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I read The Seeker and the Sage with a highlighter in my hand and my fixer brain running at full speed.
What The Seeker and the Sage taught me about being a fixer
On the surface it is Brigid Delaney talking to a Stoic “Mayor” about philosophy. Underneath, it is a book about people like me, people who see injustice, feel it in our bones, and then throw ourselves at it until there is not much left of us.
The line that hooked me early is the one I keep coming back to, that
our actions, our character and how we treat others are the only things we can control. Everything else, including what people say, what they click on, what they believe, is outside our hands.
As a truthteller who writes about power and abuse of power, that is both confronting and oddly comforting. I am used to working as if the outcome depends on me, as if more effort will eventually force the world to behave. The Mayor calmly points out that this is a recipe for misery. If your peace depends on the right verdict, the right headline, the right council decision, your peace is always at risk.
What the book keeps circling back to is the idea that the reward is doing the thing. The effort is the reward. You can line up your arrow, take care, use your skill, but you cannot control the wind. For someone wired to fix, that is a hard sentence to swallow. But it has also helped me see that my job is to tell the truth clearly, act with courage and fairness, and then let go of everything I never controlled in the first place.
The other idea that hit a nerve is about reality. Do you live in the world as it is, or in a story in your head that makes everything sweeter or more dangerous than it needs to be. As someone who spends a lot of time inside systems that are genuinely fraught and dangerous, this felt sharp. The Mayor’s answer is not to pretend things are fine, but to accept reality, think critically, and work within that reality instead of fighting the fact that it is hard.
The book is also strong on character. Courage, justice, wisdom and temperance are not abstract words here. They are habits. You practise them. You pick them up again when you drop them. You decide how to respond when you are angry, frightened or exhausted. As someone who is passionate about injustice, it reminded me that fury alone will not build the coalitions needed for change. Calm is not capitulation, it is a condition for good decisions.
Most of all, The Seeker and the Sage has helped me see my boundaries with clearer edges. I am still a fixer. I still care about corrupt systems, silenced voices, unfair outcomes. That part of me is not going anywhere. But this book has nudged me to shift the centre of gravity, from “Did I win” to “Did I act with integrity, did I stay true to my values, did I treat people well, including myself.”
If you are someone who carries the weight of the world, who feels responsible for outcomes you never fully controlled, this book offers more than ideas. It offers a way to keep your heart open without letting it be consumed.