Self-help can be no help

Quick fixes often make the underlying problems worse. Letting go of the desire for self-improvement is the answer

by Ed Halliwel
The Guardian
 Wednesday 15 July 2009 11.30 BST

"Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful". So wrote Norman Vincent Peale, author of the 1952 bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale's prescription for contentment has been regurgitated and recycled in thousands of self-help books over the past half-century, but despite a never-ending avalanche of sales, the alluringly simple "think happy-be happy" formula hasn't made much of a dent in mental suffering. According to the World Health Organisation, depression is set to be the planet's second biggest cause of disability by 2020.

Now, a study published in Psychological Science confirms what many people have discovered from personal experience - not only do crude positive thinking techniques often fail, but for some they can be counterproductive. Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario evaluated people's self-esteem levels before and after they were asked to repeat typical mantras such as, "I am a loveable person", and found that while the affirmations helped those who already felt good about themselves, they made subjects with low self-worth feel even worse.

For those of us weary of what psychiatrist Jimmie Holland calls the "tyranny of positive thinking", these results are more likely to boost our mood than ploughing through The Secret. It's not that optimism is a bad thing (it isn't), or that cultivating cheerfulness can't lead to a happier experience of life (it can), but in their eagerness to sell blanket positivity as a surefire cure for gloom, the self-help gurus miss out on a crucial first step to transformation - a willingness to accept your current circumstances.

Viewed from a Buddhist angle, self-help is an oxymoron. Any technique designed to bolster the self is bound to lead to more, not less suffering, because clinging to ego is considered the source of anguish in the first place. However, when we let go of the desire for self-improvement, we can relax with the mind instead of badgering it into well-being. By surrendering the battle with neurotic fixations, paradoxically they start to fall away, or at very least, the space created by dropping the struggle makes them seem less powerful, and loom less large.

Mature spiritual traditions tend to be good at developing this spacious mindset. Magnificent architecture, inspiring liturgies, and a community of practitioners dedicated to discovering ultimate reality, are reminders to expand beyond concerns about the self and see them in a panoramic perspective (to be "a grain of sand with gigantic eyes" as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once put it). But neither is it a preserve of the religious - Richard Dawkins has written movingly of the awe to be experienced when opening up to a vast and wonderful natural world.

Crude positive thinking on the other hand, and self-help in general, tends towards the small-minded. Spawned in our materialist, consumerist culture, it locates problems and solutions within the tight confines of the individual (me, me, me!). This ignores the fact that our circumstances, and our thought patterns, are part of a wider set of causes and conditions - genetics, family history, social and economic situation, the existential limitations of birth, ageing, sickness and death - over which we may have little or no control. By telling people they can take full and immediate charge of their lives with a bit of early morning mental jiu-jitsu, advocates of positive thinking end up making some people feel even more frustrated - adding the guilt of failure to depression.

The authors of the Ontario study came to just that conclusion. Affirmations which fly in the face of facts, or negative perception of the facts, cruelly highlight the contrast between how some people would like to feel and how they actually feel. This then become another stick for self-flagellation, a reminder of all the ways in which that person feels inadequate.

Perhaps this is why the most promising new psychological treatments focus less on positive thinking and self-improvement, but on developing qualities such as acceptance, mindful awareness, wisdom and compassion. Indeed, out of five evidence-based recommendations for mental health made in the government's Foresight report last autumn, four could be considered recastings of traditional "spiritual" values - "Connect" (love others), "Keep Learning" (develop wisdom), "Take Notice" (meditate), and "Give" (be charitable). Whether you decide to view these strategies as spiritual is irrelevent - they lead to wellbeing irrespective of your take on the existence of God or the hereafter.

With his books Turning The Mind into An Ally,and Ruling Your World, Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche joked that he was trying to start a new publishing genre - "other-help" - to rival the mountains of ego-fuelling, Peale copycats stacked up at WH Smith and Waterstones. Clearly the genre has yet to takeoff, but the growing popularity of authors grounded in the acceptance approach (Pema Chödron, for example) suggests that more people are realising their minds cannot be cajoled into confidence by growling "I'm A Tiger" in front of the mirror.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/15/self-help-positive-thinking

This essay was too good to not pass along.  Enjoy!


