Eat, Pray, Love: Blog #1

Eat, Pray, Love

By: Elizabeth Gilbert

BLOG #1

            Elizabeth Gilbert is thirty year-old, who has found herself lying on her bathroom floor crying about her “perfect” life. She thought by the time she turned 30 she would want to be settling down starting a family. Now realizing she has a husband a beautiful home, yet all she can think is “I don’t want to be married anymore” (Page 10).

            Elizabeth goes through this awfully painful and long divorce; all ending with her broke, depressed, and desiring love of self. She decides to travel. She has always wanted to speak Italian fluently, and what better way to do that than go there! She wanted to go to India to visit her Guru’s Ashram. Lastly, she felt the need to fulfill the prediction of an old Indonesian medicine man, “you’re destined to move to Bali and live with him for four months” (Page 28). All together she wished to experience kalos kai agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful. She stopped trying to choose and decided to spend four months living in each country.

            Her first stop is Italy. She eats gelato about three times a day and practices her Italian at school, with her friends, and with Giovanni (she helps him with English and he helps her with Italian). She also learns a new concept: the art of doing nothing. With all of this in mind, she defeats her depression.

            How and why does exploring a world uncommon to one bring out traits and desires one did not know before? In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert explores three abroad countries: Italy for its pleasure, India for meditating, and Indonesia (Bali) for love. She leaves behind her baggage and pursues new ideas and confidence.

            In Italy she learns the ability to do simply nothing. She makes a delicious meal and enjoys every single bite. She then reads her Italian newspaper, practicing her skills. She is fully embraced in what she is doing that she doesn’t worry about what she is going to do tomorrow or how much weight she is gaining from eating gelato three times per day. This is probably her most significant accomplishment so far, because she strayed from her ways she learned as a child-to always be doing multiple things at once. Therefore she used to feel guilty when only spending time on one task. Now she understands the concept of enjoying the most simple, but splendid tasks in life. She does not feel the least bit guilty for enjoying her meal and newspaper.

            Another example of Elizabeth learning to enjoy the pleasures of life, would be her desire to learn the most beautiful language in the world: Italian. She has no reason to learn, except for the fact she wants to for herself. Even though her friends tease her for traveling to Italy to better her Italian skills, she doesn’t let them ruin her spirits. She is sick of doing things society thinks she should be doing right now (like settling down in a suburb and raising children). Trumping them all, she does what her heart tells her to do. Of course with the guidance of, still unsure of who or what he/she really is, God.