Sometimes Life Sucks

A great book for parents and teachers to use with teens struggling with grief and loss.

We live in strange times. Most of us hate our jobs, our parents are sending us friend requests on Facebook, and Memes are the only form of entertainment that truly make us happy. Life sucks; get used to it is India’s first Anti-Self-Help book! While regular self-help books want to look into your eyes, hold your hand and tell you that the universe is waiting to reward you in beautiful ways, Life sucks; get used to it is more like a spank on the bottom that encourages you to accept the harsh realities of life, with some tough love, of course. This BS-free and no-nonsense handbook provides you with actionable tools you can use to bring about a change in your life. Somewhere among the brutal truths, life lessons, humorous puns, profound sarcasm and profanity-laden thoughts, you might just end up finding the answer to living your best life and making your place in this big, bad world.

From New York Times best-selling authors Michael I. Bennett, MD and Sarah Bennett--a book for teens that shows readers that we all deal with crap in our lives and how to laugh at some of the things we can't control. Being a teenager can suck. Your friends can become enemies, and your enemies can become friends. Your family can drive you crazy. School and teachers can be a drag. Your body is constantly changing. And everyone seems to tell you to "just be you." But just who is that? With their open and honest approach, father-daughter team Michael I. Bennett and Sarah Bennett's book is sure to appeal to teenagers and show them they aren't alone in dealing with fake friends, with parents who think they're "hip," and even how high school isn't everyone's glory days. Young readers--and their parents--are sure to find this no-nonsense, real-life advice helpful, and it will help them realize that it's okay to talk to their parents and other advisors around them about big issues that might be uncomfortable to discuss.

In this insightful and easy to read book, the Author draws on her experience as a therapist and shares how subtle differences in the way you process difficult events can determine how well you heal, and how much it affects you down the road. The book is aimed at anyone who is living a life they are not happy with, but feels powerless to change.

As technology races ahead, what will people do better than computers? What hope will there be for us when computers can drive cars better than humans, predict Supreme Court decisions better than legal experts, identify faces, scurry helpfully around offices and factories, even perform some surgeries, all faster, more reliably, and less expensively than people? It’s easy to imagine a nightmare scenario in which computers simply take over most of the tasks that people now get paid to do. While we’ll still need high-level decision makers and computer developers, those tasks won’t keep most working-age people employed or allow their living standard to rise. The unavoidable question—will millions of people lose out, unable to best the machine?—is increasingly dominating business, education, economics, and policy. The bestselling author of Talent Is Overrated explains how the skills the economy values are changing in historic ways. The abilities that will prove most essential to our success are no longer the technical, classroom-taught left-brain skills that economic advances have demanded from workers in the past. Instead, our greatest advantage lies in what we humans are most powerfully driven to do for and with one another, arising from our deepest, most essentially human abilities—empathy, creativity, social sensitivity, storytelling, humor, building relationships, and expressing ourselves with greater power than logic can ever achieve. This is how we create durable value that is not easily replicated by technology—because we’re hardwired to want it from humans. These high-value skills create tremendous competitive advantage—more devoted customers, stronger cultures, breakthrough ideas, and more effective teams. And while many of us regard these abilities as innate traits—“he’s a real people person,” “she’s naturally creative”—it turns out they can all be developed. They’re already being developed in a range of far-sighted organizations, such as: • the Cleveland Clinic, which emphasizes empathy training of doctors and all employees to improve patient outcomes and lower medical costs; • the U.S. Army, which has revolutionized its training to focus on human interaction, leading to stronger teams and greater success in real-world missions; • Stanford Business School, which has overhauled its curriculum to teach interpersonal skills through human-to-human experiences. As technology advances, we shouldn’t focus on beating computers at what they do—we’ll lose that contest. Instead, we must develop our most essential human abilities and teach our kids to value not just technology but also the richness of interpersonal experience. They will be the most valuable people in our world because of it. Colvin proves that to a far greater degree than most of us ever imagined, we already have what it takes to be great.

A first-aid manual for supporting your teen's mental health, by psychiatrist and comedian Dr Jo Prendergast When Life Sucks is an essential guide to supporting your teen's mental health. As a parent and psychiatrist, Dr Jo knows how hard it can be - especially if a teen communicates only in eye rolls and grunts! Covering everything from anxiety, depression, trauma and eating difficulties, to understanding neurodivergence and gender identity, this book is a first-aid manual for some of life's toughest challenges. It's not easy being a parent in a world of TikTok and bubblegum-flavoured vapes, but When Life Sucks gives you the practical tools to help make your life a little lighter and to support your teen towards a healthy headspace.