How We Show Up

Birdsong, Mia. How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community. First edition . New York: Hachette Go, 2020. 9781580058070; After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're winning at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied. It seems counterintuitive that living the good life - the well-paying job, the nuclear family, the upward mobility - can make us feel isolated and unhappy. But in a divided America, where only a quarter of us know our neighbors and everyone is either a winner or a loser, we've forgotten the key element that helped us make progress in the first place: community. In this provocative, groundbreaking work, Mia Birdsong shows that what separates us aren't only the