The latest, 2025 version of the “Handbook” has been extensively re-written in 2024-25 to reflect of more blatantly “Christian” take on the 1250 steps for living recorded in here. I have re-tweaked the sub heading of the book and re-written hundreds of paragraphs to hopefully better express my motives and approach to the implementation of these ideas. I hope they might prove to be helpful to you on your journey. Shalom!

[Aug 08, 2023] Update to the web address for Jim Punton’s understanding of “shalom”. (Currently P. 20)

[Aug 23,2023] Included the “Preamble” and “Preparation for the Journey” sections in the “Introduction” and included the “State of the World” section in the first part of the Spiritual Journey Chapter.

[Jan 15, 2024] This was a major revision to the format of the book. I realized that by using dot points for every illustrative statement throughout the book, I was making the whole thing much more difficult to read. So, I converted every dot point into paragraphs except those being used for actual lists of examples.

I also added a sub, sub-title to clarify the fact that I am attempting to write from a Christian or at least “Jesus-inspired” perspective. This resulted in a re-organization and partial re-write of the Introduction to pick up the various themes in the sub, sub-title. When I started this project, I was probably more ambiguous about my identification as “Christian” because it might deter people from reading the book. I now realize that was a pretty stupid attitude given that the book is for “me” anyway, and I am not expecting large numbers of other people to make the effort to pore through its pages.

The book has been updated with changes from January and early February, 2023.

[Jan 07, 2023] A re-statement throughout the book of the term, “the will of God” into “the transcendent intention for goodness” to better express my understanding of the purpose of the Divine.
• [Jan 07, 2023] In line with the above, a slight re-phrasing of my personal Quest and Mission statements along with their accompanying notes. (Currently Pp. 200-200)
• [Jan 23, 2023] Added ideas for the goal related to being an effective leader including setting up systems of “buy-in” from an organization’s members, encouraging clear and succinct communication, regularly thanking the team, and encouraging everyone in the organization to value gratitude.
• [Jan 23, 2023] Added ideas to the value of having an overall vision / mission – specific mention of the dopamine hit that occurs when a human being looks forward to something that promises to be enjoyable.
• [Feb 13, 2023] Further punctuation and grammar corrections.

After effectively 60 years of collecting and thinking about strategies for living a good life, I am ready to upload “My Living Manual” to my website of the same name.

This manual contains over 1270 systematic strategies for living based on the ancient Hebrew and Christian concept of “shalom”.

“Shalom” is usually translated as “peace”, but it is much more than that. In 1977, I discovered that it is an ordinary Hebrew word for “growing towards wholeness” on four levels of human interaction – the personal, interpersonal, community and cosmic levels (see the detailed explanation in the book).

This book is freely available for download by anyone who might like to witness one individual’s attempts at grappling with the question of how to live a “good” life.

As mentioned elsewhere, this manual is a “living” manual because it not only deals with the business of living, but is also a “living” document. The plan is to continually update the book as I come across new or better strategies for living.

My intention is to publish a post or blog entry here every time I upload a revised version of this “living” book. The posts will essentially contain a list of the changes I have made, and where appropriate, my thinking behind the changes.

As mentioned in the introduction, this manual is directed at me and the advice here is for me based on wisdom I’ve discovered on my life journey so far. Feel free to browse the topics of interest and hopefully, something I’ve learned my prove useful to you as well.

Geoff James
November, 2022.