Synopsis
Loving Ordinary Life is written for us: living, emotional people.

We all want to live a happy life, but we can easily fall into a state of despondency. We prefer to smile, but more often we frown.

We like being inspired, but most likely, we can’t recall the last time when we were.

There are many books and courses about self-motivation and inspiration. You might have heard hundreds of platitudes and affirmations. Each of them sounds valid but their utility is limited when you actually find yourself stuck in a pit of pain and despair.

Loving Ordinary Life is meant to make a functional difference. It’s not a treatment for depression. It is about living a life where depression has no place.

Loving Ordinary Life is your guide. It is designed so that you can open any page and find the inspiration to act and improve your life when you’re feeling down.

Each chapter in Loving Ordinary Life is a tool for moving from a negative idle state to a positive proactive state. It displays to you the art of being present, free, and genuine every day.

If you want to be more fulfilled and enjoy life more, if you’re open to quality changes, Loving Ordinary Life will become your loyal companion.

Everything is within your power. You are the master of your life. How you experience it depends only on you. Take the lead.

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."
Marcus Aurelius


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My Review
Loving Ordinary Life is a self-help book at its core, but it's more than that. For me, it was more inspiring and realistic.

There are no crazy, out-there things you should do to make yourself happy or live a better life. Loving Ordinary Life is a book for normal, everyday people who just want to find simple ways to make life more fulfilling and happy.

I enjoyed the easy-going, simplistic advice of the book. It focused more on using your senses to heighten your experiences, no matter how boring or bland they may seem. Like one example was to listen to music. Open your favorite playlist and find songs that will set the mood. This is something I already do on a day-to-day basis, so seeing it written as good advice made me feel better about doing it. Sometimes I'd feel bad that I was closing myself off from people and just losing myself in music so I could de-stress and relax. But it really does help, and by doing so, I can live a better life because I'm not so stressed.

Another suggestion was to immerse yourself in a hobby; something you enjoy doing but maybe feel you don't have the time for, or the talent for. Instead of ignoring it, stop and take a breather from the hustle and bustle of life. Pick up that book and read it. Take some time to search knitting tutorials on YouTube and teach yourself to create something for yourself, or even someone else. I like that advice, especially because so many people focus just on their job and ignore the things that they enjoy.

The only "negative" thing about this book, if you will, is that there are a few pages that happen to be repeated. Like, there's advice on one page, and then the next page has the same exact advice repeated word for word. I think it may have been a publishing glitch, though, and nothing that the author did.

Overall, I really liked reading through the advice in Loving Ordinary Life. It made me feel better about the things I already do to make myself happy, and it also inspired me to try new things.

I give the book 4.5 stars. 


Author Bio
Anastasia Petrenko was born in Ukraine, where she spent every summer in her grandparents’ village, cultivating the land, studying the piano, and reading as many books as she could get her hands on. Though she suffered from chronic depression, she found the resources within herself to rise out of despair and value her identity. Now she works to help others do the same.

As a young adult, Anastasia traveled to more than 25 countries, studying, working, and exploring across Canada, Europe, South America, and Asia. She quickly gained fluency in Russian, English, and Spanish before becoming an author. She now helps other impassioned people write, publish, and promote their own written works through her company Identity Publications.

Anastasia enjoys working regularly with children in mentoring and volunteering positions. She values integrity, fair treatment, and nurturing healthy development through optimizing environments for human growth. When she’s not intimidating boys with her strength and intellect, you can find her practicing yoga or listening to lectures by Jordan Peterson with a cup of matcha tea and a kitten at her side.