Comparison of my current publications

From Chasing Happiness to Learning Through Doing

At first glance, The End of Chasing Happy and Learning Through Doing may seem like very different books. One asks us to reconsider the pursuit of happiness and how we understand our own lives. The other focuses on preparing students for the realities of social work practice.

But for me, the two books grew from a similar question:

What happens when knowing something is no longer enough?

The End of Chasing Happy

The End of Chasing Happy began with a simple realization: we spend an extraordinary amount of time pursuing the idea that happiness is somewhere ahead of us.

We tell ourselves we will be happy when we accomplish the goal, fix the problem, reach the next stage, or finally become the person we think we are supposed to be.

But life continues while we are chasing it.

The book explores what can happen when we stop treating happiness as a destination and begin paying closer attention to the life we are already living. It is less about finding a formula for happiness and more about questioning the assumptions we have inherited about what a meaningful life is supposed to look like.

That requires reflection, curiosity, and a willingness to become uncomfortable with some of our own answers.

Those same ideas eventually found their way into my work as an educator.

Learning Through Doing

Learning Through Doing: Foundations of Social Work Practice grew from watching students learn the theories, terminology, ethics, and skills of social work—and then face a much harder question:

How do I actually do this?

A textbook can explain empathy. It cannot fully teach what it feels like to sit across from someone whose life experiences are completely different from your own.

A lecture can define bias. It cannot automatically teach us to recognize our own assumptions in the moment.

We can memorize the importance of cultural humility, boundaries, documentation, assessment, and professional communication. Applying those ideas when another human being is sitting in front of us is something different.

That is where learning through doing becomes important.

Students need opportunities to practice, make decisions, reflect, question themselves, receive feedback, and try again. Education should not simply provide answers. Sometimes its most important job is teaching us how to ask better questions.

The Connection

That is ultimately what connects these two books.

The End of Chasing Happy asks us to examine the assumptions we make about our own lives.

Learning Through Doing asks future social workers to examine the assumptions they may make about other people's lives.

Both require us to slow down enough to notice what we are bringing into the situation.

What am I assuming?

What am I overlooking?

Where did this belief come from?

What else might be true?

What don't I know yet?

Those questions matter in a classroom, in professional practice, and in everyday life.

I have become increasingly interested in the space between what we think we know and what we discover when we are willing to look again.

That space is where much of my writing begins.

Perhaps growth is not about finally having everything figured out. Perhaps it is about becoming more willing to observe, question, experience, reflect, and change.

In other words, sometimes we have to stop chasing the answer long enough to learn from what is already in front of us.