“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight” – Liz Gilbert
Liz Gilbert has a successful career, a house, and a husband. But she realizes that she doesn’t want what she has, and that she doesn’t want to have kids with her husband. This makes her feel like a horrible person, and she feels terribly guilty. She decides to get a divorce, quit her job, and go on travelling around the world. Her destinations are: Italy, India, and Indonesia.
This book made me think about what it means to go on a journey to find what you truly want in life. It is difficult for people these days to find enough time just to get everything they need to get done. Most people spend their entire lives working. It is amazing and unbelievable that Liz Gilbert was able to put everything she had behind her to spend a year for herself.
As a person who has never been to Europe, and has never been on travel for more than 2 weeks, Liz Gilbert’s story made me wonder what it would be like to do what she did. Would I really be able to put everything I have on hold, and to go travelling for a year? Is traveling to different destinations for a year enough to make a person change? Or would you need to have a solid purpose and reason, like Liz did, in order to truly notice a chance? Or maybe, going on a year-long journey doesn’t have to be about change, and it can just be about finding a different side of yourself? Where would my three destinations be?
The book is divided into three parts, and is divided into tiny chapters. Maybe it was because I was reading the book with my Kindle, but I found it hard to concentrate on this book for some reason. I did like Liz Gilbert’s witty and hilarious voice throughout the story.
If I could set aside a year to travel on my own, just for myself, I think I would like to spend some time in Korea, where all of my family is, and then in Europe, where I have never been before. For my third destination, I think I will have to give myself a few months before I figure it out. If I did set off on this journey, I definitely do think I will be able to find a different side of myself. I say this because I went to NY to visit my sister this weekend, and even though it was only for a few days, I felt refreshed and better in general. It makes me wonder what kinds of feelings and thoughts I would have if I had a whole year. Yet, I don’t know if I will be able to have a revelation like Liz did during her journey.
For me, the most important message from this book was that, sometimes, in order to help those around you, you need to help yourself.
“And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person – the magnification of one life – is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody’s but my own” – Liz Gilbert.
<Works Cited>
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, pray, love: one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia. Riverhead Books, 2016.
MYMJ 