52 pages 1 hour read

Brianna Wiest

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2016

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Essays 41-60

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Essay 41 Summary: “Things You Need to Know About Yourself Before You’ll Have the Life You Want”

This essay urges the reader to consider the reality of daily life rather than ideas of titles or dreams. Wiest urges the reader to think about what they feel on a daily basis, how they want to be remembered or described, and what their dreams and pain can tell them about what they want.

Essay 42 Summary: “Things Emotionally Healthy People Know How to Do”

In this essay, Wiest lists 10 things emotionally healthy people do: They listen to their pain, they observe their thoughts and emotions, they reflect, they interrogate their first impressions, they are flexible, and they can find value in any experience. 

Essay 43 Summary: “How to Measure a Good Life”

This essay, rather than offering a way to measure a life, argues that “measuring a good life” is not the way to have a good life. Wiest reflects on the Western culture of wanting “more” at any cost and asks the reader to “measure” a good life in far more abstract ways: not whether one has reached a goal, but whether one has changed and grown, chosen and failed, and laughed on the way to the goal. A good life is constituted by whether one is liberated enough to close one door before the next one opens.

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