Inspiring, enjoyable and uplifting. John St. Augustine’s “Every Moment Matters: Savoring the Stuff of Life” definitely is a book that puts life into perspective! Definitely recommended!
TITLE: Every Moment Matters: Savoring the Stuff of Life
BY: John St. Augustine
PUBLISHER: Hampton Roads
PAGE COUNT: 188
Small slices of time go unnoticed. You go about your day, never realizing how much information missed moments contain. They are packed with lessons about living life to its fullest.
John St.Augustine can teach you how to notice these ordinary moments. Remember them. Relive them. Live in the present while creating future moments that have depth, meaning, and purpose. Through anecdotes from his own life, St.Augustine demonstrates how to turn ordinary moments into extraordinary ones.
Be still. Pay attention. Find the moments that matter.
John St. Augustine has been a major inspiration to many people nationwide. From his radio show on Power!Talk Radio and his books, he is one that has made the best of life and is able to keep life’s challenges…ups and downs with a positive outlook.
“Every Moment Matters: Savoring the Stuff of Life” is a book in which St. Augustine shares with people stories from his life and how he was able to savor those moments. May it be happy or sad, reading “Every Moment Matters: Savoring the Stuff of Life” was an entertaining, uplifting and inspiring read because through the moments that we live in our hectic lives, there are things that we can savor. You just need that moment in time to look back and see it.
For example, in the opening chapter titled “Big Jake”, St. Augustine writes about a dog he saw caged and brought it back to his home. Through the challenges of living with Jake’s constant howling to trying to give him to a new home (but the owners not being able to take his constant howling) and as years past by, Jake had become part of his life and then part of John’s married life and then through his older age, including taking Jake to his old playground in the forest during their first year and then having to take your dog to the vet to be put to sleep.
Like St. Augustine, I still think about my dog Cody and how he was part of my life as a college student and eventually when I got married. It was one of the most difficult moments in my life in having to take Cody to the vet for the very last time but nearly a decade later, I still think about those precious times I had with that dog.
In the chapter “From a Distance”, St. Augustine writes about an experience when he and a large group of family and friends were in town for a family reunion but on that day, a tragic accident happened in which he and other people at the party ran to the scene to see if they can help. What he saw were tragedies but also children who had a chance to live and he and others did what they can to rescue the kids pinned in the vehicle.  And how each time he sees and accident, this day of what he experienced stays in his head but most of all, to be grateful that he was alive. So, many people don’t take the time to realize how grateful it is to be alive, especially when we live and know that anything can happen.
In another chapter titled “The Naked Men’s Club”, St. Augustine talks about going into a sauna with a few of his guy friends but the circumstances of how the friendship began with two of the men is inspiring.  Two of the fathers were brought together from the death of their teenage kids who were hit by a logging truck. Two men who were not close friends before, were brought together in the most tragic of circumstances. But its a friendship that has been a big part of John St. Augustine’s life.
There are several personal stories that John St. Augustine shares with the readers but it’s a reflection of how we should be grateful for life and also, appreciating the people around you and how inspiring people can make a big difference in their lives.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I often live a life where I’m always busy working and my hectic schedule just gets the best out of me. But I try to take some personal time and not to be engrossed in work. It’s the workaholic in me that I’m trying so hard to fight and so, I really enjoyed this book tremendously. I have read a chapter each night before going to bed and each chapter, I felt appreciative towards John St. Augustine for writing this book.  Definitely a book worth reading!