After being away for a year, Aphrodite is anxious tobe back home. She thought she'd be able to share her experience in London with her best friend via phone. But she never received a single response from Adonis while she was gone. Finally back and able to confront him, things don't go quite the way she planned. Everything about the person she grew up with is completely different and just like everyone else, it was hard for Aphrodite to resist Adonis' new persona. They tried hard to start their friendship over and continue being best friends. Although they were able to, unexpected sparks flew between them. Before anything could continue for them, Adonis has a deep, dark secret to confess to Aphrodite. Will she be able to accept Adonis' new lifestyle?

Examines the rewards and challenges childfree adults face living in a world that celebrates traditional families, offering advice on how to cope with the pressure of friends and family to have children, taking advantage of leisure time, and financial considerations.

Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

Unity minister Linda Martella-Whitsett provides a new framework for thinking about prayer that will revolutionize the lives of readers everywhere. The good news here is that you can pray without believing in God; that you can have a rich and fulfilling spiritual practice without adhering to a set of creeds or dogmas. Martella-Whitsett encourages seekers to look within rather than outside themselves for a God in the sky, for the spark of the divine that is at the core of their being. How to Pray Without Talking to God shows how to develop a true spiritual practice by: re-forming the words of traditional prayers; cultivating a habit of daily prayer and meditation; learning how to pray with others. How To Pray Without Talking To God is filled with the author’s stories of her own evolving understanding of God. Each chapter includes a section called “Talk to Yourself” that poses questions for readers to write about or share in a study circle.

A leader in decision-making research reveals how choices are designed—and why it’s so important to understand their inner workings Every time we make a choice, our minds go through an elaborate process most of us never even notice. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision and a bad one. How do we overcome the common faults in our decision-making and enable better choices in any situation? The answer lies in more conscious and intentional decision design. Going well beyond the familiar concepts of nudges and defaults, The Elements of Choice offers a comprehensive, systematic guide to creating effective choice architectures, the environments in which we make decisions. The designers of decisions need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present those options, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, and much more. These levers are unappreciated and we’re often unaware of just how much they influence our reasoning every day. Eric J. Johnson is the lead researcher behind some of the most well-known and cited research on decision-making. He draws on his original studies and extensive work in business and public policy and synthesizes the latest research in the field to reveal how the structure of choices affects outcomes. We are all choice architects, for ourselves and for others. Whether you’re helping students choose the right school, helping patients pick the best health insurance plan, or deciding how to invest for your own retirement, this book provides the tools you need to guide anyone to the decision that’s right for them.