Wrecked by Jeff Goins

For my birthday I received a copy of Wrecked by Jeff Goins. Jeff has a writing blog, http://goinswriter.com/, which I subscribe to. Jeff blogs about how to build an audience and provides inspiration and encouragement for writers.  As soon as I was introduced to his blog back in February, I knew I wanted to read his book. I'm pleased to say that Wrecked didn't disappoint.

According to Jeff Goins, to be wrecked is to find your life so affected by the suffering and helplessness around you that you can't return to how things were. The status quo has changed, the repetition of life has shattered, and you are forever altered. You have lost your self-centeredness and have become focused on the bigger world that is out there. It's a change of heart and mind.

Jeff discards our society's misguided notion that life is supposed to be comfortable. He talks about the importance of suffering.  In fact, he states that "stories worth telling are full of conflict." In a culture that always looks for the easiest, the fastest, the least painful way to accomplish things, I find this to be a refreshing point of view. 

Another point made by Jeff is that compassion literally means "to suffer with." Helping people doesn't make you feel better about yourself. In fact, philanthropy is painful and soul-wrenching. When you help someone who's hurting, you hurt, too. I experienced this while in Galveston over spring break. After distributing food to a needy community, I was pleased to be able to help these people, but I didn't experience that warm, fuzzy feeling I expected. After reading Jeff's countless anecdotes of this in Wrecked, I was glad to see that I'm not the only one.

One topic of focus throughout the book was commitment. Jeff acknowledges the thrill of adventure, but reminds us that any commitment can be risky, even dangerous. It's also character-building, and a necessary part of life. As someone who is very restless and constantly longs for adventure and new experiences, I believe these were words I needed to hear.

These were some of my favorite points in Wrecked, but this is only a small overview of the book. The whole work contains solid advice and wisdom, dotted with anecdotes from the lives of Jeff and others. This book is about balancing the tension between adventure and commitment. It's about how to handle your life when what you thought you knew has been turned upside-down. If you've been wrecked, then I recommend this book to you.