Design The Life You Love by Ayse Birsel is a lovely, lovely book that will stir you up to think about your existence.

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Design The Life You Love is a graphic novel-like workbook on figuring out your past and present, while planning your future. In other words, it is a book that teaches you to take stock of your life, remove the undesirables, and add your would-be desirables.
Ayse Birsel lays the book’s foundation by saying that there are times we have to look forward and seek something more than what we already have in our lives. She advises that living a life true to our convictions does not happen while living autopilot, hoping things would work itself out. She explains that we have to think and map out our desires and take steps to fulfil them.
The author claims that there are times when we, as humans, do not know what we need until we settle down and take stock of our feelings. She said it is this kind of moment that our innermost feelings start pouring out.
The book has some light drawings that give out such playfulness, freedom and lightheartedness. Most importantly, you can sense a lack of judgement in the writing and doodles in the book – the author tells you to be free to write or draw anything you want, no matter how horrible it looks. Design The Life You Love by Ayse Birsel is like a workbook where you can be a kid again, writing and drawing out secrets lodged in your soul.
The only downside with this book is its superficiality. Personally, I think that if you want to achieve your dreams, there is a bit far to go than just writing or “designing” the life you love on a piece of paper. However, this is a great place to start and an acknowledgement of the fact that where you presently are might not be exactly the place you want to be is a good thing.
Design The Life You Love by Ayse Birsel is a lovely, lovely book that will stir you up to think about your existence. Combine this book with Tim Keller’s talk on True Happiness to get better perspective about success and being.
Design The Life You Love is written by Ayse Birsel and published by Ten Speed Press (October 13, 2015).

Many thanks to Ten Speed Press for review copy. All images are © to their respective owners.
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