B&N Reads, Guest Post, The Good Book

The Road to A Really Good Life

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With their giant social media following and beautiful family, Stevie and Sazan Hendrix seemed to have arrived. But they have been asking the same questions we all are: Where is the “good life” we’re supposed to have? When do we get to stop hustling long enough to enjoy it? Stevie and Sazan were tired of running in circles. They realized that they were so intent on finding the good life that they were in danger of missing it completely. Their new book, A Real Good Life, urges us to recognize and embrace the good life we are already living.  

With their giant social media following and beautiful family, Stevie and Sazan Hendrix seemed to have arrived. But they have been asking the same questions we all are: Where is the “good life” we’re supposed to have? When do we get to stop hustling long enough to enjoy it? Stevie and Sazan were tired of running in circles. They realized that they were so intent on finding the good life that they were in danger of missing it completely. Their new book, A Real Good Life, urges us to recognize and embrace the good life we are already living.  

We used to believe a lie. Maybe you know it: The lie that we’ll find fulfillment once we’ve achieved a certain level of attention on social media or met our relationship goals or climbed a few more steps on the corporate ladder. Sound familiar? The world loves to mislead us into believing that successful careers and high levels of social engagements are the keys to a good life—and that the way to get there is to hustle and network in a never-ending cycle of competition and comparison. 

It’s exhausting. Trust us! We gave it a good shot. For years, we morphed ourselves into whoever we needed to be to earn a good life from those who seemed to hold the keys to the doors we wanted to open. We scrambled harder and aimed bigger and kept grasping for satisfaction just beyond us. 

But that’s the thing: the good life was always just up ahead. It was a place we thought we would reach when our circumstances changed. Until then, we felt like we were missing out. After a while, we wondered if the good life was for other people but not for us. 

Do you feel like the good life is dangling out there in front of you, but one disappointment or another keeps snatching it away? We see that. Only after years of pursuing the good life did we realize that the good life is not about a time or a season. A good life is created every day. It isn’t a life we chase. It’s a life we receive.  

We decided to follow a new way of living. One that includes daily reflections, authentic relationships, and rhythms of rest. A life pieced together from the fabric of our days, from the bright blocks of time we’re given. 

We learned to think about living with intention through the four phases of each twenty-four-hour day: morning, midday, evening, and nighttime. We poured what we discovered on our journey into our book, A Real Good Life. We even organized our book to follow that daily pattern, to keep you in the moment and help you recognize your good life as it’s happening. 

Living the good life means seeing the good already in your days and then building toward that good. Gently. With kindness to yourself and others. That Sunday afternoon nap? The few minutes you take for yourself in the morning? The evening out with friends with nothing to show for it but a literal belly ache from laughing so hard? Those aren’t just “extras” in life. They are the parts of life that make it good. And they are what each one of us was made for. 

Consider this: When God created the sun and the moon and the stars and then created the world we would live in, he wrapped up that project by calling it good. This place in the universe where you live and we live was designed to be good. Not only that, but whatever you’ve done, wherever you’ve been, whether you’re feeling excited about the future or feeling road weary and jaded, the deep-down truth is this: your life matters. And it is a very good life. 

That’s why living a real good life means cherishing the simple things, slowing down, and creating moments for connection and joy. It means knowing, a little more each day, how radically loved you are. It means showing up for what you have rather than trying to replace it with what the world says you should have. 

We’re honored to share our journey of learning to recognize our good life. And we’re here to celebrate yours.