It’s Not You, It’s Everything: What Our Pain Reveals About the Anxious Pursuit of the Good Life

This penetrating debut by Baptist minister–turned–psychotherapist Minton invites readers to slow down and resist the pressure to be more “popular, marketable, or productive.” To combat “internalized capitalism,” which compels people to feel that they should always be doing more, Minton suggests embracing “radical okayness” and recognizing that one can find fulfillment outside structures of “competition, scarcity, and self-interest.” Minton calls out the engagement-at-all-costs nature of social media, quipping that someone on Instagram will always have done things “better, and with more succulents.” Regarding the intersection of capitalism and religion, he doesn’t mince words: “Self-interest... is the unifying principle of much of what passes for American Christianity these days.” He also derides the “toxically masculine” God of evangelicalism and recasts God as a tolerant and doting parent. Minton’s astute observations about how capitalism drives unending cycles of want (“Discontentment is both capitalism’s oxygen and its carbon dioxide”) succeed in bringing a candid class consciousness to Christian self-help. This unorthodox guide blends humor, theology, and social commentary to potent effect. (May)