Sudden Bouts of Happiness

Doris Gates is so down to earth as she talks about her life and what she's learned along the way. She has obviously accumulated a lot of wisdom over the years and I have found her particular take on things to be very inspiring. There is a fundamental gratitude for life, whatever it may bring, that is the foundation of her approach, and this ultimately seems to be her strength. I would love to meet this woman and I will be giving this book to several of my friends.

I love this book. Doris Gates not only has wonderful insights into life and how to live it, but she is also quite funny. She seems wiser than most, but tells stories that everyone can relate to. It is very inspiring to read about someone taking terrible things and making the best of them by seeing them as teachings.

Before reading this book, I had heard of its author second-handedly through Lois, one of my best friends, a woman who happens to be 25 years older than I. Though seemingly very different, Lois and I clicked with our first meeting, and though we live two hours apart, we visit by email daily and get together in person regularly for lunch and shopping. Lois has been acquainted with Ms. Gates for many years, lives in the same apartment complex as Ms. Gates, and often speaks of their history and their current phone conversations. In my mind Ms. Gates was another "girl next door" type who grew up, lived a normal life and is now elderly. Wrong! She's much more. Put all presumptions of an 86 year old grandmother from Arkansas out of your mind at once. Like Lois, Ms. Gates is a physically striking, sophisticated, intelligent, highly successful former business woman, who has sought purpose and meaning from Day 1 of her life. She must be an evolved soul, because unlike those of us who are still searching, Ms. Gates found life's answers early, and was thus able to grow each day through normal, everyday living. Like most of us, she lives an ordinary life through days both good and bad, boring and extraordinary, happy and frightenly sad. But because she learned life's purpose early on, she has been able to take meaning and positive lessons from each day. She shows us that we can turn even the most awful experience into a positive lesson and suprisingly happy end. To use a trite phrase, Ms. Gates is who I want to be when I grow up. By years I am an adult woman on the verge of being elderly myself, but until I read this book last night, I was like a teen looking for answers and needing validation of my findings. By sharing her most intimate fears and daily life with us, Ms. Gates explains God's purpose for each of us. This book confirms life's meaning and God's purpose for me, and shows that it never was the hidden secret that I thought it was. The answer is so clear and simple that I've never been able to believe it until now. You may not share all of Ms. Gates beliefs, but regardless of where you are in your life's journey, you will find help in this little book. I give it 4 1/2 stars. Like me, I'm sure that you will be sharing it with family and friends. Note: It's difficult for me to ignore such things as spelling errors and misused words that SpellCheck can't isolate. Please don't allow yourself to get bogged down by these sorts of things; they aren't important and they just might be the devil's way of steering you away from this book.--Elizabeth Bess