Eat, Pray, Love, Live
Last year I had the opportunity to hear Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, and I enjoyed her in person more than I enjoyed the book. Without using a note, she captivated the audience with her pleasing personality, authentic delivery and style, and her ability to tell fascinating stories.
Cover of Eat, Pray, Love
Now Gilbert has a new book out titled Committed which is a meditation on marriage. In an interview I read about her explaining her new book, I was struck by her analogy involving relationships because I think it can be applied to work situations as well as personal. She talks about how she wanted to make sure that her husband-to-be knew all of her worse character flaws. So she had a prenuptial informed consent release where she described to him in writing her top five flaws. Then she presented it to him and here was his response:
"When i used to go down to Brazil to buy gemstones, I would often buy something they call 'a parcel.' A parcel is this random collection of gems that the miner or the wholesaler puts together. A typical parcel would contain 20-30 aquamarines at once. Supposedly, you get a better deal that way--buying them all in a bunch--but you have to be careful, because of course the guy is trying to rip you off. He's trying to unload hi bad gemstones on you by packaging them together with a few really good ones.
So when I first started in the jewelry business, I used to get in trouble because I'd get too excited about the one or two perfect aquamarines in the parcel, and I wouldn't pay as much attention to the junk they threw in there. After I got burned enough times, I finally got wise and learned this--you have to ignore the perfect gemstones. Don't even look at them twice because they're blinding. Just put them away and have a careful look at the really bad stones. Look at them for a long time and then ask yourself honestly, 'Can I work with these? Can I make something out of this?' Otherwise, you've just spent a whole lot of money on one or two gorgeous aquamarines buried inside a heap of worthless crap.
It's the same with relationships, I think. People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other's personalities. Who wouldn't? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that's not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner's faults honestly and say, 'I can work around that'? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it's always going to be pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you."
As I read this, I thought this philosophy could be applied to any type of relationship--colleague, friends, family, spouse. Maybe if we had this attitude, we could more easily work together--live together.
Our minister had a twist on the older book: I'm OK You're OK. He said that maybe our philosophy should be: I'm not OK and you're not OK and that is OK. In this way, we realize that we are not perfect and that no one else is perfect either and we can accept that. And that leaves room for grace and forgiveness which is what we need when we live and work together.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=77ad8126-d975-440d-9951-2af2b0cc63dc)
I really enjoyed your comment about your minister's twist on the older book: I'm OK You're OK. Noting that it should be I'm not OK and you're not OK and that is OK.
It made me chuckle because it is so true and here I'll add my twist on your minister's twist: "Because I accept that I'm not OK and your're not OK that mades for I'm OK and You're OK."
Posted by: Linda Smith | February 07, 2010 at 02:32 AM
Linda--Thanks for reading and for leaving a comment. I am eager to talk with you about all of this stuff. My head is spinning so it will be nice to talk soon. Still snowing here. Our average is 18 inches and we have had 50+ so far! Too much.
Posted by: Jann Freed | February 10, 2010 at 11:52 AM