The Generation M Manifesto

8:01 AM Wednesday July 8, 2009
by Umair Haque
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/07/today_in_capitalism_20_1.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-TOPICEMAIL-_-JUL_2009-_-FINANCE1


Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair and the Edge Economy Community

 Sometime a while back, in an email to an acquaintance, I mentioned my current job as a financial analyst.  The reader commented about the typical conservative, or as he put it, ‘starched-shirt-for-each-day-of-the-week' accountant stereotype. For the sake of clarity (and perhaps self-respect), I feel compelled to explain that I am not a corporate money manager by training or even by intent, but more or less stumbled into it a few years ago.  My search for meaningful vocation actually began much earlier:  when I was two-and-a-half, to be exact. I asked my mother why she was getting fat.  She said a baby was growing inside her and that soon he would come out to play. I said I wanted to be a mommy and have my own baby.  She told me I couldn't, that I was too little, but maybe someday.  I cried.

When I was seven, I learned about movie stars and applause.  I acted out little scenes in my head, in the dark of my bed at night. When I was ten, I discovered graph paper and drew dozens of tiny house floor plans, complete with furniture and doorknobs and even sink drains.  When I was thirteen, I wondered why the world wasn't a better place. I learned in school about The Constitution and how We, The People once put our heads together and tried to make things better.  I decided to become a lawyer and the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice.  But Sandra Day O'Connor (bless her) beat me to that job.  Disappointed, I settled on becoming President.

When I was fifteen, my father bought me a guitar, and taught me chords and the words to all the songs he knew.  I sang protest hymns for puzzled sailors at open mikes in run-down bars.  I suspect I was the only tenth-grader at T.C. Williams High School who had ever heard of Buffy Saint-Marie or "Alice's Restaurant."  I'm sure I was the only one who understood how all the flowers had gone to graveyards.   At sixteen, I kept a journal and grew a thriving babysitting business.  My friends could hardly understand why I willingly spent Saturday evenings with cranky toddlers.  But I didn't mind diapers and I had a knack with stories and bedtimes, so there was little squawling and ultimately more pocketchange for books about Ireland.

Seventeen, eighteen, I earned mostly A's in school, even Mr. Kaplan's chemistry class; my teachers said I could become anything I wanted, and I loved French.  I applied to Penn State to study linguistics with high hopes of becoming a translator for the U.N. or joining the Peace Corps and living in a grass-hutted village in Africa.

My parents divorced that summer.

For three semesters, I attended a local university where I didn't much hope for anything. I ate little and slept. A lot.  Eventually, I got a job as a clerk for a social services agency the winter I turned 20. I typed adoption papers and answered the phones.  I was trained in crisis intervention and at least once a month, I talked some desperate soul out of suicide. But eventually, burning out, I became cynical, frustrated with all the people I thought weren't trying hard enough. I wanted to change the world, but it seemed like such a slow and impossible process.

At 24, I worked as a media production assistant for an international education association.  I got a lot of satisfaction out of managing the monthly production of an audio version of our association magazine.  We taught teachers how to teach better and at last I felt like I was part of something. I went to school at night and finished my associate's degree in liberal arts. Then after a 12-week yoga class, an unrelated visit to the chiropractor, and a few articles on health and homeopathy, I became curious about The Mind-Body Connection. I spent eighteen months studying massage therapy.  I can still name the eight bones of the wrist and the four muscles of the quadriceps.

One afternoon when I was twenty-seven and still working at the education association, Liz, our receptionist, asked if I'd be interested in helping out with a community theater production.

"They need an assistant stage manager and I think you'd be good."

"What exactly would I have to do?"

"Not much really," she explained, "Mainly just help out with lines and props. And stay calm when all hell breaks loose."

With divorced parents, an alcoholic father, and three years' volunteer work including suicide intervention, plus a healthy dose of naïve over-confidence, I felt up to the task.  As always, Fate decided to smite me down with the traditional baptism by fire. The stage manager I was assisting got in a car accident two weeks before the show opened.  She was fine.  Her car (and thus her transportation to the theater) was demolished.  I survived the "load-in," excruciating hours of tech rehearsals, an Irish wolfhound (the production was King Lear), atrocious costumes, kerosene torches (for the storm scene), a screaming director, a set with paint drying a mere two hours before opening curtain, and the usual self-involved, prone-to-tantrums, hack-filled cast.

I loved it.

