No More Heroes

I have not yet read Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book but it seems to be surrounded by a murky cloud of disdain and disappointment. People are UP IN ARMS with a lot of loud opinions. Watching the controversy unfold made me wonder, why do we hold these figures to impossible standards?

As a longtime reader of self-help and personal development (and someone currently working on my own book in this space), I deeply respect the genre. But I’ve met enough celebrities and public personalities to know the old adage, never meet your idols rings true. They so rarely live up to the hype. I don’t think this is a bad thing, just a real thing. When we put people on pedestals, we leave room for inevitable disappointment because we love the idea of them, not who they actually are—we don’t know them! Often, our work is a facet of who we are, not the totality of our dimensions. I stopped having idols years ago. Instead, I started focusing on who was embodying a life path that seemed valiant to me, that resonated with my spirit. I began to notice that it wasn’t necessarily them I admired, but their path and the choices that got them there. This relinquishing of expectation freed me to see people as they are, to notice them in their full humanity.

What if we treated our self-help gurus as human beings instead of prophets? If we take their wisdom with a grain of salt, we allow ourselves to absorb what resonates and leave the rest. I believe every person has valuable lessons to offer, but we often get so fixated on following established methodologies exactly as prescribed that we fail to critically examine and adapt these ideas to fit our individual needs.

I don’t know Elizabeth Gilbert personally but from what I’ve gleaned, I believe she is a good person trying to make meaning and do beautiful things in the world. I have tremendous admiration and respect for people like her, who investigate their internal worlds, people like Glennon Doyle, David Whyte, Ruth Allen, Martha Beck, Yrsa Daley Ward, you get the idea…but it’s liberating to know they’re just as messy as you and I. When Martha Beck came out with her throuple (a plot twist I never could have predicted), I found it oddly refreshing. Not because of the specifics, but because it reminded me that even the people who seem to have it figured out are still evolving, still surprising themselves. Beck chose to honor her new truth instead of upholding the societal image we have of her. If Elizabeth Gilbert had Eat, Pray, Loved her way to Buddha-level consciousness at 34, then what was she going to do with the rest of her precious days? These shifts in their identities prove what we know to be true…change is our only constant. Being a human being means continually learning and unlearning, continually shedding identities to hopefully arrive at something more true for us in that moment.

Their mess gives us permission to live our lives, to make mistakes, to grow, change, and learn. As humans, the mess is usually our best way into deeper internal inquiry.

I had a romantic tryst with a guy who had never had his heart broken. He was in his 30’s, had succeeded professionally, with one serious relationship behind him that had ended amicably, no drama, no devastation. He’d been cruising. At one point, he turned to me and said,

“It feels like you want my heart to be broken.”

I paused.

“Heartbreak,” I told him, “is an inevitable part of the human experience. It’s not that I want your heart to be broken but it’s going to happen at some point and I’m just surprised it hasn’t yet.”

We do not get out of this journey without brushing up against pain. He’d been lucky thus far, skating by unscathed, but I also believe we don’t truly know who we are until our resilience has been tested. Until we’ve been brought to our knees and had to figure out how to stand back up. It was one of the reasons I wasn’t interested in pursuing the dynamic further. I want to know that when life tests you, you know how you respond. You are equipped to weather this cuckoo experience, particularly, if we are going to do it together. As much as I hate how much heartbreak I’ve endured, it was the gateway to my growth, to taking a deeper look at myself. Now, I know with certainty that I am a resilient person, that I can handle what is thrown my way. I digress, but this is exactly why I’m so captivated by authors who mine this territory. I don’t want perfection, I want honesty. Then I have full agency to deduce what I want to take away, to decide how I want it to inform my next big life hurdle.

As American Theater Director Anne Bogart wrote, “If your work doesn’t sufficiently embarrass you, then very likely no one will be touched by it.” We limit our own creativity and truth by trying not to be cringe, by striving for perfection. So despite the heat coming Elizabeth’s direction, I just want to say to anyone taking creative risks, thank you for baring your soul even when it means the public tears you down. Thank you for being willing to be cringe in a world that doesn’t want to get publicly drunk for fear of being recorded. Thank you for choosing to be transparent about your mess in a curated world.

I, too, have made too many career mistakes to count, more on my spectacular failure here. I’ve realized we’re all doing our absolute best with the knowledge and tools we have in the moment. That doesn’t devalue the message, it just is. And we can decide what we do with it, to engage or to opt out. None of us are heroes. We’re just here together, working to figure this life thing out and sharing what we learn along the way.