The Books We Keep Reaching For Are All Pointing to the Same Thing

It has everything to do with power—but not in the way you’d expect.

We keep turning to books that speak to our overwhelm, aimlessness, exhaustion, and disconnection...
but what if they’re all pointing to a deeper core problem hiding in plain sight?

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If you want to know what so many of us are craving right now, just look at the books we keep talking about—the ones topping bestseller lists, lining our shelves, and showing up in our conversations and feeds week after week.

They’re capturing our attention for a reason.
They’re naming powerful dynamics in our lives—things we’ve felt deeply, but often haven’t had words for.

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• The Anxious Generation – our longing to reclaim childhood as something safe, strengthening, and life-giving

• Atomic Habits, The Lazy Genius Way, and The Next Right Thing – our desire to build a sustainable life, one small, thoughtful step at a time

• Essentialism and The Let Them Theory – our clarity that we can’t carry everything—and permission to release what isn’t ours to manage

• Dopamine Nation, Stolen Focus, and Digital Minimalism – our realization that nonstop input is eroding our focus, energy, and joy

• The Body Keeps the Score and No Bad Parts – our need to listen to our bodies and tend to unhealed pain beneath the surface

• Brené Brown’s work and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone – our belief that vulnerability, curiosity, and reflection can lead to deeper connection and healing

• Untamed, The Mountain Is You, and Build the Life You Want – our desire to confront what’s holding us back and create a life that reflects who we truly are

• Memoirs and books that uncover abuse, dysfunction, or systemic harm – our ache to break the silence around what’s been hidden or denied—and to name what’s wrong and what needs to change

• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – our hope that gentleness, authenticity, and presence aren’t just allowed—they’re what make us strong

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In a world that constantly urges us to function like machines—to perform, optimize, and push through—we’re longing for something else.
A way of living that feels humanizing, and humanly possible.

And maybe that’s a clue.

Maybe these aren’t just separate struggles we’re each trying to manage.
Maybe the overwhelm and pressure, the rushing and reactivity, the burnout, isolation, shame, and helplessness are all symptoms of a deeper issue.

A problem with power.
Not the kind we usually think of—but something much closer to home.

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We’re struggling to recognize the power we already carry—and how we’re meant to use it.

Maybe that sounds strange.
Power? That’s not what I’m struggling with.
I don’t even feel like I have much.

But that’s part of the problem. We’ve been taught to think of power like dynamite—
Loud. Forceful. Excessive.
Something reserved for the rich, the famous, or those in charge.

But most real power is more like sunlight—
Subtle. Pervasive. Quietly sustaining everything.

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We all carry this kind of power.
And when we engage it well, it enables us to:

• decide with clarity and direct ourselves with intention

• be present and move at a sustainable pace

• live responsibly and invest in what matters

• contribute to the flourishing of others

• and discover deeper satisfaction and purpose

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This power can warm, reveal, and nourish.
But when we don’t recognize it—or try to avoid or control it—it can also scald and blind.

The deeper issue? We’ve been shaped by a culture with no word for “sunlight.”
No language to name it.
No shared awareness to help us understand or engage it well.

So when someone gets burned, we blame the wrong thing.
We treat the symptoms—but miss the source.
And because it looks like it’s working for everyone else, we assume the problem is us.

So we stay quiet. And try harder.

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That’s where we are now.

We keep reaching for books that name our symptoms—anxiety, exhaustion, disconnection, despondency—and offer ways to cope, avoid, or retreat.
Some of those strategies help.
But the deeper vulnerability still lingers.

Because the deeper threat is still hiding in plain sight.

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If we want to live freely and fully, we have to name it.
Locate it.
Study it.
Relearn how to work with it.

And we have to do that together.

That’s what this writing project is all about:
Speaking honestly about what’s shaping us.
Examining the cultural messages and personal experiences that have left us burned, blind, or disconnected.
And reclaiming the kind of power that restores—rather than denies—our humanity, and makes life humanly possible.

We have more power than we think.
And it’s time to engage it in ways that make us more human, not less.

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In the next post, we’ll begin by exposing one of the most common (and costly) lies we’ve been told:

That more [power] is always better.

Because this distorted assumption is exactly why—despite our best strategies and efforts—we keep getting stuck.

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And if this has stirred something in you—
I’d love for you to join the conversation.
Your observations and insights are needed. Truly.

So subscribe, comment, share your thoughts,
and invite others who are feeling it—
those like us, looking for a better way.

Because this work isn’t just personal. It’s collective. And together, we can do better, feel better, and reclaim our power, for good.