Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living

I loved my life, but I had become someone I didn’t want to be around. I had become someone I didn’t want to be.

This book is an account of my winding, messy journey from exhaustion to peace, from isolation to connection, from hustling and multitasking to sacred presence. And this book is an invitation, too—a hand reaching out across the pages, inviting you into that same journey, because it has been the greatest, most challenging, most rewarding sea-change of my adult life.

My prayer is that this book will be a thousand invitations, springing up from every page, calling you to leave behind the heavy weight of comparison, competition, and exhaustion, and to recraft a life marked by meaning, connection, and unconditional love.

—Shauna Niequist