My Final Thoughts about Eat Pray Love

The point of this blog is not to critique the books I'm reading as a whole, but I find that it's hard not to write at least about my reaction to the books. This week, the book I read has been made into a major motion picture, and I saw the film first. I'm glad I saw the film first, and read the book second. In this case, it worked.

The only thing I didn't like about seeing the movie first was that I pictured the characters as they were cast for the film, instead of how they are described in the book. The one character in particular that is markedly different is Felipe. In the movie, Javier Bardem plays the character, and although he looks like he's older than Julia Roberts, you definitely don't see the almost 20 year age difference that the book describes. He doesn't have white hair and isn't balding like the real Felipe. I have to say though, that I'm glad he was cast the way he was for the movie. If I had read the book first, it would have bugged me, but seeing the movie as a separate entity, I understand why they made the change for the big screen.

I could spend a lot longer on the differences between the book and the movie, but that's not really what I'm here for, right?!

So overall, I really enjoyed both the movie and the book. I love that it made me think about my own life in a way that I was desperately trying to do on my own, but didn't have the strength, or know-how, or whatever it was that I needed to do so. I love that in the end, she found the balance that she was looking for, and she changed the lives of others along the way. 

"So that's the final lesson, isn't it? When you set out in the world to help yourself, you inevitably end up helping...Tutti (everybody)." p 274

I am looking forward to the sequel to this book, Committed, but I want to sit with this one for a while before I jump into it. Next week I'll be reading The Doctor's Wife, by Elizabeth Brundage. I picked it up at Walmart today, and it looked like a good read. Hope I'm right! 

Some of My Favorite Quotes

Eat, Pray, Love is full of great quotes. So many, in fact, that I'm going to share a few of favorites here.

 "It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." Page 95

I think this is so important for so many reasons. As a woman, and more importantly as a mom, I find myself trying to live up to the expectations of others. And by others, I really mean my own misguided expectations of what I think people expect of a mother in her thirties.

As little girls, we all picture our grown-up lives and what we want it to include. For me, the fantasy always included a handsome husband, a couple of kids and a full-time job where I was able to be prove how wonderful and smart I was! Even though not everyone wants what I wanted, I still thought that that is what was expected of me. I didn't work long and hard in school to be a stay at home mom, living on my husband's money! But somehow, that's what I'm doing. Sort of.

The older I have gotten, the more that fantasy has changed. Being a stay at home became a privilege and a luxury that many mothers wished they could afford. I can now appreciate what I have and I feel so lucky to be the one that has raised my children- every day. I still feel the need to try and show the world how wonderful and smart I am, but I'm trying to live MY life better-- not the life I think I should have had, or the one I thought society/my friends/my family may have expected of me. I no longer strive for perfection, which is remarkably freeing!
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"You're like a dog at the dump, baby-- you're just lickin' at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you're not careful, that can's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it." page 149

This little bit of wisdom can be applied to so many situations in life. Whether you're hanging on to the "one that got away," or you can't let go of the guilt from past mistakes, it's usually just better to drop it! Let it go and accept it for what it is. Life is too short to stay focused on the negative.

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This next one pretty much speaks for itself. If we could all do this there would be a lot less religious strife in the world.

"I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different religion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, 'I agree with you.' Then you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion." p 241

In other words, can't we all just get along?!
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"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around  the world looking for it." p 260

I believe this whole heartedly. Happiness isn't an accident or a stroke of luck. Like most worthy things in life, one has to put in some effort...take some personal responsibility. I think that it is up to each of us to decide our own destiny.

Perhaps this is a concept that is easier for me to subscribe to, since I don't put my happiness in God's hands.  I know enough people who give Him the glory for all good things in their life, and fault themselves for any negative happenings. I don't get that. But if you think about it, you can believe in both. If you believe God will provide the happiness that you seek, then your job, your  personal responsibility is to pray, and do the things that make you feel closer to God. Either way, happiness doesn't just land in your lap.
                        
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And finally, a quote about love. That is, after all, what this book was about, right?

"To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life." p 298

I love this quote in particular because I think that's the beauty of love...it's knocks you off your feet, making you unbalanced, but without it, there is no balance in your life.
                      

52 Books: I’m not the only one

When I started this blog at 2am on a Monday, I didn't have the wherewithal or the forethought to Google the name that I had chosen to find out just how many other people are doing exactly what I'm doing. Apparently, there are a TON of people who have taken the '52 books in 52 weeks' challenge. I'm not sure where the challenge originated, and I don't really care, but I find it fascinating to read why others have chosen to take the challenge. It seems that many of the blogs dedicated to this challenge are set up to review the books themselves. I am definitely no competition there! I'm not sure how many of these writers are trying to make a name for themselves, or how many are searching for the balance that I seek. The problem is that I don't want to read too many of their entries, because I don't want to be influenced. I don't want to read a book because I liked someone's synopsis, or their reaction to the book. Similarly, I don't want to not read a book based on someone else's reaction to it.

So I am going to pretend that this is an original concept and there aren't hundreds of people all over the world doing precisely what I'm doing at this very moment. After all, they don't have the same frame of reference that I do. They hopefully don't have the same take on life either, making my blog interesting for what it offers that other do not. I will perhaps browse those other blogs when I have finished my journey, but I will resist for now.

The Permeable Membrane

For many reasons the following passage speaks to me. I loved it in the movie and I couldn't wait to find it in the book, so I could read it, chew on it for a bit, and then fully digest it. I know people who always live like this, and I have been guilty of it myself from time to time. It's dangerous, and it doesn't typically work out.

