LIFE IS RELATIONSHIP

About the Book

This is a book about relationship. It is not a how-to or self-help book, but instead an anatomy of the relationship experience itself, its inherent significance and intrinsic value.

The relationships that a person has with other people are the central core of that person’s existence. The people you meet, the members of your family, those whom you love and even your sworn enemy, are the motivating forces behind everything you do and the reason for your stay on this planet. In short, the meaning of life is relationship.

What if life were relationship, pure and simple, the be-all and end-all, the end and the beginning? If life is relationship, it is not wealth or fame. It is not winning or acquiring or what you accomplish or where you live or how much education you have or the honors you have been given. It is not how law-abiding you are or how devout you are in your religious faith. Your “worth” is measured not by your bank account, the property in your name, or the trust you established for your child or children. Your worth is measured by the relationships you have formed in your lifetime and the care with which you have conducted them, and the way that you treated those other persons.

This view of people as enmeshed in relationships with others, living in, by, and for them, rejects the Cult of Self and the selfishness nourishing that demon. Your life’s meaning is before your eyes each day. In every encounter that you have with another person, every word or glance or touch, life reaches out and embraces you and fulfills your purpose for being here.

About the Author

Dr. Everstine was educated at Kenyon College, the New School for Social Research, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley. His doctorate is in Psychology. He was a graduate student of Philosophy at Oxford University (Linacre College) and Cambridge University (Fitzwilliam College). He is the author of five textbooks in Psychology, and wrote The Meaning of Life (2000) and Life Is Relationship (2007). He is a Life Member of the American Psychological Association, a Fellow of the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, and a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, London.