how to live life

John Vorhaus

Aug 2015 · Bafflegab Books

About this ebook

Life is a problem -- a problem you can solve! All you need are some simple, insightful ways of looking at yourself and your world, plus frank, straightforward tools for developing your philosophy, addressing your feelings and clarifying your goals. And they’re all here for you – in abundance – in John Vorhaus’s down-to-earth guide to lofty concerns, How to Live Life. Using the plain-spoken, exercise-driven approach of his many successful writing books, How to Live Life offers no magic solutions, just practical strategies for advancing your self-awareness, acquiring self-acceptance and closing the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be. If spiritual matters matter to you, if you want to make your life rise, and if you wish to gain a better grasp of the questions that confront us all, this little book will have a great big impact on you.

Ratings and reviews

When I say this book is so good you will no longer fear death I'm kidding, of course...but, strangely, only a little. You might assume that John Vorhaus titling his newest book How To Live Life must be a joke, and when you actually read a couple of chapters you would find that the title is a clever word play. But this book is no joke. It's all right there in the title! And I think he might have just cracked it! I have read tons of books by people like Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and Ekhart Tolle, and this book may top them all. It's certainly stands proudly right beside them! In his fun, unassuming way, Vorhaus opens his heart and mind to you and recruits you on a journey to figuring out what works and doesn't work in your life, and offers powerful tools to make the nonfunctional parts function! Described that way, it sounds like an insurmountable task, but he breaks it down for us into much smaller, more manageable tasks. And, being John Vorhaus, he makes it fun! There's no psychobabble here, no metaphysics, no pseudoscience, just new ways to look at the age old problem of how to live a rewarding life. It's a quick read, too. So quick I am going to re-read it immediately. (I was so eager to devour this one that I skipped most of the exercises. I look forward to doing them this time, and seeing just how much more I get out of the book!) I have yet to be disappointed in anything John Vorhaus has written, but there's something special about this one. Vorhaus' non-fiction always feels like he's in the room with you, two buddies having a cool conversation, but... I'm not sure how to explain it; this one feels more intimate, like he's letting you all the way inside his head, sharing his most valuable and useful wisdom with you. There is a Buddhist saying that enlightenment is like a jewel sown into the lining of your coat. You go through life thinking you're poor, starving and begging for food, but all the while you're filthy rich and you just don't know it. This book is like John Vorhaus is showing us how to un-stitch our jacket to get to the jewel we've been carrying around all this time.

About the author

John Vorhaus is now known to one and all as the man who brought Radar Hoverlander - con artist extraordinaire - to life in the "sunshine noir" mystery novel, THE CALIFORNIA ROLL, and its acclaimed sequel, THE ALBUQUERQUE TURKEY. His other novels include UNDER THE GUN and WORLD SERIES OF MURDER, LUCY IN THE SKY and POOLE'S PARADISE.

John is also well known as the author of THE COMIC TOOLBOX: HOW TO BE FUNNY EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT. This seminal book on writing comedy for television and film is now in its fifth printing, and continues to be a definitive source of information and inspiration for writers from Santa Monica to Scandinavia. Its companion volume, CREATIVITY RULES, is similarly a crucial book for writers at any stage of development.

Not content to rest on those laurels, Vorhaus is also the author of ten books on poker, including the KILLER POKER series and, with Annie Duke, the revolutionary DECIDE TO PLAY GREAT POKER. "As a poker player," confesses Vorhaus, "I'm a pretty good writer."

An international consultant in television and film script development, Vorhaus has worked for television networks, film schools, production companies and film funding bodies in 32 countries on five continents. He worked in Moscow, running the writing staff of the Russian version of Married... with Children, and in Tel Aviv, consulting on the Israeli version of The Golden Girls. He has also built sitcoms in Romania and social-action television in Nicaragua. 

Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He has consulted to Walt Disney Feature Animation and taught at such institutions as Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com