Two years later, once the professional offers started trickling in, I quit my day job to take classes full-time to finish my bachelor's degree in English, with a minor in Art History.  On evenings and weekends I worked for a small, but acclaimed theater in downtown Washington, DC.  Between productions, I pulled perfect espresso shots with dread-locked Dominic in Misha's Coffeehouse. At home on my computer, now perpetually dialed in to AmericaOnline, I wrote short stories and tapped out the beginnings of a play about email infatuation. Nora Ephram would eventually steal my idea for her 1998 movie, "You've Got Mail."  In school, I discovered that I preferred the Dutch Masters to the French Impressionists, and I finally understood what Warhol intended with his Marilyns. I studied Cultural Anthropology and took a stab at Elementary Latin. At the theater, I met brilliant designers and several wonderful actors. I tolerated the other unkind and untalented divas, and found, much to my dismay, that directors, no matter how "professional," still scream in tech rehearsals.

In the end, when tuition proved expensive and a stage manager's paycheck wouldn't pay the rent, I went back to work, still lacking a four-year degree. After floating through two "temp" assignments, I wound up as "Educational Resources Manager" for a non-profit association devoted to the field of industrial security, which was at the time, quite the dull snorefest as this was pre-9/11.  Tasked with ‘exploring alternative means of delivering professional development programming' and ‘other duties as assigned,' I learned about web-based training and audio-streaming. I loved the job, but hated the environment, which was passionless. I was surrounded by people just doing time, lacking any specific plans for doing anything else. We were all bound by the golden handcuffs of a decent salary and healthy fringe benefits. Depressed and disillusioned, I took a five-week sabbatical.

To please my creditors and keep Mum from worrying, I eventually took a job in the information technology division of a mega-telecommunications company. Basically, I worked with a bunch of project managers who worked with a bunch of programmers who worked with a bunch of computer systems.  In a nutshell, I counted people and money. Maybe I sold out, but the folks there were smart and creative, and at least they gave a damn about their work. If nothing else, there was the employee discount on long distance phone service.  After five years, I quit Corporate America, and began working for public broadcasting.

So there, that's what I do. For now. Because lately, I've been thinking of Colorado and writing The Great American Novel from the shadow of the Rockies.  Or finally putting down to paper all the children's stories gathering moss in my head. I've also become interested in photography and design, which makes art school half-plausible. Owning a houseboat on Puget Sound or spending a year in Italy also sound enticing.  And there's always the possibility of a trek through the Himalayas or a stint at a university pursuing a graduate degree in Buddhist Studies or Environmental Journalism.  It's hard to say. What I will tell you, though, is that I haven't given up entirely on that long-held notion of having children. And sometimes, late at night in my bed, I still practice my Oscar acceptance speech.

Just in case.

 My mom doesn't know I'm not truly Lutheran.  When it comes to discussing religion with her and my stepdad, I have a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  Oh, I'm sure she has her suspicions.  But I think one of her fondest hopes is that someday, after being raised Lutheran and attending a Lutheran school from kindergarten through ninth grade, I'll rejoin the fold and become a member of a local Lutheran congregation.  She'd probably be content if I regularly attended any Protestant church.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm happy to discuss broader spiritual concepts with her, like compassion and morality, etc.  But I believe the nitty-gritty, where rubber meets road aspects of faith are much more personal and individual.  And since it would in fact pain her (and probably pain her greatly) to know my deeper thoughts (and doubts) about her particular brand of religion, I keep some of them to myself.  I don't feel that I'm being hypocritical on this matter or that I'm living some weird double-life.  It's not like I'm out stealing livestock for moonlit rites or forking over my life savings to some televangelist who claims God will smite him if we don't raise a bajillion dollars by Wednesday.  I simply don't feel any particular need to wear my religious heart emblazoned on my everyday sleeve.  I don't experience some Born-Agains' Turrett's-like compulsion to proclaim my faith (or lack thereof) to anyone who happens by.  Except here, on my weblog, where the reader is subjected to even the smallest half-thought that flitters through my consciousness, regular or sub.  So, what follows is a brief accounting of my spiritual evolution, which, like most (and frankly all) human endeavors, is a work in progress.  What will I think or believe ten years from now?  Hard to say.  But here at least is the door to how things started, along with a window into some of my deeper thoughts.

