Why Good Things Happen to Good People
by: Stephen Post, Ph.D. and Jill Neimark
Published by: Broadway Books
Buy From Amazon.com
Reviewed by Dr. David Frisbie
Can doing good—and being good—actually change the quality of our own lives?
Dr. Stephen Post argues yes. As professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine, Dr. Post has studied the physical, biological, and emotional changes that occur when people look beyond themselves and consider others. Those who actively meet the needs of others begin to experience key changes in their physiology, changes that Post and Neimark track and chart in this powerful new book.
As Dr. Post explains: “science shows that giving shifts our psychology and our biology, no matter what our age, experience, or walk of life.” Among other evidence, the authors cite a remarkable study by Dr. Paul Wink. Wink’s research discovers that a life of giving to others appears to protect the physical and emotional health of the giver.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King and many others, Post and Neimark explain that when we genuinely love others, when we extend our hearts in compassion toward their needs, we trigger powerful hormonal reactions that not only make us feel better but actually increase our quality of life and perhaps our longevity as well. Post has created a “Love and Longevity Scale,” which is a helpful way of exploring these ideas in action.
In beautifully written prose (Neimark is a novelist and children’s book author) the thirteen chapters of this book explore loving, giving, helping—and the benefits that accrue to those who live this way. In the end, Dr. Post will argue that “a loving life is the only credible way of life.” Although written from the halls of science rather than the pews of religious study, Post’s work echoes Christ’s comments that by giving to others “those who lose their (selfish) life…will find (true) life.”
A gentle and persuasive book, these pages call us to wage love, not war, in the world of human need that is all around us.
A Note about the reviewer: Together with wife Lisa, Dr. David Frisbie serves as co-executive director of The Center for Marriage & Family Studies in Del Mar, California. He is the author of numerous published articles and eight books, including “Happily Remarried.”
Armchair Interviews says: A “scientist’s” viewpoint on the importance of living a life of love.
From our armchair to yours...
