SISTER WISDOM

I didn’t know much about Eleanor Roosevelt before I read this book, but here’s what I learned: if I can be like anyone when I grow up, I hope I can be like her.

I can’t give you a timeline of her life, because that’s not what this book is about. It’s not a biography or a memoir; it’s more like one of the best self-help, personal growth instruction manuals written, long before self-help and personal growth were the blitzes they are now.

This book is about “eleven keys for a more fulfilling life.” Fitly enough, it’s divided into eleven chapters. The last two, “How Everyone Can Take Part in Politics” and “Learning to Be a Public Servant” were least interesting to me (which indicates where I really need to grow, I guess). But every line of the other nine chapters was a revelation. Here’s a little sample:

“…What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading” (6-7).

“If we can keep that flexibility of mind, that hospitality toward new ideas, we will be able to welcome the new flow of thought from wherever it comes, not resisting it; weighing and evaluating and exploring the strange new concepts that confront us at every turn” (16).

“Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying any attention to you. It’s your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you’ll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there’s no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself” (32).

“I never can understand why so many people are afraid to live their own lives as they themselves think is right. You can get rid of your neighbors but you cannot get rid of yourself, so you are the person to be satisfied” (125).

Brilliant, all of it.

Mrs. Roosevelt is easy to read. She uses plenty of little stories of her own life, family, relationships, and political experiences to show, basically, that she knows that she’s talking about. And she does. It’s the kind of no-nonsense, heartfelt, practical advice that everybody’s grandmother should have passed on and we’d all be better for it.

5 out of 5 stars.
Author: Eleanor Roosevelt
Title: You Learn by Living
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky; 1960, 1983.