This is Not your father's self-help book. "Getting Past OK" by Richard Brodie, truely is "A Straightforward Guide to Having a Fantastic Life".

Brodie, only incidentally the author of the original Microsoft Word wordprocessing program, gives you plain talk and no mystical mumbo-jumbo about how to literally take control of your own life: first by shedding the disfunctional bad habits of procrastination and perfectionism, etc.. Then he challenges you to decide what is most important to you, in your one life (this is up to you -- he makes no attempt to influence your choice of values and goals). Then he helps you learn how to achieve that focus on "what matters" to you.

He deftly synthesizes his own rich personal real-world experiences as an erstewhile millionaire, with insights from great thinkers on the human condition such as Mohandas Gandhi, and findings from the rapidly emerging branch of the science of evolutionary psychology called "memetics" (about which he has written another really great book, "Virus of the Mind" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963600117/grs

A "meme" (or "idea-virus) is any idea, which is good at getting itself replicated from one mind to another, not because it is true or beneficial or rational, but simply because its nature makes our minds susceptible to accepting it and passing it on.

So, Brodie warns us that some of our basic assumptions and even our most cherished belives may not be "true" -- they may just be the particularly effective idea-viruses that ended up in our mind. We will not be truely in control of our lives and able to achieve a truely fantastic life, until we honestly self-examine and reconfirm our beliefs.

"Whatever you choose to do from this moment forward, make it mean something to you. And have a fantastic life" -- Brodie