A review by kvill
The Art of Taking It Easy: How to Cope with Bears, Traffic, and the Rest of Life's Stressors by Brian King

4.0

I wasn't expecting a deep diagnosis into any disorders - that's not what the book is about. Instead, I felt like I got a chance to learn about how to identify when something should be considered stressful - bears vs traffic - and what kind of attitude to adopt in order to address it.

The tone helped reinforce the author's own approach to "stress" - sometimes what we consider to be stressful isn't as big of a deal as we might think and just takes a bit of reframing/planning/thinking to feel more confident in our ability to overcome.

I enjoyed his anecdotes, stories, and interviews on his friends/family. Particularly, I liked the outright pride and optimism for his daughter.

Spoiler

I believe this is towards the end; my favourite quote was:

"I wanted to live my life to the fullest at every age and when people asked me about the best time of my life, I would have no problem pointing to the present."

I ​was happy to discover that I ended the book knowing a little more about the ways stress can impact us in the long term, the importance of resilience and problem-solving, and how sometimes we just need to stick a pencil between our teeth and fake (a smile) til we make it.