Written by Fr. John C. Yake

Published by Legal, 2015, paperback, 94 pages.

Modern globalized secularization that is accepting of permissive relativism of values has disassociated the young from a trusted tradition from which they may bake vital voices. Liberation from former customs whose discipline was deemed restrictive of freedom denies that anything is absolutely true so, in effect, truth no longer exists. What is meaningful today depends on individual tastes.But all roads do not lead to happiness because, as Aristotle taught, happiness ensues as a consequence of decisions about one’s participation: sports, the arts, crime, religion, etc. and the values that one adopts for oneself. It is fashionable today to distrust traditional wisdom and this has deprived teens of a foundational ethos, common meanings and common understandings, a heritage of humanizing values, from which they may understand themselves and feel supported in a predictable world.

This short book is not a plea to return to yesteryear but it is an opportunity to develop an effective strategy of decision-making that is based on how human beings are structured to make choices. It takes advantage of the thought of Dr. Bernard Lonergan who has enabled us to understand the inner workings of human knowing that mount up to understanding ourselves in the world by the coaches that are freely made.