Sage: Live Your Dreams, but Don't Be a Bitch Doing It

There is a lot of advice out there to help us to live our dreams, but how do we do that without alienating ourselves from those around us, even if they are the ones that do not believe in what we are trying to achieve?

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

While reading Gone With The Wind, my theme this week, this was the central spiritual lesson that I kept thinking about--what Scarlett O'Hara did right and what she did wrong, getting all that she had wanted physically yet losing everything that meant anything to her spiritually. 

What Scarlett O'Hara Taught Me---the  RIGHT stuff:

• Be charming--The very first line of GWTW is, "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm." Much of what Scarlett achieves throughout the novel is because of her charm. Charm is having an active and responsive face, a pleasant and varying, almost musical tone of voice, and a talent in all-important small talk with a good dose of light-hearted humour. People love to be entertained and put a lot of value on charm, especially in groups. Be charming and you'll discover people are much more willing to do what you would like them to do, which is why charm always wins out over anger when things are not going your way. Scarlett had this talent nailed--she snagged three husbands and grew her lumber business with her charm, effectively raising herself out of the poverty she had found herself in after the war.

• Be practical--While many of her class floundered in poverty because they could not bring themselves to let go of their genteel, pre-war ideals (like weak-ass Ashley Wilkes), Scarlett evolved with the times and got to work, breaking ground with traditions and focusing on what had to be done. She had to whip her family into submission, sacrifice her reputation, take control of the situation, and do many things herself, no matter how hard or how unlike anything she had ever done before. She was imminently practical, which was her biggest attraction for Rhett, a man who moved with the times no matter what people said about him. We love Scarlett for this more than anything---she knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it, being resourceful, courageous, independent-minded and hard-working. She broke away from the herd and got what she wanted--almost. She had what Margaret Mitchell called gumption--the quality that sets apart the survivors from the rest during hard times. 

Clark Gable as Rhett Butler

What Scarlett did WRONG:

• Don't be a BITCH. Scarlett was an epic bitch! It is one thing to be an assertive woman. It is another to be a woman without respect for those around you. That's the BITCH element---the superiority complex that allows someone to say nasty things to other people, to be completely insincere,  to gossip, to thwart other people's dreams (like when Scarlett steals her own sister's beau for herself), to be publicly critical of others, and to constantly be comparing yourself to others, as Scarlett does with Melanie, wondering how Melanie can command the respect of the town, and why such a "mousy" woman has the luck of being married to Ashley. Deep down Scarlett didn't have what she wanted (Ashley), so was miserable and nasty because of it. Bitches are always unhappy people at heart! Truly happy people treat all people with respect, always, as Melanie does with Scarlett, knowingly ignoring her nastiness all her life.

• Know What You Are---Scarlett fails to see her own roguish, manipulative nature, only coming to terms with the fact that she is more like her hot-headed father than her much admired, angelic mother later in the novel. Knowing who you are begins with separating your identity from your parents; with seeing them as people and yourself as separate from their preferences and ways. It then is a matter of accepting your faults and letting go of ideals (who you think you should be).  Rhett knew Scarlett better than Scarlett knew herself, and Scarlett only realizes that this is why he is right for her until it is too late. Throughout the book Rhett's riveting one-on-one conversations with Scarlett serve as a clear mirror that she refuses to look at; only he can talk to her in her own language and explain back to her her own motivations, often exasperating and confusing Scarlett with his perceptive praise and criticism. Scarlett is also oblivious to how much she needed Melanie until Melanie's death, one of the great tragedies of the novel.

All men should strive

to learn before they die

what they are running from, and to, and why.

~James Thurber

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