Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From authors of Lean In and Originals: a powerful, inspiring, and practical book about building resilience and moving forward after life’s inevitable setbacks
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.
Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.
We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.
Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.
We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.
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Community Reviews
This is a useful book. It was hard to read (emotionally) and I cried on both the subway and the commuter train, to the curiosity of commuters in at least three states.
Two things I took away:
1. How does trauma work? Why is it so much worse than other forms of suffering?
+ personalize - we blame ourselves for sth outside our control
+ pervasive - it seems to infect every aspect of our lives
+ permanence - it seems psychologically like it will never change, though it does and will
Challenge these assumptions when you feel them and try to move forward even with very small but concrete positives.
2. How to help others? People want you to acknowledge them, they want to know you are available, and they value help - but don’t make them figure out what you should do. Just do something!
I think this book is a good read for everyone who might suffer grief or knows someone who might, which is to say every person.
Two things I took away:
1. How does trauma work? Why is it so much worse than other forms of suffering?
+ personalize - we blame ourselves for sth outside our control
+ pervasive - it seems to infect every aspect of our lives
+ permanence - it seems psychologically like it will never change, though it does and will
Challenge these assumptions when you feel them and try to move forward even with very small but concrete positives.
2. How to help others? People want you to acknowledge them, they want to know you are available, and they value help - but don’t make them figure out what you should do. Just do something!
I think this book is a good read for everyone who might suffer grief or knows someone who might, which is to say every person.
This was alright. I found Sheryl more relatable in this book than in Lean In. She even admits as much. The book is essentially a memoir of the lessons learned/ overcoming adversity after the unexpected death of her husband. It was a quick and easy read, but I’m not sure I’d put it on a ‘must read’ list.
This book is about going through and surviving grief, so in some ways, it came at the perfect time for me. I agree with so much she says about how grief feels and how friends and family should help.
I think part of the issue with this book might be that her view of grief is still pretty limited. She tries to include stories of the immense grief that other people suffer and especially those with fewer financial advantages than her, but it feels like she still doesn't totally get it in places. For example, while she acknowledges that not everyone can afford to keep their home, pay for childcare in the face of grief, etc. she doesn't meaningfully address these problems. And she appears oblivious to some things that are not in the mourner's control. For example, my friends can't afford to drop everything in their own lives to come help me. Nor do I have other family to step in. She's lucky in so many ways she doesn't even realize. She also only briefly touches on the effect of multiple tragedies on a person. She only briefly touches on the loss of meaning in life. (Maybe Tolstoy for that issue.) She doesn't even seem aware about the possibility of clinical depression hijacking grieving.
Finally, I get that she has to be positive to sell books and also so she doesn't drive people to despair. I get that if she wants to keep her job she has to still appear enthusiastic about her corporation's performance, but who actually cares? Why is this even in a book about grief? No really, who will care a 100 years from now that she worked really hard and made a lot of money? Someone might care that she wrote a wonderful book about grief that helped people, but the focus on the former makes the latter miss the mark a bit.
I think part of the issue with this book might be that her view of grief is still pretty limited. She tries to include stories of the immense grief that other people suffer and especially those with fewer financial advantages than her, but it feels like she still doesn't totally get it in places. For example, while she acknowledges that not everyone can afford to keep their home, pay for childcare in the face of grief, etc. she doesn't meaningfully address these problems. And she appears oblivious to some things that are not in the mourner's control. For example, my friends can't afford to drop everything in their own lives to come help me. Nor do I have other family to step in. She's lucky in so many ways she doesn't even realize. She also only briefly touches on the effect of multiple tragedies on a person. She only briefly touches on the loss of meaning in life. (Maybe Tolstoy for that issue.) She doesn't even seem aware about the possibility of clinical depression hijacking grieving.
Finally, I get that she has to be positive to sell books and also so she doesn't drive people to despair. I get that if she wants to keep her job she has to still appear enthusiastic about her corporation's performance, but who actually cares? Why is this even in a book about grief? No really, who will care a 100 years from now that she worked really hard and made a lot of money? Someone might care that she wrote a wonderful book about grief that helped people, but the focus on the former makes the latter miss the mark a bit.
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