Jon Shattuck, a seasoned leader whose career spanned hospital administration and decades of community service, has released a deeply personal guide to living well, Choices to Live By. The book, announced this week, speaks to readers of every age who are grappling with fundamental questions: Who am I? What do I stand for? And how do I live a life that is honest, purposeful, and full? In an era often dominated by quick fixes and prescriptive self-help formulas, Shattuck's approach stands out for its candor and its refusal to offer a one-size-fits-all recipe for a perfect life.
Shattuck is careful to note from the outset that this is not a prescription for a perfect life. In his own words, it is not "a cookbook of requirements," but rather an invitation to explore the questions that shape a person's character and guide their choices across a lifetime. Drawing on his own story—from laying asphalt driveways in the summer heat after college to rising to the top of his graduate school class, from 65 years of marriage, to leading grief support groups in his later years—Shattuck writes with the authority of someone who has actually lived what he is talking about. This lived experience gives the book a weight and authenticity that purely theoretical guides often lack.
The book moves through the essential terrain of a human life with remarkable range and directness. Shattuck writes about truth and authenticity, the nature of love and what separates a soulmate marriage from a playmate or cellmate one, the quiet power of forgiveness, the discipline of listening, and the lifelong challenge of humility. He addresses grief with the tenderness of someone who has sat beside people in their darkest moments, and he confronts escape, victimhood, and the temptation to run from hard truths with an unflinching honesty that never tips into harshness. Throughout, Shattuck returns to a guiding principle he calls TWTA—The Way Things Are—a deceptively simple framework for responding to life as it actually is rather than as we wish it to be.
Whether he is advising young people on how to approach a job interview, reflecting on the unexpected encounters that redirected his own career, or sharing his personal faith journey, the message is consistent: clarity about reality, combined with intentional choices rooted in strong values, is the foundation of a life well lived. As Shattuck puts it, "Your life is or has been a culmination of the choices and decisions you have made. At any point, you decide how to react, how to respond, and how to move forward. My hope is that this book helps readers make those decisions with more intention, more honesty, and more joy."
Shattuck writes without pretension and without the detached authority of the purely theoretical. He is a storyteller as much as a philosopher, and the book is filled with vivid, specific moments: the woman with multiple sclerosis who decided on the spot to make every day her best; the four-word question from a retired schoolteacher that redirected his entire career toward hospital administration; the long walk through the woods that marked the turning point after a devastating job loss. These stories anchor the book's wisdom in lived experience, making its lessons not just compelling but genuinely believable.
The book closes with a meditation on faith that is honest about its personal nature without being prescriptive. Shattuck shares his own Christian faith journey openly while making clear that his goal is not to recruit anyone to a particular tradition, but to encourage every reader to seek a foundation in something larger than self-interest or the shifting winds of culture and politics. It is, like the rest of the book, a chapter written with integrity—and with love as its bottom line.
Choices to Live By is available now. Parents, educators, counselors, mentors, and anyone navigating a significant life transition will find it a grounded, generous, and enduringly useful companion. For more information, visit https://jonshattuck.com/.
