It’s our fault

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
25 November '10

It’s probably unrealistic to expect more than a handful of folks with an inordinate capacity for useless information to recall Portia Nelson, the late American lyricist, artist, performer and 20th-century renaissance woman.

Her most widely quoted creation was a 1976 poem “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters.” As hippiedom transmogrified into New Age, “Autobiography” became an instant hit with all sorts of self-help and self-discovery groups, emerging as a cultural icon, reprinted in numerous publications and on pretty posters.

Its premise was simple yet astute. Life’s like a walk down the street. If we keep stumbling into the same hole, we alone are to blame. More famous as “There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk,” it went like this:

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