Life is wonderful, at times difficult, and, in my opinion, never boring, especially if you like to occasionally take a look under the hood. In keeping with the mechanical metaphor, but switching over from cars to bicycles, picture life as a bicycle---The Bicycle of Life---and on that bike there's a Work Wheel and a Love Wheel. The Bicycle of Life is what this book is all about: Growing up into a 'responsible adult', getting married, parenthood, work life, growing up some more. This stuff can be really hard, especially if you're in it for the long haul. Most of us are trying to do the right thing. It's just that we really don't have a clue or any guidance about how to do it. I aim to provide you with some guidance in this book, along with companionship and support along the way, just as I would if you and I were sitting together in my office. Of course, I can't tell anybody how to live their lives, what to believe, or how to behave, and this we both know. What I can do, however, is share the things I've found useful, fascinating, and true about living a good life. I can share the knowledge of how to navigate the Work Wheel and the Love Wheel, and my goal is to do just that. By the way, you don't have to be married or have your own children in order to benefit from this book. You yourself are someone's child, even if you don't have any of your own, so you will gain some insights into your own childhood with this book. You're likely involved in some interpersonal relationships in your life, ranging from friendships to romantic relationships, and possibly even including dealing with nephews and nieces or your friends' and neighbors' kids. You've also got a work life of some sort. And chances are you're trying to balance all of this the best way you can. You qualify.... Using the feedback people have given me from my previous books, I decided to go with the short-essay format from my first book, Cobwebs and Ugly Wallpaper, which consisted of completely independent topics that could be read in any order. This format allowed the reader to always come away with a complete topic in mind and a sense of accomplishment each time he or she sat down to read the book. People liked that. Especially busy people. And I've again kept the subject matter multi-layered---almost allegorical at times---so that the essays could be appreciated and useful from your first read today, to years later when you've read them again from a completely different place in your life. Is the book substitute for personal, couples, or family therapy? No it's not, and I don't think any book really is. Nor is it intended as such. But I do know lots of people who are either in therapy or who have had some in the past, as well as plenty of others who have no intention of ever stepping foot into a therapist's office. With this book I wanted to appeal to both sorts of folks, much as it was with the Cobwebs book. Finally, a new feature that I've added to this book is a simple coding system that helps you to choose the chapters you'd like to read about at any given moment, depending on what you're in the mood to read. The way it works is that each chapter has both a title as well as a letter in parenthesis after the title which specifies whether that chapter is about You (Y), Kids (K), or Marriage (M). This way you will know what chapters you might want to check out based upon what your gut tells you that you need that day. I've also included those code letters in the table of contents at the beginning of the book, so that you can easily skim through the different topics and know exactly what page to turn to in order to read what you want to read. Well, I guess that's it! The rest is ahead of you and up to you to explore, to learn, and, most of all, to enjoy. Anthony Ferraioli, M.D. (author)