This isn't a self help book in the conventional sense, which is to say that Bronson doesn't draw any conclusions or offer any suggestions about what you yourself should do with your life.  Nevertheless, it is deeply affecting, and an excellent read for anyone who is evaluating their own life.  (And who isn't evaluating their own life, these days?)  I have read What Should I Do With My Life? at least five or six times since it was published in 2003, and I get something different out of it every time.

What Should I Do With My Life? is a collection of articles about people who changed the course of their lives for the better.  We have all heard that you should "follow your bliss" and "do what you love and the money will follow," and all of those other trite and frustrating platitudes. What Bronson did was go out, find people who did just that, and dig up their stories.

It's surprisingly fascinating to read about other people tackling the same issues we ourselves grapple with every day.  Bronson's writing is clear and empathetic, and he interweaves the stories of his subjects with his own story, breaking in occasionally to compare, contrast, and reflect about what he has just learned from the last person's story.

This is part of what makes What Should I Do With My Life? so effective.  Bronson is completely enraptured by the stories of his interview subjects.  And they find value in his interview as well - many of them had not really considered their lives as a narrative.  When they see their story laid out before them by a professional writer, several of them are taken aback.  Bronson's work is definitely an exchange of thoughts and ideas between the interviewer and the interviewee, and the results are always thought-provoking.

Bronson is also clear about how his own internal thoughts changed in the making of his book.  For example, at the beginning of chapter 22 "The Lockbox Fantasy," he admits that he expected to find a lot of people who first made their fortunes at their day jobs, then quit to follow their true passion.  What he found instead was a lot of rich people who had gotten rich by following their passion, and that the idea of putting your dream in a lockbox "just for now" is a fallacy.

"I'm not advocating giving up your day jobs to chase pipe dreams.  But don't put your dreams in lockboxes, and don't invest years of  your life in a day job for the wad [of cash] you expect to have at the end.  Believe in that myth at your own peril."

But perhaps the most striking, and least expected, and most unlikely conclusion that you can draw from What Should I Do With My Life? is that money has absolutely nothing to do with it.  This isn't what we're taught to expect, from society and self-help books and career counselors and college admissions boards.  But it's true.  

A surprising number - not all, but most - of the people in the book who are happy are making well under what we think of as "rich money."  In fact, some of the happiest people are doing what they love, while living just barely above the poverty line.  And if that's not a lesson that everyone needs exposure to, I don't know what is.