Terrible weather outside that cancelled all my plans, so I spent most of yesterday curled on the couch reading The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. I hate to admit I don't see why it has become such a cult classic. It's an entertaining allegory, I suppose, but it came across as an aggressive Infomercial. Every other sentence is a cliché, the supposed monk has an in-your-face ego, and he presents basic Buddhist principles as if he's just invented them himself. Sorry, I don't like giving bad reviews, but it just didn't live up to the hype. It was like listening to a Tony Robbins-style pep talk, or an evangelical preacher. I could feel my hair being blown backward.
Everything the book advises you to do is focused on the self. Your energy and vitality, your youth, your prosperity, your personal advancement. Then it winds up with a pitch to serve others in order to benefit yourself. Mixed in with all this was irritating phrases the editor should have nixed, such as "dimpled mischievousness." The monk was described as astonishingly youthful, but he spoke to the middle-aged narrator with "grandfatherly" compassion, all while regarding him as a brother. Bleh. My fingers kept itching to reach for a red pencil.
Editorial mishaps aside, I think one of the things that bothered me the most with this book was the hard-hitting focus on setting goals. I understand the need to have general direction to your life, or an idea of where you're going, and I am 100% on board with the principle of self development and improvement. But my approach to things is not to set defined goals broken down into incremental steps. My approach is to just be. If you want to be a more patient person, for example, you don't set a goal to become one in the future; you just start acting like one. Just start being patient, right now, this moment. Be the person you envision being. If you fail or mess up, you start over again. You keep starting over as many times as you need to, and no one is keeping count. But if you don't do it "in the now," you certainly won't reach that goal in the future, because the future is just a collection of all the "nows." Sometimes I think we plan ourselves to death and it keeps us from accomplishing anything.
I understand Robin Sharma's intention, and yes, some complicated things like saving for retirement or building a house need to broken down into specific goals to be accomplished in a certain progression. But the types of things he was talking about in the book were about improving character, and the minute detailed approach he recommended just sucked the joy out of the whole concept of self-growth. It belonged in a corporate strategic plan, not a Buddhist allegory.
Ah well. I apologize for my opinion if anyone reading this loved the book. And it's true that Robin Sharma will make buckets more money with his writing than I will with mine. I'm pleased for his success. It just wasn't what I was in the mood to read on a cozy, snowy day, but I always feel this sense of obligation to finish reading a book to the bitter end once I've started it. The author went to the effort to bake the thing, and the least I can do is choke it down.
It's still Arctic outside and they've cancelled church this morning due to icy roads, so I have another chance to curl up with a book today. I'll select something completely different this time and see how it goes. Or I suppose I could actually get off the couch and try to accomplish something...
Naah.
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