My mother was raised Methodist but became a Lutheran in her early twenties after noticing as a teenager that the Lutheran kids in her small hometown of Hickory, North Carolina, seemed to have their shit together a little better than the Methodist kids.  This may have been more a product of the public school she attended vs. the private high school run by the Lutherans, more the result of lower student-to-teacher ratios, etc, etc.  At any rate, it all made an impression on her and so, at some point in her twenties, she became a Lutheran.  As a result, when I was growing up, we went to church regularly and I attended a Lutheran school from kindergarten through ninth grade (which is a lot like Catholic school, but with zero nuns and more potluck dinners).  One of the biggest things I gained - not just in the class room, but by the very fine example my mother set, was the importance of compassion.  And not just the talking "I'm sorry you're having a bad life" kind, but the living "you're not alone - here, take my coat, have some food, what else do you need?" kind.

As for my father, he subscribes to no particular creed, except perhaps "to thine own self be true."  He has always encouraged my brother and me to think for ourselves, to question authority, to be curious about the world, and to always maintain an open mind. As a teenager, it was not uncommon for me to stay up with my father, long into the wee hours (and on more than one occasion until dawn on a weekend), discussing current events, politics, history, literature, poetry, science, ethics, and of course, philosophy and religion.  He challenged my thoughts and opinions, not so much in a sparring for sparring's sake way, but more to make me think outside the box and beyond the walls of my existing knowledge and experience.  Our discussions would often start by him calling me into the living room, handing me a book, and saying something like, "Hey, I came across something really interesting.  Here, read page 27 out loud and let's talk about it.  I'd like to know what you think."  He'd stretch out on the couch, I'd curl up in the wing-back armchair, and another late night talk session would begin.

During this very stimulating time in my life, my mind echoed with the din of an eclectic gathering of voices from the West:  Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Rand.  Shakespeare, Emerson, Thoreau. Dickinson, Hemingway, Irving, Pirsig.  Rilke and Goethe.  Gradually, other minds and other stories began occupying space on my bookshelves and in my brain:  Lao-Tzu, Rumi, The Bhagavadgita, Hafiz, B.K.S. Iyengar.  The Wheels of Eastern Thought began turning inside my head, slowly but surely.  The motion was subtle, but nonetheless earnest.  In terms of religion, I began drifting outside the familiar harbor of Lutheranism.  I learned about other groups, including Quakers and Unitarian Universalists.  Their egalitarian views on salvation somehow rang true to me.  I never much bought into this notion of a vengeful God who would damn us to eternity for lack of faith.  [That didn't seem very fatherly to me at all.  What dad says to his kid, "think this, or, not only are you out of my life forever, I'll see that you spend eternity in anguish."]  Then I read about the history of the early Christian church and learned that parts of the Bible had been excised by powerful men (like the Council at Nicene).  I discovered that beliefs like Christ's divinity and the notion of the Holy Trinity, didn't come into vogue until at least a century or later after Christ's death.  They certainly weren't a part of his original teachings.  More and more, God began to seem less like an Omniscient Being with complete control (whether actively exerted or not) over the minutia of my life, and more like a law of physics.  Perhaps George Lucas had it right:  there wasn't a God, just a Force that flows through the Universe.  Like gravity or electricity.  Something that could be help humanity, but didn't necessarily have the power to dictate our lives or judge our worthiness.

In August 2001, a dear family friend, a woman who was like a mother to me, passed away after a four-year battle with cancer.  I felt numb and raw, all at the same time.  Her passing came as no surprise, but the fierceness of my grief overwhelmed me.  I pondered deeply this thing we call Death, which led me to also ponder deeply this thing we call Life.  Then, on September 11, the unthinkable occurred.  On that day, I got up as usual, and like a thousand other days, headed to my job on the 7th floor of an office building in Arlington, across the street from the Pentagon.  We all saw the news, we all know what happened that day.  In the weeks and months and years that followed, like many other Americans, I began my spiritual quest in earnest:  What is the true nature of good and evil?  What is death?  What is life?  Why are we here?  What is the true source of happiness?  I thought often of something I'd once read about Einstein.  Supposedly someone asked him, referring to scientific inquiry, "What is the most important question for humans to ask?"  Einstein, thinking beyond science, reportedly said something like, "The most important question to answer for yourself:  ‘Is the Universe a friendly place or not?' 

