Unfinished Business

By Lee Kravitz

Book review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.

The plot is a simple one.  Kravitz was fired from a high-profile job.  Instead of trying to find a new job, he took a year off to re-connect with the people who mattered most to him in his life — those he had not spent time with or cared much about as he rose in the ranks and devoted his time to his job.

If you’re looking for a moral, it, too, is a simple one.  We all have unfinished business in our lives.  That unfinished business tends to weigh us down, burden us with guilt, and hold us back.  Clearing up that unfinished business frees us, unburdens us, and as S. Lipson, a reviewer wrote: “. . . release[s us]] of regret and stress.”  That “thankfulness, love, [and] admiration,” this reviewer says, adds “deeper meaning and understanding of . . . friends and family,” and, too, “[enhances one’s] character, personality, and spirituality.”  I thought these were very good insights.

Another reviewer at Amazon.com, Tiela A. Garnett, wrote a very short five-star review:
“A wonderful, entertaining book, written from the heart, about one man's courageous and loving path to tying up the loose ends of his life. An inspiring story and a good read.”

David Casker, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, wrote a review with which I totally agree as well: “Most of us in one way or another try to ‘do the right things’ in our lives. But we often become too busy, too distracted, too willing to procrastinate, too willing to accede to the increasingly intrusive demands of employers. In ‘...unfinished business...’ we have a very personal journal of one man's delightful, moving and healing reaction to being fired from his job [at Parade Magazine].  He turned what could have been no more than a very sour jolt in life into, in a sense, a journey into his past, to see if he could still make up for slights and omissions.

Anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal. And Mr. Kravitz has struck just the right chord between autobiography and reflection on one's life, spiritual growth and the inextricable connections with have with others whose lives have touched ours and vice versa.

An insightful but also entertaining exploration of how really GOOD it is not to let our basic humanity be co-opted, and when we do, how GREAT it is to work up the courage to make amends. Highly recommended.”

It’s a 209-page book and the ten stories are interesting and engaging.

This book is available at Amazon.com: Unfinished business: One man’s extraordinary year of trying to do the right things