Simplicity Revolution: Finding Happiness in the New RealityA Simplicity Revolution: Finding Happiness in the New Reality by Sue Schell During these hard economic times, our lives have become more complicated than ever. We became busy and distracted, and I could see people hurting from having their life impacted by things beyond their control. Knowing that the 2007 recession produced an unemmployement crisis for young workers, especially, it was always my intent to write a helpful lifestyle tips guide to immediately improve the quality of a person's life, just by simplifying some of their daily lifestyle habits.
Though young adults represent only 13.5% of the workforce, they now account for 26.4% of unemployed workers. The severity of the unemployment crisis facing young adults, will leave a permanent scarring on their future wages and skills, unlike any generation before them, and may turn out to be worse than the Great Depression, at least on young adults.
A Simple life is not about frugality. It is about living an authentic life that allows a person to live the life they dream of living. A life that is rooted not in the stuff you own, but in your relationships with family and friends. This may very well prove to be the silver lining we find in this Great Recession.
A Simplicity Revolution: Finding Happiness in the New Reality website Reviews of book: Editorial Reviews "An interesting and provocative book, which I can highly recommend." -(Huffington Post Columnist Robert Creamer)
Good Books hold one's interests. Better ones can get a reader to either nod in agreement or itch to debate the author. Even better ones get a reader to do both. This book falls in the latter categaory. ( Member of President Bill Clinton's Cabinet, Professor emeritus of Univ of illinois at Chicago, Ashish Sen)
(Cultural Anthropology Professor Dr. Robert Launay, of Northwestern University, Evanston, IL) penned the forward to the book. He writes, "The challenges we are facing are new, and so the solutions and values we forge to meet them must also be new. Here, Sue Schell has hit the nail on the head."
Schell explains, "Optimism had been a mainstay since the post-World War II days. Few of us expected the economic slowdown would be more than a pause- but it wasn't. This book is a commentary on America's Boom and Bust decade and the "Corporatocracy," that caused it. You will be able to
read the history of what brought America to such lopsided economic disparity in lifestyles and incomes. The sort that is capable of tearing at the social fabric of any nation, and which ultimately, resulted in the social unrest,aka. The Occupy Wall Street sorts of protests, we have seen.
There aren’t many desk jobs I haven’t done. I also spent a good part of my life as a singer, a horse-racing professional, a political junkie, activist and and a small business owner. Just ask me someday, and I’ll be happy to relate some of the crazy things I’ve seen. I grew up in a small Chicago bungalow in the heart of the city. You never forget that experience of growing up in a working class Chicago neighborhood. As a child, my father who grew up in Bridgeport would take me with him on Saturday mornings to visit all sorts of exciting, grungy neighborhood places, instilling in me a deep love of my hometown, Chicago. My family was middle class all the way and once I graduated with my degree in journalism/English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, I grabbed onto the American Dream. I write about that dream with much familiarity in the Simplicity Revolution, because I lived it. Much of what I write about comes from first-hand knowledge and experience.
After working as a news/feature writer with the Chicago newspaper, The Southtown Economist, I took a position working on legislative issues for then Illinois Governor, James Thompson’s administration and in 1983, was appointed deputy director of the Illinois Racing Board. In addition to directing the daily operations of that state regulatory agency, I also handled media relations and served as the agency’s legislative liaison. Next, I worked in for a Development Company owned by one of the racetrack owners and increased my business knowledge and then in the mid 90s' I went to work as a Director of Peapod,one of the nation’s first Internet grocery shopping and delivery services, which became a public company with its successful 1997 IPO.
Today I enjoy free-lance writing, contributing political commentary and essays to media outlets and speechwriting for various volunteer organizations and political causes. In addition, I have served as a Board Member for the Media Literacy Project and the Southeast Evanston Association. I live a common but happy life in Evanston, Illinois with my husband, son, and our two dogs,just 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by train.
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