In a culture often saturated with prescriptive self-help formulas promising perfect lives, Jon Shattuck's newly released book, Choices to Live By, arrives as a refreshingly honest alternative. Shattuck, a former hospital administrator and seasoned community servant, explicitly states that his work is not "a cookbook of requirements" but an invitation to grapple with the fundamental questions that define a person's character. The book's release matters because it challenges readers to move beyond quick fixes and instead embrace the messy, ongoing work of living with integrity, purpose, and joy. At a time when many feel adrift amid shifting social and political winds, Shattuck's emphasis on clarity about reality and intentional decision-making offers a stabilizing framework.
Drawing on a life that spans from laying asphalt driveways after college to leading grief support groups in his later years, Shattuck writes with the authority of lived experience. His 65-year marriage and his rise to the top of his graduate school class inform chapters on love, forgiveness, listening, and humility. He distinguishes a soulmate marriage from a playmate or cellmate one, and he confronts difficult topics like grief, victimhood, and escape with unflinching honesty. The book's coherence comes from a guiding principle he calls TWTA—The Way Things Are—a deceptively simple lens for responding to life as it actually is rather than as we wish it to be. This framework runs through every chapter, whether Shattuck is advising a young person on a job interview or reflecting on unexpected career detours.
What sets Choices to Live By apart is its grounding in vivid, specific stories. Shattuck recounts a woman with multiple sclerosis who decided on the spot to make every day her best, a four-word question from a retired schoolteacher that redirected his entire career toward hospital administration, and a long walk through the woods that marked a turning point after a devastating job loss. These anecdotes make the book's wisdom not just compelling but believable, avoiding the detached authority of purely theoretical advice. Parents, educators, counselors, mentors, and anyone navigating a major life transition will find a grounded and generous companion in these pages.
Shattuck writes without pretension, blending the roles of storyteller and philosopher. He closes with a meditation on faith that is honest about its personal nature without being prescriptive, sharing his own Christian journey while making clear his goal is not to recruit but to encourage readers to seek a foundation larger than self-interest. As Shattuck puts it, "Your life is or has been a culmination of the choices and decisions you have made. At any point, you decide how to react, how to respond, and how to move forward." That message of agency and intentionality is why this book matters: it reminds us that a life well lived is built one honest choice at a time. Choices to Live By is available now, and more information can be found at https://jonshattuck.com/.
