'Eat, Pray, Love' told the story about her path to find happiness after her divorce, and her quest for happiness brought her to 3 different exotic places; Italy where she ate and ate and ate, India where she prayed and prayed and prayed, and finally Bali where she found love. In her latest book, she found herself having to consider the option of marriage in order to be with her beau who was Brazilian. The whole book centers around her search for the meaning of marriage and whether it is truly necessary. Having survived a failed marriage before, the scars never left her and the idea of marrying again terrifed her. Thus, this whole book tells the story of her efforts to make peace with marriage before she plunged into it once more.
The book struck a chord in me. For the past year or so, I have been affected, in one small way or another, when I hear that my friends are getting married, or making plans to get maried. I feel like I am a walking contradiction sometimes. I want and cherish my freedom and independence, but at the same time I want the feel of being in matrimony with someone I love. This whole tug of war with my feelings has always been a source of confusion for me. The book has actually enlightened and at times, re-enforced some of my beliefs, and made me believe more in what I have always advocated for me. And it is reassuring to know that I am not the only confused person in the world. :)
Here are some of my favourite parts of the book.....
1. Gilbert says that 'the person whom you choose to marry is perhaps the single most vivid representation of your own personality. Your spouse becomes the most gleaming possible mirror through which your emotional individualism is reflected back to the world......whom you choose to marry; that choice tells us, to a large extent, who you are.'
How true is this right? This quote struck me. I used to think that opposites attract, and whatever flaws I saw in my partner , I took it and told myself you have to take the good and the bad. But maybe, one reason why I am still unmarried, is because I haven't found that one single person who truly understands me. And I want that person who is a reflection of who I am.
2. I realise that disappointment is greatest when there are expectations. 'Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment.' I think that one reason why I fall so hard all the time, is I always come in with expectations and when these expectations are not met, I get so crushed. So, my mantra in life now is ...'Happiness from a lack of expectations.' :) I love this.
3. I have always believed that life should never be lived with regrets and indecision and the book has reaffirmed this for me. In my life, I have had to make countless of decisions, and I have always lived and been satisfied with all the decisions I have made. Be it good or bad, I have never once looked back and said...'Maybe I shouldn't have done things that way.' If we live through life like that, Gilbert says that 'we live in danger of becoming paralysed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.' That will be a very scary life.
4. Sometimes, society's expectations of us makes us do things which we might not necessarily want to do. Or we get pressured as we have not met societal norms. Gilbert calls this phenonemon 'compulsive comparing, always measuring our lives against some other person's life, secretly wondering if we should have taken her path instead.' And let's be honest. How many times do we do this? The grass always looks greener on the other side. I sometimes look at my friends' lives, and I always envy the happiness they get with their spouses and kids, and the completion of their life. But I remember, one of my friends who is happily married once told me, 'I envy you. You are free, and can do whatever you want, travel, pack and go, as and when you want because you can with no commitment.' This was shocking for me. At the end of the day, we have to lead our own lives and as Maya always tells me, different people have different paths to lead. Constant comparison will never make you satisfied.
5. You know how when you fall in love, you pour your entire heart and soul and being into the person and the relationship. I remember the line from Jerry MaGuire 'You complete me'. That line icks me. It is as though your life can only be complete when there is a man/ partner in it. I always believe you complete yourself, and your partner enhances your existence. In the book, Gilbert says 'Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life's expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person.' And to keep that going is crazy hard work. Your happiness should always remain in your hands. It is just too much to depend on that one person to make you happy.
6. And this explains why I want to get married eventually.
'I do not need him to protect me physically, because I live in one of the safest societies on earth. I do not need him to provide for me financially, because I have always been the winner of my own bread. I do not need him to extend my circle of kinship, because I have a rich community of friends and family all on my own.
I need him only because I adore him, because his company brings me gladness and comfort, and because, sometimes life is too hard to be alone and sometimes life is too good to be alone.'
7. And hence, despite the countless heartaches, and heartbreaks, I am still a romantic at heart. 'Love renders all our plans and all our intentions a great big gamble.' When you have the ability to choose your own partners on the basis on personal affection, you have to prepare for broken hearts. But I also believe that that if things work out, it will be one of the most gratifying feelings you can ever experience.
8. And I will show you what I mean by an eternal optimist and romantic at heart. I still believe that I will find my one true partner, who will make me really happy. It's taking a longer time for me, but that doesn't mean it will not happen. And lo behold! Gilbert had a story behind this as well!
She says, that in the past, humans did not look the way we look today. They had 2 heads, and 4 legs and 4 arms- 'a perfect melding of 2 people joined together, seamlessly united into one being.'We came in 3 different gender variations: male/female, male/male, female'/female. And since we had the perfect partner sewn into the very fabric of our being, we were all happy, perfect, lacked nothing and wanted nobody.
However, we became overly proud and started to neglect the Gods. And hence, to punish us, Zeus cut all the double headed, 8-limbed, perfectly contented humans in half, creating a world of cruelly severed one headed, two armed, two legged miserable creatures. Us humans now!
And thus, Zeus has imflicted on mankind the dull and constant sense that we are not quite whole. And for the rest of the time, humans would be born sensing that there was some missing part- a lost half, which we love almost more than we love ourselves- and that this missing part was out there someplace, spinning through the universe in the form of another person. We would also be born believing that if only we searched relentlessly enough, we might someday find that vanished half, that other soul. Through union with the other, we would recomplete our original form, never to experience loneliness again.
And hence, as we seek to find that perfect soul/ mate, it will at times cause us to mate with the wrong people over and over again. We may even believe at times that we have found our other half, but it's more likely that all we've found is somebody else who is searching for his other half.
I love this story. It gives an explanation of life, and marriage. It's probably a mythology but I just love how we believe that there is always someone out there for us, and it's just a matter of time as we have to find that correct partner. And it gives me hope for myself as well.
It is such a good book, and I spent days poring over every single word of the book, making notes and tagging certain pages. To my single friends, read it to reaffirm what you already believe in as well as give you new insights. To my friends who are geting married, read it to make sure you understand what marriage is all about. To my married friends, read it to remind yourself on the true meaning of marriage. And to the rest of you, read it as it is a damn good read. It's witty, intelligent, compassionate, funny, and insightful.
And with that, I will leave you with these thoughts. Have a good week everyone! :)
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