid, the Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living celebrates our imperfections. Roger Housden, author of the bestselling Ten Poems series, presents a joyously affirmative, warmly personal and illuminating meditation on the virtues of opening ourselves up to pleasures like being foolish, not being perfect, and doing nothing useful, the pleasure of not knowing, coming home and being ordinary.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

America is by far the greatest consumer per capita in the world of anti-depressants[...] A quarter-million therapists are kept busy all over the country. Not everyone, it seems, is happy[...] Think of all those comfortable lives of quiet desperation[...]

In Brazil or in India you will see people who have nothing yet are brimming with life. They smile a lot, they laugh out loud. They jump and skip. In France, in Spain, in Italy, people have different priorities[...] They’re not as productive as Americans; their economies are good enough but not booming. Yet they seem to know what the good life is. They eat the best food on the planet, drink the best wine, take the longest vacations, surround themselves with spectacular architecture, and come up with some of the best art, dance, and music. In short, they enjoy themselves. No wonder they have fewer heart attacks over there[...]

In short: lighten up and live a little.

So, what will you do to live imperfectly today? Let's indulge – Meredith

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Meredith is Associate Creative Director at Half Price Books Corporate.
You can follow her on Twitter at @msquare21.