My quest led me to Buddhism, specifically Tibetan Buddhism.  I haven't found all the answers yet, and I don't expect to.  Besides, Buddhism doesn't give the answers.   It doesn't provide a cheat-sheet or a short-cut. No one to pay, no "Hail, Mary's to say, no quick or easy salvation.  Buddhism is simply the product of one guy, 2,500 years ago saying, "I've thought deeply about the true nature of reality and here's what I think (the Four Noble Truths).  And here's one way (the Eightfold Path) to navigate this thing we call Life." I was raised on the Ten Commandments along with "Do Unto Others as You Would Have Done To You," "Love the Neighbor as Thyself, " etc.  But this didn't really help me get through the times when my neighbor was really pissing me off.  To me, the Judeo-Christian ethic is a wonderful moral code.  But the writings of the Bible, for me at least, don't show me how to handle day-to-day situations when I feel anger or resentment or hatred or selfishness.  How to handle the times when I feel jealousy or self-pity.  How to avoid closing down and shutting myself off.  Christianity and its code provide a good compass, pointing in a very worthy direction.  But it doesn't necessarily help me learn how to walk in that direction, or navigate obstacles.  For me at least, the Buddhist philosophy offers a specific way of viewing and dealing with the negative aspects of life, even and perhaps especially modern life, while at the same time, providing a means for achieving serenity, equanimity, and even happiness.

I like Buddhism for its elegant simplicity:  Life is full of suffering.  It arises when we cling to our own desires of how people, things, and situations should be, not how they really are.  We can end suffering by ending the craving and clinging.  And there are specific ways to do this.

I like Buddhism for its egalitarian approach and its emphasis on direct personal experience.  The Buddha didn't consider himself divine.  He simply proclaimed to be awake and that anyone and everyone else can "wake up" (to the true nature of reality) and can work to end their own suffering.  The Buddha also said that, more important than his own teachings are an individual's own personal experience, basically "when you find something that agrees with reason and is conductive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it!"

I like Buddhism for its emphasis on the present moment, not the afterlife, and on the importance of meditation.  I'm fascinated by meditation.  A series of recently-completed studies are now showing important physical and psychological benefits of meditation.  I too enjoy the benefits of regular meditation.  I may not always like it in the moment.  Especially those days when I'm tired, when my body aches, when my mind is jumping around like a treeful of screeching macaques.  But somehow, through the meditation process, a small space is created, a small door is opened.  And through that crack, joy winks back at me.  For a moment, I glimpse a possibility.  The possibility of training my mind to look at situations from all angles, even when I'm sure the other guy's wrong.  The possibility of opening my heart to care for and understand not just the people I love, not just the people I like, but the people I don't like, and even the people I want to hate.  The possibility of being fully present in the moment, not mired in the past or distracted by possible futures.

As for many of the rituals associated with Tibetan Buddhism, at face value they can seem strange or quaint.  But so can rituals of Christianity or Judaism.  And to some people, rituals like communion -- "Take and eat of my body?" -- or circumcision appear downright barbaric.  For me, the Tibetan traditions serve simply as a way of focusing attention, creating a setting or background for learning, or serving as a reminder of certain principles.  For example, Tibetan Buddhism refers to all sorts of deities (in part due to the influence of Hinduism from India and also local religious traditions such as Bon).  But to me, and many other Buddhists, these deities are archtypes, anthropomorphication of higher principles.  So a depiction of the Tibetan goddess Tara reminds us through her most well-known virtue, to be compassionate.  A simple sign saying "Be Compassionate" would probably serve just as well, but wouldn't be nearly as interesting to look at.  It'd only get to the left-brain, not necessarily the right. 

The Buddha once said that his teachings should be like a raft to get one across a river.  But when you do reach the other side, you no longer need the raft, so set it aside and continue on.  In the end, all the bells and incense and chants and prayers of Tibetan Buddhism (or any other religion for that matter) are simply tools.  They are the map, but not the actual territory.  So, I'm not at all averse to participating in other religious traditions.  And I do still pray because I think stating a good intention whether it's "May Aunt Mary recover from the flu" or "May all beings dwell in peace," is a good practice.  Whether or not some Great Being Out There hears me is beside the point.  *I* hear me.  And I can't explain how, but it creates a shift in how I approach my life, in how I interact with those around me.

So, there you have it.  These days, I'm walking Life's Path wearing Buddhist moccasins.  For me, right now, they're the best brand out there when it comes to traversing rugged terrain.  But I know that lots of other people are partial to lots of other brands.  And that's more than fine.  My fondest hope is simply that one day (and soon) we humans will stop fighting over who has the best walking style or shoes, and instead, spend our time enjoying the trail and sharing our brief and precious journey together.