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Selling Ourselves Short: Why We Struggle to Earn a Living and Have a Life

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SELLING OURSELVES SHORT: WHY WE STRUGGLE TO EARN A LIVING AND HAVE A LIFE
Catherine M. Wallace
Brazos Press, 2003

Reviewed by Darren Cronshaw

Balancing work demands with quality of life is a challenge in the face of pathological individualism, profit-making competitiveness and professional ambition. Catherine Wallace contends that work has come to take precedence over everything, because competition and profit-seeking are not framed by compassion and the common good. Urbanisation, capitalism and liberal democracy have marginalized compassion, commitment and fidelity in favour of competitive self-seeking in Western social ethics. The golden rule "Love your neighbour as yourself" has been displaced by "get the most for the least." This, she argues, is a cultural toxin that threatens to undermine community life and displaces having a life. Spending more time at work and more money in shops in an idolatrous attempt to define ourselves leaves us exhausted. There are loads of personal development books around that offer ideas for achieving a successful and balanced life. Wallace goes deeper in analyzing what keeps people from balanced living and expressing a vision for compassionate living.

Her vision is one of compassion and respect rather than the more common and increasingly dominant competition. Rather than separate spheres for men and women, or parents prioritizing material provision over loving nurture, she summons parents `both to provide for children and to nurture them, to cuddle them and buy them carrots, to sing songs and provide insurance.' (p.76) Her vision is to rustle up courage to live life in good conscience and all possible integrity; to find joy and flow in all activities - work and play; to reclaim time and energy for community and friendships; to be resilient in resisting the urge to buy and collect more "stuff" for our children; and to reclaim our lives as lives worth living that flow from loving abundantly and living generously.

This is a call to resist and go against the flow of compulsive consumerism and professionalisation of compassion. Her call is not for random acts of kindness and senseless beauty (kindness is not random nor beauty senseless) but intentional respect. She does not pretend to offer a postmodern alternative but preaches a premodern commitment and fidelity.

Vision is far-reaching. But she suggests it is necessary in a society and economy that is not "rational" but delusional.

The 318 page book goes beyond self-help books to evaluate socio-cultural constructs that trap us - gender roles, separate-spheres doctrines, marketplace ideology, and even the influence of double-entry bookkeeping on theology. The author draws on personal experience, architecture and neuroscience, a wide array of social science research, moral and spiritual theology and critical analysis. I particularly appreciated two relevant insights from historical theology. Firstly she explores imago Dei as a starting point for a view of human nature rather than original sin. So she listens a little more to Pelagius' optimistic view of human nature (shared by Aquinas, Julian of Norwich and Celtic spirituality) and a little less to Augustine's bleak view of human nature (as developed by the Reformers). Secondly, she points to the historical roots of modern thinking, whether marketplace ideology with its religious roots in Protestant innate depravity, the influence of double-entry bookkeeping on theology as well as the marketplace, or work as a sacred duty and moral obligation (and prosperity as its reward or assurance).

Wallace is keenly aware of the need for change at a government policy level and for more organizational support for different work-life balancing options. Yet she focuses on personal vision for balanced living. She questions and challenges assumptions that trap us in divided spheres and competitive drivenness: `Until such times as politicians and policy workers devise a new and better world, we have to live in this one. If we can't escape the time bind with the skill of Houdini, if we can't balance and leap and twist through our overscheduled weeks with the skill of an Olympic gymnast, how are we to survive?' (p.214)

Concluding the book is an overview of Ignatian discernment practices and their application to making choices necessary for survival, and having a life worth living. She asks `How do we - or how can we? - make decisions in ways that will help us center our lives upon compassionate wisdom, not the addictive get-and-spend competitions of consumerism?' (p.217) Exploring the help of Ignatius' steps for discernment is an example of how the book weaves together analysis from different disciplines - in this case spiritual direction, ethics and neuroscience.

Originally reviewed in Zadok Perspectives, No. 86 (Autumn), pp.24-25.

In a moment of pure serendipity I happened upon Selling Ourselves Short as a remaindered book. Exquisitely written & spiritually reflective, it is one of those select books that enriches with each reading. It informs way beyond it's purported ambit.