It's Not You, It's Everything: What Our Pain Reveals about the Anxious Pursuit of the Good Life (eBook)

If we can agree on anything, its that we are not okay. Our culture is reeling from the ravages of a global pandemic, a precipitous rise in depression and anxiety, suffocating debt, white supremacy, hypercapitalism, and a virulent political animus--to name a few.But what if its not us? What if its . . . well, everything? What if trying to conform to a sick culture is actually making us sick?Its Not You, Its Everything is a timely and incisive inquiry into the anxious pursuit of happiness at all costs. Psychotherapist and former pastor Eric Minton claims that the pernicious melding of capitalism and Christianity means a world of competition, perfection, and scarcity disguised as self-help and self-care. Rather than shaming, silencing, or medicating away our disappointment at not having obtained the happiness we were promised, however, Minton posits a radical alternative. In an impertinent, droll, yet pastoral voice, Minton suggests that our not-okayness will require rethinking everything we thought we knew about God, depression, the economy, culture, education, technology, and happiness.Our angst--and that of our children and teenagers--is telling us the truth about the kind of world weve created. By naming all the ways were not okay, we move away from fear and shame and toward love, and trust, and trustworthiness. Well need nothing less than hip-hop, Mr. Rogers, liberation theology, and Jesus to get us there. But on the other side of our pain is a radical okayness that might just set us free.