The Pursuit of the Personal Renaissance Experience: Finding Opportunities for Happiness in the Ever-Present Now

In The Pursuit of the Personal Renaissance Experience, author Peter Justus sets out to examine how we can live more in the moment, rather than just living through time. After making a discovery in his personal life, he realized that one could find meaning and fulfillment in everyday activities. In his case, it was dental hygiene that set the ball rolling. As he explains, due to our biological makeup our purpose is to seek immortality in the physical and spiritual areas of our lives. He suggests that by examining the leading roles in our lives and dividing them into useful categories, we can find areas where we can focus attention and improve our capabilities. Once we have made some changes and improvements in our physical activities or social interactions, we will acquire new skills or simply experience more enjoyment or a sense of accomplishment. And from this, we will be able to create more meaning, fulfillment, and by extension, happiness in our lives. We will be spending less of our time in mindless motion, merely passing the time.

I found this to be a thought-provoking work that was actually a lot more in-depth than I had anticipated. I think anyone who reads this is likely to think differently about the meaning of happiness and how to go about achieving it. I have to admit the author provided me with a new framework for examining things I do daily. The examples he showed about how he applied his principles to his game of golf and his efforts to improve communication with his patients were interesting and useful. Before reading this, I hadn’t stopped to think about how much we do in our lives every day that could be improved or done more mindfully to make it more meaningful.

I like that the author provides a good opening to the book, and I thought the summary was excellent. Throughout, he uses humor where appropriate and presents his ideas clearly and thoughtfully. I especially enjoyed the chapter on spirituality, where he discusses his thoughts about the transcendent consciousness and how having a link to this should be a positive experience. Basically, I think he provides useful and helpful advice for those who want to find more ways to improve and experience their own personal renaissance. By giving the reader tools to accomplish this, those who do so will likely find they are able to spend more time living in the present and enjoying it much more.