List of tables and Maps; Acknowledgements; Foreword; Note to Readers; Introduction; 1. Challenges of Adult Life; 2. Dawn's Story-Bringing Out the Truth in a Character; 3. Mark's Story-Developing a Spiritual Philosophy of Life; 4. Kurt's Story-Being True to the Man in the Glass; 5. Sandra's Story-Living Her Faith; 6. Lydia's Story-External Chaos, Internal Stability; 7. Evan's Story-Being the Best You Can Be; 8. How to Be a Good Company for Your Own Journey; 9. Partnerships. How to Provide Good Company for Others' Journeys; 10. Diverse Self-Authorship Stories; 11. Mapping Your Journey; 12. A Theory of Self-Authorship Development; Longitudinal Study Methodology and Methods; Notes; Index.

Marcia B. Baxter Magolda is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Miami University of Ohio and a nationally recognized author and speaker on student development and learning. She received the American College Personnel Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education's Research Achievement Award in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to advancing student learning. Her scholarship addresses the evolution of learning and development in college and subsequent adult life, and educational practice to promote self-authorship. Her seventh and eighth books respectively are Authoring Your Life and Development and Assessment of Self-Authorship.

Sharon Daloz Parks is Associate Director, the Whidbey Institute. She was formerly an associate professor at the Harvard Divinity School and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. She has also served in faculty and research positions in leadership and ethics at the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith (Jossey-Bass, 2000) and co-author of Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World (Beacon Press, 1996).

Matthew Henry Hall is a cartoonist whose work appears in Readers Digest, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Adjunct Advocate, and many other publications, including the the "Teachable Moments" column of Inside Higher Ed.

Who am I? What do I want in relationships? How do I know what to believe? How do I manage the stresses of living?This is a guide to addressing life's challenges and competing demands.