Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer within.
Maria Shriver
Hyperion

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On the pages of “Just Who Will You Be? Big Question, Little book, Answer Within” is found one more in a lengthy line of bestselling works written by a woman who has managed to whittle a forte for herself in a family of huge names, huge accomplishments and huge ambitions.

In her Acknowledgments Shriver states that who she is has a lot to do with herself, nevertheless, who she is also has everything to do with the numerous people who have touched her life along the way.

She says that it was during the period when she was sixteen and her father ran for Vice President of the United States that Shriver ascertained the exhilarating enthusiasm of the life of journalists. As she sat in the rear of her father’s campaign plane with all the working journalists; Shriver became conscious that the ones asking the questions were the ones having the better time.

It was then that she recognized that she wanted to be the woman on the TV screen, and, following her own college graduation that is exactly what she did. Before too much time passed she WAS Maria Shriver, TV newswoman.

And then, to her astonishment, her husband announced he would be running for Governor of California and Shriver faced the end of her life as a newswoman. After a quarter century Shriver found her career ended, and with that ended the persona she had been or so thought the author.

An appeal for Shriver to speak at her nephew’s graduation helped the journalist, wife, mother, and displaced writer focus her attention in another direction when those in the audience suggested to Shriver that she turn her speech into a book. Her speech was entitled ‘Just Who Will You Be.’

Shriver’s graduation speech presented to the class is offered for reader interest. In the text Shriver gave a description of some of her personal life history, she deliberated whether she had been bidden to speak for the reason that her husband is Arnold Schwarzenegger, or because she is a Kennedy, or perhaps it was due to the fact that Sargent Shriver, her father, established the Peace Corps, furthermore her mother Eunice launched the Special Olympics.

Since none of those notions seems to fit Shriver notes that she next mulled several other possibilities until she at last came up with the fame thing. It was she thought the fame thing, the desire of youth to become famous that was the motivating factor for the invitation – after all, Shriver is herself famous in her own right, and is surrounded by famous people and has been throughout her lifetime.

Shriver does acknowledge that fame can get the famous a better table in a crowded restaurant, or a meeting with someone who is into fame, however, she points out that no matter how good fame may look on the outside, it is only an image. Fame in and of itself, says Shriver, cannot make you happy, or feel worthy, or give life joy and meaning.

And that is when she comes to the most important aspect of her speech: Shriver points out that the only way to feel good about yourself, to feel worthy, and find life of meaning and joy is to find your own path, your own voice and to follow your own heart. When you live your own life and not an imitation of the life of someone else, THEN, it is possible to feel good about yourself.

Included in the work is a poem by Shriver entitled ‘Just Who Will You Be’ in which she Congratulates the graduates, asks them to take a look deep inside themselves, points out that everyone’s life is an uncharted course; so go out and live it without regret or remorse, reminds the graduates that it is OK to change your mind. She goes on to discuss career choices, and marriage and the need for perspective and understanding, and draws the ode to a close by pointing out that it is not what you have but what you have in your heart, how much joy do you give, and who are the people that you have helped that count.

Later as she talked with a friend about her speech and the trouble she had had in trying to come up with something to tell a group of youngsters embarking on their lives that Shriver began to realize that she too had been floundering, she had felt as tough she had lost who she was when she was no longer working as a journalist. Shriver says she felt like a shadow of herself and felt that if she could only get her old job back she would again be whole. However, after talking with her old network and being offered a position much as she had held before Shriver came to the realization that she is she, with or without the job. Change comes to us all, it is not always good or bad, but change comes and with it comes new outlook, new perspective and new understanding.

Shriver’s slim motivating manuscript is a sincere self-portrait of a woman in the midst of a changeover. Shriver was thrown for a loop when the longtime NBC anchorwoman, was asked to resign following her husband’s election as governor of California.

Shriver who depicts herself as a complete birthright bearing, accomplishment seeking people satisfying, Good Girl overachiever, came to appreciate that asking ourselves not merely what we want to do or we want to be but who we want to be is essential at each juncture of our lives, and is not something we do only as we are beginning our own lives in the world following marriage or graduation or beginning a job.

Shriver’s highly readable fashion for writing; make „Just Who Will You Be? Big Question. Little Book. Answer within.“ interesting, intriguing and truly motivational. Happy to recommend.