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Life Design Ezine>
STEERING BY STARLIGHT
November 1, 2008
My readers may have heard of best-selling author Martha
Beck through her advice column in "Oprah Magazine" or
through her many books: "Expecting Adam," "The Joy Diet,"
"Leaving the Saints," "Finding Your North Star," or" Four
Day Win"–all available at my favorite independent bookstore
Powell’s Books. "Psychology Today," "NPR" and "USA Today"
consider Martha “the best known Life Coach in America.”
Beck is a very straightforward writer who believes each
person has an “inner-compass” and has available to them
“limitless possibilities” to help them locate their “just
right” lives.
I have envied Martha Beck for a long time and was motivated
to choose the profession of “Life Direction Coach” because
of her own courage to do so. At present, she now calls
herself a “personal trainer” saying, “I work with healthy
people to help them achieve maximum fitness–that is,
well-being and quality of life.” After being professors,
both Martha and I chose to forego the prestige of
upper-crust academia as well as to abandon our restrictive
and misogynous religions’-of-origin.
Both Beck and I have conducted research in China and–-in
our advice giving–-we tend to use the three great Chinese
philosophies of Daoism, Buddhism and, Confucianism (with a
feminist slant, obviously!). Just like Beck, I received my
graduate degree from an Ivy League School in the early
1990s and published research that was focused on women,
social-psychology and religion.
It seems that we were “separated at birth” because of our
pasts, because we both like to write helpful books, and
because we each regularly publish essays offering personal
and practical advice. But enough about our common threads
in the great garment of life; it is more important to
convey the unique messages of her latest book, "Steering by
Starlight."
"Steering by Starlight," according to its introduction, is
about “finding and following the life you were meant to
live: your highest and happiest possible destiny.” The
theory that Beck uses is much like the multitude of helpful
books on business and self-help shelves. She assumes, along
with much Ancient Greek and Indian Philosophy, that there
exists a fundamental purpose to everyone’s life and
believes that we all have a particular "dharma" (in an
Indian-philosophical sense). If we ignore this elemental
calling (or dharma) we will be thwarted.
When I say “thwarted” I mean we will feel “ill at ease”
until we honor our “true selves” or our “innate
destiny”–something that will forever follow us, haunt us,
and hunt us down until we honor its mandates.
I can see why Beck left behind her position as a sociology
instructor at Harvard University because her hope-filled
theories would be critically eviscerated at any academic
conference. Why? Because Beck’s fundamental beliefs would
be considered "totalizing," "essentialist," simplistic and
a typical example of the naively Western grand narrative of
humanism (a fallacious sense of unlimited mastery--not
unlike the U.S. administration's current empire building in
the Middle East).
The great 20th-century French sociologist/philosopher,
Michel Foucault, would shame Beck for mimicking the
homogenizing, colonizing and mono-mythic paradigms of the
uniquely-American project called the “Human Potential
Movement” (HPM).
To wit: HPM was a superbly optimistic movement that arose
out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and
was formed around the concept that humans could cultivate
their “extraordinary potential.” Its advocates believed
that this unique "buried treasure" lay largely unexplored
by most people. The movement took as its premise that in
discovering, developing and releasing one’s "inner
potential" she/he could experience an exceptional quality
of life filled with simplicity, happiness, creativity and
abundant fulfillment.
Why would Foucault reject such an optimistic theory? In
brief, (and if he were alive), he would accuse Beck for
proffering “a reductionistic fantasy” that assumes humans
could be "hygienic" individuals who live unaffected by
their surroundings. He would mock the romantic idea that
people, by muscular will alone, would be able to “throw
off” the multiple cultural influences operating within and
all around them. If readers are interested in learning more
about Foucauldian frameworks, I’ll offer these in another
book review (I promise)!
But, if you must read an alternative to this common
(reductionistic) mistake in career-advice literature, read
my very favorite business book this year called "Working
Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your
Career" by a very plain-speaking French sociologist and
philosopher named Herminia Ibarra.
Like Foucault, Ibarra does not subscribe to the fashionable
belief in humanistic (or pop-) psychology, i.e., that there
is a singular treasure, a "pearl of great price" (for
Christians) or a "soul or self" (for the Greeks) within all
of us that will point us to the "just right" work that we
are each meant to do. Rather, she urges readers to
experiment and even play with their identities-–which she
says are always multiple and naturally morphing according
to whatever social-context or in which ever job we find
ourselves.
For Ibarra, such multiplicity need not be “read”
pathologically nor must it cause a baffling crisis of
identity. Rather, if accepted, this fluidity of “self” can
be freeing, relationally-responsive, dynamic, intimate and
spontaneously-inventive.
Even though Martha Beck has abandoned her “pomo”
philosophies, I find her work unique and quite
forward-thinking when she turns to the latest research in
psychiatry, neurology and related fields for the ruts we
can return to and the ways we might change these phenomena.
Like me, Beck writes in a way that will speak to anyone
with a ninth-grade education–-the target audience, in terms
of literacy, of the average person who buys self-help
books. For instance, she keeps her writing teacherly and
repetitive; she identifies and reiterates three simple
stages along the vocational path to recapturing a
satisfying life that include:
* “the stargazer” a metaphor that helps readers understand
why it’s so easy to lose themselves in an endless quest for
self-knowledge; she offers strategies for sighting their
“North Star” (a trope of her earliest career book and
career workbook called, "Finding Your North Star");
* “the mapmaker” a simile used to evaluate one’s unbearable
situation in order to plot a different course for the
future;
* “the pathfinder” which explores the “adventures” or
trials that may be encountered as one travels along their
ever-challenging, new life course.
Whether one is seeking better relationships, more focused
career direction, physical fitness or to create a more
harmonious lifestyle, "Steering by Starlight’s" stories,
experiential references, and up-to-date, neuro-scientific
evidence will guide HPM believers to “actualize their human
potential,” uncover their own “inner compass,” and perhaps,
find their way in the world.
Note: Even though I may sound a little sassy in this
review, I appreciate Beck's courage, humor, and
approachable framework; I use her framework often as a
creative life-direction consultant, in my own Life Design
Publishing business as well as in my writing [see
http://LDUpublishing.com].
Question: What do you think about your own potential? Are
you cynical about change or are you hopeful about releasing
possibilities for vocational transformation? You might want
to order another helpful book for those seeking wisdom for
those “in transition” called: Polishing the Mirror: 90
Days to Vocational Clarity. Order Now via my publications
page:
http://www.lifedesignunlimited.citymax.com/Publications.html
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