"To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time—everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family….I will give you all of this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else." Page 65, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I am sharing this passage because I think it's important, for women especially, to take control of their own happiness. Being in love shouldn't be a chore, and it shouldn't deplete you. It is supposed to lift you up, keep you warm at night, and keep you sane during the tough times. If you lose yourself in that one person, in that love, then what's left to be lifted? If your only way out, is to start all over loving someone new, then what have you gained?

Finding balance is a huge theme in this book, and now in my life. I want to feel whole…content… fulfilled. But I won't rely on someone else to make me feel that way. I am in control of my destiny. I will love with all of my heart, whether it's for my husband, my kids, my extended family, my friends, or my neighbors. There is a joy in loving openly, and I intend to welcome it. And just as fiercely as I feel that love, I will protect it. I have worked for the life that I have and no one will take it from me without a fight.

So I would say that my membrane is selectively-permeable, allowing some things to pass through and keeping others out. It allows me to maintain my boundaries, while being open to new experiences. It's permeable to the love that I have for others, and the love that they share back with me. However, I will retain my shape, and do my best to keep out those who would do me harm, however inadvertently. I will resist the urge to melt into my husband, taking on only his interests and sharing only his views. I will not allow myself to live only for the joy of my children, negating what is fulfilling to me. I can have it all, and I'm on my way to figuring that out…finally!

Week 1: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Not the original cover, but the
one that I prefer.

I mentioned in my introduction that seeing the movie that was based on this book inspired this journey. It's the reason I am examining my life under a microscope, and the book is the reason that I'm using books as my guide. I saw the movie before reading the book because that was how I chose to do it. I've done it the other way around and find myself comparing the movie to the book the entire time I'm in the theater, instead of enjoying the movie for what it is: entertainment. Sometimes it's fun to dissect movies and compare them to the original work of art, but more often, for me anyway, it's more fun to watch the movie first and fill in the gaps with the book after. I know many of you won't share that view, and that's okay. It works for me.

So back to the book… I am now over half way through the book and I can't seem to put it down. Having seen the movie, I know (or at least I think I know) how it ends, and yet, I'm still drawn to the story like I don't know what's going to happen. That's the beauty of books, I think. You can know the overall story line, but it's how the author takes you through the story that makes it interesting. I have found that this book in particular, is kind of all over the place. There is a predetermined organization to the book that I understand, and expected after reading the introduction, but I still get a little lost trying to follow the author's thoughts sometimes. In spite of that, I have already dog-eared several pages that contain passages that I want to revisit, to either discuss here, or share with people in my life. This book is full of insight, inspiration and wisdom.

While I don't share the author's despair and history of depression, I do share her longing for a bigger purpose in life. I have what I have always wanted, yet I still feel like something is missing. In the book, Liz was missing the ability to truly experience pleasure. She was missing a connection to God and needed to find the right balance between the two. If I am honest with myself, I have to say that, like Liz, I am often guilty of not letting go and experiencing the full pleasure of a given situation...Hence, this journey. I am also searching for the right balance, but not between God and pleasure. For me, I seek a balance between living in the here and now, enjoying the ride along the way, and challenging myself to find fulfillment through learning, working, playing and loving. If I can find that balance, I hope to find the sense of calmness in my inner self that I crave.

An Introduction

For most of my life, I enjoyed the books that I read, but each book was usually a means to an end. In the very beginning, books taught me vocabulary, and then how to read. Eventually I graduated from learning to read, to reading to learn. As I got older I read books so that I could write the paper, that would get me the grade, that would get me into college, that would get me the job that would allow me to help support the family that I would one day have. And that’s how I have lived most of my life…like a kid at a theme park wondering what ride I would go on next, instead of just simply enjoying the ride that I was on. The end, to which I have most dedicated the means to, was the adult life that I envisioned.

Now that I’m here, in the place that I always imagined I would get to, I find myself constantly wondering what’s next. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy getting to where I am now, or that I’m not enjoying being here, because I did, and I am. I have what I have always wanted…a wonderful marriage, 3 beautiful children, and a home in the suburbs where we are all safe and happy and healthy. So what is it that I’m searching for?

I’ve been wondering this question for a while now but it wasn’t until I saw a movie in a theater by myself for the first time that I found the inspiration to delve deeper. I recently spent an afternoon alone because my friends were busy and I needed to get out of the house without the kids tagging along. I decided to go see the movie Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts. I had seen the preview for this movie several times. In fact, I think it was 6 times; once for each time I went to the theater to see Eclipse, the 3rd movie in the Twilight Series. Each time I watched the trailer I thought about how I would like to see it. But I got tired of waiting for the opportunity to present itself, so I took matters into my own hands, and went to see it on a Sunday afternoon…by myself. Did I mention that this was a first for me? The experience was cathartic, not only because of the content of the film, but because I felt like I had “crossed over,” like I was more enlightened somehow because I went to a movie alone. Strange, isn’t it? Something so simple made me feel like a different person. In all actuality, I think it had more to do with the movie, and how it spoke to me, but who knows?!

So I tell you all of this because this film, Eat Pray Love, inspired me. When the movie was over I went straight to the book store to get the book. Most people would say that was doing it backwards. That I should have read the book first and then saw the movie. I disagree, but I’ll save that for the next entry. The movie, and the book, inspired me to do more than just read. It inspired this blog, and the challenge that I am setting up for myself. I will read 52 books in the next year, one each week, and I will blog about it here. I will start of course, with the book I am currently in the middle of. Each book thereafter will be a book that I want to read for any reason or no reason whatsoever. I will write about how each book touches me, and pertains to my life, or to the lives of those around me. When the year is over, not only will I have read far more books than I ever would have otherwise, I will have a synopsis of my life for the year, as it pertains to what I was reading. I hope to be able to find what it is I am searching for (even if it is in hindsight), or at least be able to recognize what it is. That is why I am doing this in such a public forum. I am asking for your guidance and insights along the way.