Good morning!
Last night Eric and I went out for Mexican food, stuffed ourselves silly on fajitas, and then headed to Chapters book store. Pretty much my dream night. I had gift cards to use and I bought Eat Pray Love and didn’t have to pay a dime.
My story with Eat Pray Love goes back a couple years. In 2008, I purchased the EPL audio book shortly after seeing Elizabeth Gilbert’s interview with Oprah.
I was going through a rough time in my life and this book really spoke to me. I felt like I knew Elizabeth and that I connected with her desire for self-discovery in some way. I thought having her voice in an audio book would comfort me during this tough time in my life and I planned on listening to the book during my commutes to and from work and school.
Ironically, not long after I downloaded the audio book onto my computer, my computer crashed and I lost everything, including the audio book. Life was busy and I just forgot about it assuming one day I would buy the book.
That day was yesterday!
I could not put this book down last night. Around midnight my eyes were drooping and I was literally falling asleep reading. I woke up with my head on Eric’s shoulder around 12:30am and I stumbled up to bed.
Sketchie also loves when I read because it means that I am actually in one spot more than 5 minutes at a time…
I love when he sleeps on me. :biggrin:
I also love how Elizabeth organized the book in terms of a short story representing each japa mala. I love how the book is divided up by the three countries that she visited, each for a different purpose along her journey. It is quite brilliant actually. The book just exudes symmetry.
I was excited when I woke up this morning for a few reasons:
1) I had a solid 8 hours of sleep
2) Today is my day off
3) I have a book to read
4) The weather is gorgeous and sunny
5) I have new music for my run today (‘Over’ by Drake is a new fav)
I used up the rest of my beet greens and some new spinach for Green Monster energy!
I also threw in some raspberries, Almond Milk, raw maca powder, 1 tbsp homemade almond butter, and 1 frozen banana.
I had another situation on my hands…
I had some Green Monster spillage as I juggled my GM and SLR camera while freaking out about walking through a HUGE cobweb. Story of my life.
It was good though.
I wanted to share with you a quote from Eat Pray Love that I think is really powerful:
“For years, I’d wished I could speak Italian- a language I find more beautiful than roses- but I could never make the practical justification for studying it…What was I going to do with Italian? It’s not like I was going to move there. It would be more practical to learn how to play the accordion.
But why must everything have a practical application? I’d been such a diligent soldier for years- working, producing, never missing a deadline, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?…It’s not like I was saying at age 32, ‘I want to become the principal ballerina for the NYC ballet.” Studying a language is something you can actually do. So I signed up for classes at one of those continuing education places. My friends thought this was hilarious…But I loved it.”
This got me thinking a lot about my life, Eric’s, and whether there were things that we wanted to do, but didn’t think there was a practical application for. Eric is currently struggling with some decisions in his own life (that I can’t get into, but probably will some day in the future) and I know there are many things that he wants right now, but he doesn’t think they are practical to actually do. This makes me very sad to think about. Why must we live our lives ‘by the book’ or doing what others expect of us? As Elizabeth mentioned in the quote above, why must everything have a practical purpose? Can’t we just listen to our hearts sometimes?
So I ask you today…What are the things you want to do but you aren’t sure they have a practical purpose?
One of the things that we desperately want to do at this stage in our lives is travel. We always said that our free time in our late twenties would be spent traveling together, but so far we have not found a practical purpose (or free time) to try to put this goal into action.
I am married to a CA. That translates into “everything in life must have a reason, some sort of logic behind it or it doesn’t make sense.” He’s all about being realistic, and I’m very much into following my dreams and coming up with new ones.
I’m lucky in that I’ve managed to surround myself with things I am passionate about – a teaching career, amazing friends and family, writing, reading awesome books, running, etc. There are a couple things that come to mind though
– taking a cooking class. I’m a vegetarian, hubby loves meat. I love veggies, hubby won’t eat them. Needless to say, I cook my dinner and he comes home from work to cook what he wants. It seems pointless to take a cooking class just for me, but I’m sure I’ll sign up at some point
– My biggest dream in life is to travel to Africa and volunteer at an orphanage, I’m desperate to do this. Not many people support this, they all have no idea why I’d want to go to Africa. I’ve always been drawn to it, I find the culture and people beautiful. I told hubby that’s what I want for my 40th birthday.
– Going to a Buddhist temple. I’m so drawn to that religion and would love to learn more. I’m too scared to go alone though and can’t see myself following the religion that closely to become a regular temple go-er, but it’s something I’d love to do
– Getting certified to teach yoga. I have no idea why, again, I love the basis of it. It would be so much fun to take the weekend getaway courses, though I’m not sure I could do anything with the certification as I have a daughter to be with at night…and the courses are pretty pricey!
– Go on a yoga retreat. Sounds like a ton of fun and a great way to re connect with yourself. It’s more money than I would like to spend on myself though and have always felt those retreats are for the “hardcore” yogis!
Since losing my Mom 6 years ago, I have been all about “less talk and more action”….sounds to me like it’s time to start planning some things, life is WAY too short to just talk about what we want to do.
Thank you everyone for your amazing comments!
I know I’m coming in super late on this post, but I had to comment!
I just quit my job 3 weeks ago simply because it wasn’t making me happy. It was draining me of all energy and life. I do know what direction I want to go now and I’m heading there as fast as I can! Since I quit, I’ve taken and then randomly lost two different jobs, and the more things don’t go the way I think they should, the more I’m sure that God has a plan, and I need to just be patient and continue stepping out in faith.
So far my journey of pursuing what I want rather than what’s practical has been so scary, but I’ve never felt freer in my entire life! Just today I was starting to feel doubt and fear creep in, and then I hopped on your blog to catch up and found this post. It has brought tears to my eyes because it is just the reassurance and encouragement I need right now. I always though pursuing my dreams would be easy…and it’s definitely not. It’s hard to go against what everyone thinks you should be doing and to step into the unknown, but I’m just pressing on trusting that it’s going to be worth it!
The year after my husband and I got married, I finished up school and he quit his job so we could move overseas to Thailand for a year. During that year we got to travel all around SE Asia – Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and also Japan. It was the hardest year of my life, but also the most amazing, and was so good for our marriage. It put us behind financially, but was so worth it! Since then we’ve continued to travel every summer. It’s all about making it a priority. It’s never going to be easy or convenient…you just have to make it happen. I always say – I don’t care what we have to give up to keep traveling because in my opinion there is nothing that is more impactful than seeing the world and learning others cultures. Love it!
Thanks for this post and for all you do!
This is a fantastic article about the things women are supposed to want in their lives vs doing what makes you happy:
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/05/10/screw_happiness/index.html
My favorite quote is “Stop doing those spoiled things that bring you fulfillment or you’ll never find fulfillment!”
Travel is one of those things that you really have to make an effort to do – it’s so easy to spend your time and money on other things. Maybe do a big trip every year on your anniversary (or some other date)? That gives you an excuse to go.
I recently decided to go back to school – it was a totally impractical decision. I had a job, I was good at it, and it paid well… so why would i want to quit and spend 3 years in school full-time to start over in a totally different career? Especially since I’d be almost to my mid-thirties by the time I was done with school?
I eventually decided that it may be impractical, but my current job (I used to work in IT) was just killing my soul and it wasn’t worth it. I’d rather start over in something I loved. I could make the finances work, and even if I wound up making less money in the long run, my happiness would be worth it. I start classes for my doctorate in physical therapy next month and I couldn’t be happier.