Book Review: Answers from Within by Olivia S. Benson

by Olivia S. BensonKindle Direct Publishing Platform
reviewed by Maria Okorn

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“Each human arrives in the material world with a purpose, and with all the gifts, talents, skills, and abilities necessary to fulfill it,” contends Olivia Benson in Answers from Within: Answers to Work Life Issues in the Age of Spiritual Evolution. Bestowing the encouragement to uncover those gifts, talents, skills, and abilities, the book motivates us to manifest what “GEFS” (God/Energy/Force/Spirit) has created within our being. In doing so, we will experience true fulfillment in our work lives and beyond. An experienced attorney as well as a meta-physicist with a diverse spiritual background, Benson speaks from her own life, detailing the means by which she uncovered her true “Code” and found how to best serve the world with her gifts.

Highlighting current and historical individuals, Benson illustrates the contributions that others have made to model how we can follow in their footsteps by honoring our own Codes.  Additionally, the book takes an in-depth examination at groups that have been marginalized—women, minorities, and the elderly— and implores us to lift each other up and out of the trenches of injustice. She entreats, “Any time we limit the ability of any human to participate by using his or her unique capabilities and talents, we do a disservice to humanity.” Through direct questioning, moral, ethical, and philosophical analysis is fostered, asking us to reconsider our previously held beliefs and to “conceive of infinite possibilities”: to break down the barriers and societal constraints humans have constructed.

Those possibilities might include a major shift in career or lifestyle, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are, willingly or forcefully, reframing our image of our ideal work life. “We need a completely different work paradigm,” Benson insists. “To create that, we must examine our beliefs about work— both conscious and unconscious— and clean out the old information in order to load a new program that actually works for today.” Answers from Within posits that we move to change our collective societal mindset around what it looks like to work and to gain fulfillment during our time on “Planet Earth University”, especially as mortality ages climb and our notion of retirement shifts. Benefits of a multigenerational work environment are detailed, and the analysis illuminates how each stage of life provides unique benefits to any office, team, or group.

If you do not already believe that you were put on Planet Earth with a specific calling, let this book convince and guide you. Benson urges us to imagine a world where we discover what we were made to do, and to experience the fulfillment and authentic joy that comes from living out our true calling. Above all, Answers from Within encourages us to believe in ourselves and each other, and to recognize the critical role we each play in the story of humanity.

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