Navigating Everyday Life

Book excerpt: Navigating Everyday Life explores the special moments, big and small, that rupture the surface of everyday life and that can help readers adjust to the disrupting effects of major life crises. Peter Adams delves into the two forces, finitude (the aspects that constrain a person to a situation) and transcendence (those aspects that enable movement beyond such constraints). Building on this framework, Adams looks at the processes and circumstances that both facilitate and block the tensions between finitude and transcendence. He then illustrates how these tensions function in the personal and existential challenges faced by five members of a modern suburban family. Their stories traverse life transitions such as separation, depression, chronic illness, injury, violence, addiction, aging, death, and forgiveness. This book is recommended for scholars and others interested in the intersections between psychology and philosophy.