A riveting look at the real reasons Americans feel inadequate in the face of their dreams, and a call to celebrate how we support one another in the service of family and work in our daily life. Jay's days are filled with back-to-back meetings, but he always leaves work in time to pick his daughter up from swimming at 7pm, knowing he'll be back on his laptop later that night. Linda thinks wistfully of the treadmill in her garage as she finishes folding the laundry that's been in the dryer for the last week. Rebecca sits with one child in front of a packet of math homework, while three others clamor for her attention. In Dreams of the Overworked, Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian offer vivid sketches of daily life for nine families, capturing what it means to live, work, and parent in a world of impossible expectations, now amplified unlike ever before by smart devices. We are invited into homes and offices, where we recognize the crushing pressure of unraveling plans, and the healing warmth of being together. Moreover, we witness the constant planning that goes into a "good" day, often with the aid of phones and apps. Yet, as technologies empower us to do more, they also promise limitless availability and connection. Checking email on the weekend, monitoring screen time, and counting steps are all part of the daily routine. The stories in this book challenge the seductive myth of the phone-clad individual, by showing that beneath the plastic veneer of technology is a complex, hidden system of support—our dreams being scaffolded by retired in-laws, friendly neighbors, spouses, and paid help. This book makes a compelling case for celebrating the structures that allow us to strive for our dreams, by supporting public policies and community organizations, challenging workplace norms, reimagining family, and valuing the joy of human connection.

Themes like "I just don't have time" and "I'm exhausted" rule our lives today. We are overbooked, overworked and overwhelmed. Just getting done what must be done fills our days. The notion of finding the time needed to discover an intentional life seems daunting for many. But it doesn't have to be!

Detective Peter Decker teams up with his wife and daughter to solve a crime rooted in both the past and present. While on routine patrol, LAPD Officer Cindy Decker rescues a newborn abandoned in an alley dumpster. But she can't call it a night until she sees the infant safe in a hospital, cared for by a professional -- in this case a male nurse with soulful eyes and lots of charm. Now the hunt is on for the mother. Armed with advice from her overworked father, Detective Peter Decker, Cindy plunges into her inner-city Hollywood district, a world of helpless people and violent gangs. Pursuing each new lead batters her complex relationships and endangers her life. On one side: Decker and Decker, a brilliant but combative pair. On the other: a vicious killer ready to strike again. While on routine patrol, LAPD officer Cindy Decker rescues a newborn abandoned in an alley dumpster. Cindy searches for the mother in inner -city Hollywood, following a treacherous trail filled with drug lords. But with each new lead, the twisted journey gets darker -- and endangering her very life. When Decker and Decker join forces, can this edgy duo put personal issues aside to catch a vicious culprit before he strikes again?

Dangerously Sleepy explores the fraught relations between overwork, sleep deprivation, and public health. Health and labor historian Alan Derickson charts the cultural and political forces behind the overvaluation—and masculinization—of wakefulness in the United States.

Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.

Dreams are a window into the subconscious, and for those who understand their meanings, they are also a crucial step in self-understanding. In this comprehensive volume, author Cassandra Eason shares her decades of study on the subject. From visions of angels to trips to the zoo, from buying a dream home to escaping from demons, Eason catalogs 1,001 scenarios, exploring different types of dreams, practical symbolic meanings, dreams’ psychological underpinnings and spiritual significance, and all the ways in which dreams can be interpreted as warnings or indicators of events to come. Along with a fascinating introduction to dreams and the history of dreaming, this is an essential reference.