Rating: 
(New York: Harmony Books, 2014)
352 pgs
The day Arianna Huffington found herself face down on the floor with a broken cheekbone and a cut eye she knew she needed to re-evaluate her life. Thrive is the compilation of wisdom and experiences she acquired on her journey to a more balanced and healthier lifestyle.
Huffington was born in Greece, but was educated at Cambridge and eventually moved to the United States. She co-founded The Huffington Post in 2005 and serves as its editor-in-chief. By worldly standards, she is considered wildly successful. She has accumulated wealth, fame, and countless accolades. But her success came at a cost—long hours, sleepless nights, and diminished time with her daughters and friends. When she collapsed in 2007, she discovered that the accident was caused by a single factor: exhaustion. That was her wake-up call that there had to be more to life than money and power.
In her book, she describes what she calls the “Third Metric.” She writes, “We need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power; and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving” (4). Only when the Third Metric is integrated into our lives, she argues, can we experience truly fulfilling lives.
Huffington makes several good points:
- We need to unplug. In a technology-crazed world, it’s easy to become so immersed in email, text messages, social media, Netflix, and 24-hour news cycles that we lose our ability to focus on what’s important. She writes, “Being connected in a shallow way to the entire world can prevent us from being deeply connected to those closest to us—including ourselves” (8).
- Sleep is underrated. One of the most drastic life changes Huffington made following her fall was to take sleep seriously. She writes, “There’s practically no element of our lives that’s not improved by getting adequate sleep. And there is no element of life that’s not diminished by a lack of sleep” (74). She argues that, contrary to the common workplace practice of wearing exhaustion as a badge of dedication, taking adequate time to sleep significantly improves our competency and productivity.
- Go-givers are happier than go-getters. Human beings have an innate desire to help others, and it is only when we give of ourselves that we feel fulfilled. Huffington writes, “If well-being, wisdom, and wonder are our response to a personal wake-up call, service naturally follows as the response to the wake-up call for humanity” (224). She cites various studies showing that the joy we feel from giving is similar to the joy of receiving a significant salary increase (239). Huffington concludes, “Essentially, giving is a miracle drug (with no side effects) for health and well-being” (239).
While Huffington offers some practical insights, the book is shrouded in her New Age, semi-Buddhist worldview (despite her multiple assertions to the contrary). As a Christian reading Thrive, I couldn’t help but think that she identified real problems but frequently mislabeled the solution. For example, Huffington is a huge proponent of meditation. She writes, “What study after study shows is that meditation and mindfulness training profoundly affect every aspect of our lives—our bodies, our minds, our physical health, and our emotional and spiritual well-being” (42). While there are benefits of quiet contemplation, Huffington overlooks the true source of our peace, wisdom, and well-being. She looks inward for fulfilment rather than to God. But all the “mindfulness” and yoga in the world cannot fix a problem if the solution lies outside ourselves. She does not necessarily solve the problem; she simply shifts it.
While her Oprah-esque spirituality needs to be taken to with a grain of salt, her primary message is an important one. Essentially, she realizes that what the world has to offer—money and fame—ultimately leaves one feeling empty. She writes, “We now know through the latest scientific findings that if we worship money, we’ll never feel truly abundant” (259). Therefore, she argues that we need to redefine success and start focusing on what truly matters.
by Carrie Blackaby Camp