I believe it was Socrates who said “the unexamined life is not worth living”, sometime before knocking back a hefty dose of hemlock. That is rather incidental to the point, but a helpful detail nonetheless. The man was so principled, he’d rather put himself to death than go against his own ethics. Rather old-school, really. So we’ll have to take his word for it that a bit of self-examination is worth the effort.
One woman who’s found herself getting into a bit of Socratic method in mid-life is Maria Shriver, television news reporter, card-carrying Kennedy clan member and wife of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s a rather heavyweight CV she’s dragging about, yet in a recent interview with Oprah – also no slouch in the over-achieving department – she admits to having found little satisfaction in her intensive schedule. She said “I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself. So many people would come up to me and say, ‘Which Kennedy are you?’. At a very young age, I thought, You’re going to know which one I am. I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected – I became the Kennedy who was married to the Governor.”
Of course, that kind of driven busyness doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere, unbidden. Describing her early family life, Shriver says “It’s competitive when you walk in the door. It’s competitive at the table. It’s competitive on the playing field. It’s competitive in a boat. Even my mother is very competitive at everything – from checkers to Ping-Pong to sailing to politics … My parents’ vacations were working vacations. We visited Special Olympics events, Peace Corps volunteers, prime ministers and priests. They’d be trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Christmas.”
That drive to constantly achieve knew no bounds, as a telling interchange with Shriver’s father after she’d written her second book clearly highlights. “He said, ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ I said ‘I just wrote a book.’ ‘But you did the book already’, he said. ‘That’s over. You need to do a new thing.’”
Whoah, scary! While all that workaholism doubtless created a lot of positive change for many people, it also negated any possibility of self-enquiry. Without self-examination, we’ll never really know if we’re doing what we do because we want to do it or simply because that’s what we think we should be doing. Shriver’s hard-won ability to accept herself and find true fulfilment at a slower, more authentic pace is valuable wisdom to follow, all the more because she’s had all that money, fame and accomplishment can offer and still came up empty.
She says now, “I’m trying to live my life from my heart, being authentic to who I am. I’m trying to feel my way to my truth. I do things now that feel real to me … A friend once told me ‘As long as you keep playing the game of trying to be the right Maria for everyone, you’re never going to deliver the real Maria. You don’t even know who the real Maria is.’ She was right. So I took a long, hard look at myself and began to strip away a lot of the stuff that kept me running. The most terrifying thing of all for me was to just sit with myself. I didn’t know how to be alone. When you grow up in a huge family, you’re never alone.”
Out of that stopping still, of taking time to learn who she was and what she wanted, she’s learned that it’s not what you do that counts – it’s who you are. Discussing this in the interview, Shriver notes “We’re all worthy – not because we’ve accomplished something or because we’re part of a famous family. You’re worthy if you don’t make the team, if you get Ds and Fs, if you don’t get into the best college. That belief is the greatest gift any parent can give his or her child. You and I don’t have to do an interview or talk about a project or save the world. We can just sit with each other and with ourselves. For me that was a revelation. An awakening.”
Now that’s an awakening we could all do with. As Maya Angelou once said to Oprah, “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.” Time for some self-examination – if you believed those statements to be true, what would you stop doing? What activities, jobs, people or places are in your life because you think they should be? Do you have ‘second book syndrome’ – thinking nothing is ever good enough unless it’s a new experience? Do you even know why you’ve chosen the path that you have? When was the last time you just sat still and let it be OK to do nothing? How has the family dynamic you grew up with become a part of your life now? Are you living the way you do because that’s what your family did? How much real choice have you made in your life? How much does your life reflect the real you?
Juicy questions for you to ponder this week. Take your time with them, roll them around in your mouth and see what they taste like – the bitter pill of truth or a sweet revelation? If you need a little more inspiration, try Maria Shriver’s latest book, Just Who Will You Be?, to kick-start you into your authentic self-exploration.
For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 2 Jun 08)
One woman who’s found herself getting into a bit of Socratic method in mid-life is Maria Shriver, television news reporter, card-carrying Kennedy clan member and wife of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s a rather heavyweight CV she’s dragging about, yet in a recent interview with Oprah – also no slouch in the over-achieving department – she admits to having found little satisfaction in her intensive schedule. She said “I made the mistake of thinking that external accomplishments would bring me peace. I thought it was about the job or a book or making a name for myself. So many people would come up to me and say, ‘Which Kennedy are you?’. At a very young age, I thought, You’re going to know which one I am. I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected – I became the Kennedy who was married to the Governor.”
Of course, that kind of driven busyness doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere, unbidden. Describing her early family life, Shriver says “It’s competitive when you walk in the door. It’s competitive at the table. It’s competitive on the playing field. It’s competitive in a boat. Even my mother is very competitive at everything – from checkers to Ping-Pong to sailing to politics … My parents’ vacations were working vacations. We visited Special Olympics events, Peace Corps volunteers, prime ministers and priests. They’d be trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Christmas.”
That drive to constantly achieve knew no bounds, as a telling interchange with Shriver’s father after she’d written her second book clearly highlights. “He said, ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ I said ‘I just wrote a book.’ ‘But you did the book already’, he said. ‘That’s over. You need to do a new thing.’”
Whoah, scary! While all that workaholism doubtless created a lot of positive change for many people, it also negated any possibility of self-enquiry. Without self-examination, we’ll never really know if we’re doing what we do because we want to do it or simply because that’s what we think we should be doing. Shriver’s hard-won ability to accept herself and find true fulfilment at a slower, more authentic pace is valuable wisdom to follow, all the more because she’s had all that money, fame and accomplishment can offer and still came up empty.
She says now, “I’m trying to live my life from my heart, being authentic to who I am. I’m trying to feel my way to my truth. I do things now that feel real to me … A friend once told me ‘As long as you keep playing the game of trying to be the right Maria for everyone, you’re never going to deliver the real Maria. You don’t even know who the real Maria is.’ She was right. So I took a long, hard look at myself and began to strip away a lot of the stuff that kept me running. The most terrifying thing of all for me was to just sit with myself. I didn’t know how to be alone. When you grow up in a huge family, you’re never alone.”
Out of that stopping still, of taking time to learn who she was and what she wanted, she’s learned that it’s not what you do that counts – it’s who you are. Discussing this in the interview, Shriver notes “We’re all worthy – not because we’ve accomplished something or because we’re part of a famous family. You’re worthy if you don’t make the team, if you get Ds and Fs, if you don’t get into the best college. That belief is the greatest gift any parent can give his or her child. You and I don’t have to do an interview or talk about a project or save the world. We can just sit with each other and with ourselves. For me that was a revelation. An awakening.”
Now that’s an awakening we could all do with. As Maya Angelou once said to Oprah, “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.” Time for some self-examination – if you believed those statements to be true, what would you stop doing? What activities, jobs, people or places are in your life because you think they should be? Do you have ‘second book syndrome’ – thinking nothing is ever good enough unless it’s a new experience? Do you even know why you’ve chosen the path that you have? When was the last time you just sat still and let it be OK to do nothing? How has the family dynamic you grew up with become a part of your life now? Are you living the way you do because that’s what your family did? How much real choice have you made in your life? How much does your life reflect the real you?
Juicy questions for you to ponder this week. Take your time with them, roll them around in your mouth and see what they taste like – the bitter pill of truth or a sweet revelation? If you need a little more inspiration, try Maria Shriver’s latest book, Just Who Will You Be?, to kick-start you into your authentic self-exploration.
For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. You can email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 2 Jun 08)
