Martha Beck's Five (New) Best Pieces of Advice

By Martha Beck

Feel like your life is out of balance? Get life-coach Martha Beck's personal rules to live by!


The thing about giving advice for a living is that you start to see it everywhere. Shakespeare must have been in his self-help phase when he wrote that there were "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones." I find life lessons in everything from showering to origami. Walking my dogs, which I've just done, leaves me bursting with insights. Since my loved ones have heard far more advice than anyone should have to take, I'm going to foist this dog-walking wisdom on you.

Life Lesson Number One: You cannot feed a beagle all it wants.

My beagle, Cookie, is wild about the golf course, where desert dog walkers like me go to avoid cacti. Cookie knows that the course is frequented by a kindly lady who gives out dog biscuits. This sends him into a warbling tap dance of anticipatory joy, as he lusts for food the way…well, the way a beagle lusts for food. There's no hyperbole more extreme than that. Beagles are genetically wired to be opportunistic eaters. This is why Cookie, at 14, is basically a manatee with paws. He invariably finds more calories than he exercises away.

Sure enough, Cookie sees the Biscuit Lady! He heads toward her at a breakneck waddle, begging. "Please, missus!" he pleads, in the tremulous voice of a fat Dickensian orphan, "please, anything…" Biscuit Lady tosses him a treat, hoping to satisfy him. Dream on. I've seen Cookie inhale a pound cake the size of his own torso and swear with his next breath that he's never, ever been fed. He simply cannot be satisfied.

Remind you of anyone?

There are among us people I call human beagles. They can't get enough—enough love, praise, attention, control. Psychologists categorize them as borderline personalities, narcissists, etc., etc., but all you need to remember is this: You cannot satiate them. Don't even try.

Human beagles can be identified by a sensation that I think of as drain-strain. Sometimes it registers slowly, as though you're a maple tree tapped for its syrup. Sometimes you can feel your energy being cannibalized in great, horrifying mouthfuls. Either way, drain-strain's signature combination of exhaustion, aversion, and resentment means you're throwing resources into an insatiable gullet. It's bad for both you and the human beagles. They can feel satisfied only by creating an inner supply of happiness and empowerment. "Feeding" them leaves both of you weaker and hungrier.