Follow Your Bliss

Straight to Hell

Part memoir, part manifesto, and part survival guide for anyone who’s ever felt gaslit by hustle culture, betrayed by their own ambition, or crushed by the very dreams they were told to chase.

EXPECTED RELEASE DATE FALL 2026

The map was a lie.

You followed the map. You pursued your dreams and chased your bliss. You turned your passion into your paycheck. You believed the promise: Do what you love and the money will follow.

Follow Your Bliss (Straight to Hell) is not a redemption arc. It’s a reckoning — a field guide for what happens when the dream collapses, when your creative spark becomes your survival strategy, when the work that once lit you up starts burning you down. It’s a book for the ones who tried to do everything “right,” only to realize the game was rigged from the start.

Part memoir, part manifesto, part survival guide, Follow Your Bliss was written for anyone who’s ever felt chewed up by capitalism, betrayed by their own ambition, or exhausted by the endless grind. It’s less expert advice telling you how to hack, optimize, or “successmax” your life choices, and more solidarity from the trenches with a bit of comic relief.

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Üma Kleppinger is a marketing and communications strategist who helps organizations navigate the gap between what they think they’re communicating and what people actually hear. When she’s not helping other people figure out their brand strategy and messaging, she’s writing brutally honest critiques about what happens when passion meets capitalism and neurodivergence meets norms. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is wondering where she put her bliss in the first place. This is her second book.

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