You either love or hate this book. Don’t @ me but I side with the former. Eat, Pray, Love is a model reminder of the connection between living and writing. If you’re the kind of person who better interprets a messy life through words, I recommend giving this book a shot – even when you’re not currently having a crisis.
This 2006 memoir follows 30-something year old Elizabeth Gilbert; a writer with several published books under her belt, a marriage of nearly a decade, and two houses. She also feels an overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction with her life. Successful, wealthy, privileged, white woman is sad! So, she files for divorce and embarks on a journey (prepaid by her publisher) to Italy (to find pleasure), India (devotion), and Indonesia (balance).
This book has been labelled as “emotionally self-indulgent,” but it’s also witty as hell and makes me laugh. It also asks a question often neglected: “What do you want?”. When the desires of others trump yours, do you betray yourself? Do you let your identity erode? For what it’s worth, Eat Pray Love can begin bringing you back to you. Here are four ways how:
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“You have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe” (Gilbert 35)
Before Gilbert travels she expresses to her friend Iva her reservations around prayer. She’d never pray for her divorce to be successful, because she’d get in the way of whatever she’s meant to experience. She’d only pray for the strength to roll with the punches. Iva disagrees, proposing that Gilbert has “every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe” (35). But a divorce is such a selfish thing to want! Untrue, Iva claims, there are people who actually want to see the end of her suffering. So if you can’t believe in yourself, believe in anyone who dreams of world peace (like your mom, she probably wants you to be happy).
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“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort” (286)
As Gilbert describes it, joy is a state you have to “fight for… strive for… insist upon…” (286). She also says it’s something you might have to travel the world to find (like okay, nice flex). Her point being: chase joy relentlessly, and once you find it, maintain it diligently. Admittedly, joy can be difficult to prioritize when you’re not paid to make it your only responsibility. Still, the rest of us aren’t off the hook. “Diligent Joy” (273) is a shower you keep taking to keep the stink of self loathing at bay.
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“Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way” (273)
To add to that last point, Gilbert asserts that our personal happiness is a duty to others. She’s not blind to her own unhappiness bringing down those around her. Only when she gets out of her own way is she “free to serve and enjoy” (273) her company. If you have no other reason to search for contentment, do it to be less annoying!
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You are an oak tree
Near the end of her journey, Gilbert imparts a Zen Buddhist philosophy. “An oak tree is brought into creation by two forces” (363): the potential it holds as an acorn, and its final form as a tall, proud oak. The oak urges the acorn into being, creating “the very acorn from which it was born” (364). There’s a future-you who exists wiser and with her life under control. She’s a cheerleader from the future, rooting for you to evolve – because she knows you can.
I don’t think many of us have the privilege Gilbert has to travel the world for enlightenment, but why criticize her unhappiness because she’s privileged? How dare women who can afford to lessen their suffering actually try to do it? Eat Love Pray does its job asking one important question: Why hold yourself back from putting the work into you? If anything, Elizabeth Gilbert has given me the permission to romanticize my life, and squeeze out every ounce of meaning from it that I can.