The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream [Hardcover]

Are we living the good life—and what defines 'good,' anyway? Americans today are constructing a completely different framework for success than their parents' generation, using new metrics that TED speaker andOn Beingcolumnist Courtney Martin has termed collectively the New Better Off. The New Better Offputs a name to the American phenomenon of rejecting the traditional dream of a 9-to-5 job, home ownership, and a nuclear family structure—illuminating the alternate ways Americans are seeking happiness and success.

Including commentary on recent changes in how we view work, customs and community, marriage, rituals, money, living arrangements, and spirituality,The New Better Offuses personal stories and social analysis to explore the trends shaping our country today. Martin covers growing topics such as freelancing, collaborative consumption, communal living, and the breaking down of gender roles.

The New Better Offis about the creative choices individuals are making in their vocational and personal lives, but it’s also about the movements, formal and informal, that are coalescing around the New Better Off idea—people who are reinventing the social safety net and figuring out how to truly better their own communities.

Introduction

How Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?: Thinking Differently About Vocation

Working Alone, Together: Flexibility and Friendship in a Freelance Era

Norma Raes for a New Century: How Labor, Power, and Care are Being Remade

The Wisdom of Enough: Making Sound Financial Decisions in a Culture that Overvalues Money

Fighting to be Whole: How Men are Falling in Love with Fathering

Harnessing the Wind: Directing Attention Where It Matters Most in an Age of Distraction

The End of “Mine”: How Our Relationship to Ownership is Changing

Tearing the White Picket Fence Down: The End of Our Romanticization witls4