A Life of One’s Own: A Brilliant Young Woman’s Forgotten Field Guide to the Art of Knowing What You Really Want

The Marginalian reports that in 1926, British psychoanalyst Marion Milner began a seven-year experiment in living, keeping a diary to discover what truly makes for happiness. Published in 1934 under the pen name Joanna Field, her book 'A Life of One's Own' — a title paying homage to Virginia Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own' — was beloved by W.H. Auden. Milner concluded that the things we chase most frantically rarely bring lasting contentment, and that a wider, more embodied way of perceiving can transform our sense of aliveness. She lived to ninety-eight, carrying the lessons of that intensive self-examination.

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