A book that changed how I lived
When I first read Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics, it felt like finding a hidden doorway into a life I had long sensed but rarely saw affirmed in print. Marsha Sinetar’s portraits of everyday people choosing lives of contemplation, simplicity, and inner focus resonated deeply. They weren’t saints or gurus – they were people quietly shaping their days to protect what mattered most to them.
I found myself drawn to the archetypal pull of the “monk” and the “mystic.” The book stirred in me an idyll of retreat – living in a hut in the woods, surrounded by quiet and trees. I didn’t end up in a hut, but I did restructure my life: I cut back to part-time work, giving myself long stretches of uninterrupted solitude. Over time, I moved to working entirely from home. Now I sometimes go out only once a week – a rhythm that feels, at times, almost monastic.
The gift of validation
One of the book’s most powerful impacts was the validation it gave me: needing large amounts of time alone wasn’t a flaw, but a legitimate path toward depth and clarity. Sinetar’s mix of personal narratives and psychological framing made solitude feel not just acceptable but noble -a fertile ground for self-discovery.
The gap it left
But even as I absorbed its affirmations, I struggled with one question the book doesn’t answer: How do you bring this vision into everyday life?
Sinetar’s subjects often seemed to be further along – already living the simplified, inward-focused life. There were no clear entry points, no practical steps for someone still embedded in a busy, relational, or financially constrained world. My changes happened slowly, over years, through trial and error.
A quiet forerunner of today’s slow living movement
When Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics was first published in the early 1990s, there weren’t many mainstream voices telling us it was okay to step away from the treadmill of constant achievement. Long before “slow living,” “digital detox,” or “minimalism” became buzzwords, Marsha Sinetar was quietly validating the choice to live more intentionally, even if it meant reducing work hours, earning less, or spending long stretches in solitude.
For those of us already feeling that pull, her work was a revelation – it named something we had sensed but not yet seen affirmed in print. She caught an early cultural current: the “spiritual but not religious” turn, the growing hunger for self-actualisation over status, and the first stirrings of what we now call lifestyle design. Reading her then felt like being part of a quiet movement that has only grown more relevant with the rise of burnout, digital overwhelm, and the longing for meaning beyond productivity.
In my context
When I first discovered Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics in the early 1990s, the spiritual and self-discovery landscape in the UK was nothing like it is today. There was no internet, no podcasts, no online courses. In fact, the only place in London where I could reliably find books that resonated with my deeper search was Watkins bookshop – one small shop with a handful of titles that felt like treasures.
When a book like this came along, it was a rare nugget of gold. I would read and re-read it, polishing its ideas over time and drawing out every drop of insight I could. There weren’t many voices offering guidance on living a more soulful, intentional life, so I had to learn to trust my own intuition – to read between the lines, to sense what was true for me, and to apply it without a ready-made blueprint.
That scarcity shaped me. It taught me to value self-knowledge above all else — not as an abstract ideal, but as a survival skill for finding direction when there are no signposts. It’s why “knowing yourself” has become such a central pillar of my Soulful Path approach.
Today, the challenge has shifted. We no longer face a lack of information; we face an overload of it. But the need is the same: to discern what’s right for you. The skill I had to develop out of necessity in the 90s is now just as vital, perhaps even more so, in an age where endless voices compete for our attention.
Reading it now
Published in the early 1990s, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics belongs to a particular moment – pre-internet, pre-“digital overwhelm,” before the “spiritual but not religious” identity was common. Its focus on solitude as a route to wholeness feels, if anything, even more relevant now in an always-on culture.
That said, our understanding of well-being has expanded. Today, we’re more attuned to the risks of isolation, the need for healthy connection, and the interplay between personal growth and community. Some of Sinetar’s archetypes might benefit from a contemporary re-framing that integrates solitude with intentional engagement in the world.
Why it still matters
If you’ve ever felt the pull toward a quieter, more contemplative life, this book may still speak to you as it did to me. It won’t give you a blueprint – but it may offer something equally valuable: the permission to follow your own deep rhythms, even if they diverge from the norm.
This review belongs to the Soulful Living & Inner Growth series, which explores how we can live with greater intention, depth, and inner alignment in a fast-paced world. You might also enjoy my Sensitivity blog series, which reflects on the quiet strengths of those drawn to more inward, reflective ways of being.