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Title: Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition by Brian J. Mahan, Robert Coles ISBN: 0-7879-5633-3 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 04 January, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: More Than Five Stars!
Comment: This is a fantastic book, not so much because it tells you how to resolve the tension between ambition and vocation, but because it accompanies you on the journey of working through these preoccupations yourself. You will not find any "5 Easy Steps to Success" here nor will find any "How to Find God's Will For Your Life." Rather you will find a philosopher who walks with us the razor's edge between our desire to get ahead in this world and our desire to live a meaningful life. Mahan is not sanctimonious in his approach to this all-too-human struggle. He does not condemn or issue platitudes. Rather, he invites the reader into a introspective, somewhat guided, tour of his or her deepest convictions regarding both "mere success" and "true success."

In a sense, Mahan's book is an extended meditation on Thomas Merton's call, "If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the the thing I want to live for."

However, this is not an "easy read." In parts, it gets a bit dense. (I found myself reading certain passages several times to get at Mahan's point.) However, I do think it would be a great book for audiences as diverse as college students who are trying to figure out what to do with themselves, mid-career executives who are struggling to move form "success to significance," as well as anyone striving to find some order in their lives as they pursue both their ambitions as well as their vocations. Heck, this is a book for all "baby boomers" who at one time felt they had been called to "change the world" in the name of "love,peace and justice" only to find themselves becoming precisely what they, at one time, detested.

The book includes a number of wonderful "practices" reminiscent of Walker Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos."

I encourage anyone who asks how to live a meaningful life in a world that forevers seeks to drain us of life to read this book.

I would give it more stars but Amazon only allows five.

Rating: 5
Summary: Best Book on Vocation
Comment: I absolutely adore this book. I've grown tired of books on vocation that have a "pie in the sky" approach to living a spiritual life, as if everyday working people have the financial resources to devote themselves to a life of good deeds. Brian Mahan has a great way of bringing two worlds together---the need to pay the bills and the need to make a positive contribution to the world. Turns out you can do both!

I also like his "spiritual retreat" approach. He incorporates spiritual exercises at the end of each chapter which really help to focus attention on living a life of integrity. Finally, this is a practical and inspiring book---but a book with a humorous edge---that unites compassion and ambition in a fresh, new way.

Read this book!