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4f10888
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Mark Manson, who said that the secret to finding your purpose in life is to answer this question in total honesty: "What's your favorite flavor of shit sandwich?"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3138a92
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It doesn't have to be perfect, and you don't have to be Plato.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9a2fb3e
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history--what had happened between me and David. Further disregarding the Gilbert Family Standard Communications Rule-book, I actually told her. I told her everything. I told her how much I loved David, but how lonely and heartsick it made me to be with this person who was always disappearing from the room, from the bed, from the planet. "He sounds kind of like your father," she said. A brave and generous admission. "The problem is," I said..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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18bd7ea
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The ability to respond is responsibility
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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94e6a66
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central beliefs of Calvinist teachings: You are responsible for your own situation in life, you are most likely doomed, and the future is terribly grim.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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46b2cc4
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You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures. You can battle your demons (through therapy, recovery, prayer, or humility) instead of battling your gifts--in part by realizing that your demons were never the ones doing the work, anyhow. You
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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4f85e00
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He kept begging God, "Please, please, please open my heart."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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bbe745a
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The Geographical Distribution of Animals
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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91551ac
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Human beings have been creative beings for a really long time--long enough and consistently enough that it appears to be a totally natural impulse. To put the story in perspective, consider this fact: The earliest evidence of recognizable human art is forty thousand years old. The earliest evidence of human agriculture, by contrast, is only ten thousand years old. Which means that somewhere in our collective evolutionary story, we decided i..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5970493
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Everything is so goddamn scary.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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4aa9d8e
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sometimes you count the days, sometimes you weigh them.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cf5f8ca
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I'm talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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31da1ff
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In the end, it's all just violets trying to come to light.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a961c59
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there was dignity to be found in stoicism,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1c137b6
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but truly there were times when the sadness of this world was scarcely to be endured,
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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c20c40c
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The more lightly you can pass that time, the brighter your existence becomes.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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66c4297
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Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b2f4946
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She's got this ability to shut me up when I start fretting over metaphysical questions, such as, "What is the nature of the universe?"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b0768a2
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Then there was a pop-surprise bonus side order brought over by the waitress for free--a serving of fried zucchini blossoms with a soft dab of cheese in the middle (prepared so delicately that the blossoms probably didn't even notice they weren't on the vine anymore).
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a0de853
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There were a few years there, lost in borderless despair, when I used to experience all the world's sadness as my own.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e4eecd1
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Anyhow, the golden rule in my family is this: If you're supporting yourself financially and you're not bothering anyone else, then you're free to do whatever you want with your life.)
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f092b4b
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Third, nobody ever really listens to anybody else's complaints, anyhow, because we're all too focused on our own holy struggle, so basically you're just talking to a brick wall.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cf7d528
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She smiled sweetly at everyone and always acted like a total cooperator - but then she shaped her own world exactly to her liking while nobody was looking.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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77f7182
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Do you want to study under the great teachers? Is that it? Well, you can find them anywhere. They live on the shelves of your library; they live on the walls of museums; they live in recordings made decades ago. Your teachers don't even need to be alive to educate you masterfully. No living writer has ever taught me more about plotting and characterization than Charles Dickens has taught me--and needless to say, I never met with him during ..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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090ae94
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I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1bcfb56
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The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world," says an old Buddhist teaching"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Repression and denial set up elaborate games to pretend that negative thoughts and feelings are not occurring.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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d3681ba
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The other day in prayer I said to God, "Look--I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Here, I pause to offer a prayer for my gentle reader: May you never, ever, have to get a divorce in New York.)
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Or, as Sextus, the ancient Pythagorian philosopher, said, "The wise man is always similar to himself."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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43120e2
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This is the part of the process where I wish I'd never engaged with this idea at all. I remember this. I always go through this stage." Or: "This is the part where I tell myself that I'll never write a good sentence again." Or: "This is the part where I beat myself up for being a lazy loser." Or: "This is the part where I begin fantasizing in terror about how bad the reviews are going to be--if this thing even gets published at all." Or, on..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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be6fb2e
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Let your intention be freedom from useless suffering. Then, let go.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b15b2fa
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Dear Lord, please show me everything I need to understand about forgiveness and surrender.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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726be0d
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The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us, and then it's up to the individual (or the family, or the society) to decide what will be brought forth--the virtues or the malevolence.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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82a12bb
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So what can we do about the craziness of the world?" "Nothing." Ketut laughed, but with a dose of kindness. "This is nature of world. This is destiny. Worry about your craziness only--make you in peace."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e238b11
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Either way, the vulnerable human ego is protected. Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5c19d2d
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But you do not need your fear in the realm of creative expression.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time--when pursued like a bandit--will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't...
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1f45df8
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That's just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what your ego does. It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you're flawed and broken and alone instead of whole.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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524057d
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I kept waiting for a big idea to arrive, and I kept announcing to the universe that I was ready for a big idea to arrive, but no big ideas arrived. There were no goose bumps, no hairs standing up on the back of my neck, no butterflies in my stomach. There was no miracle. It was like Saint Paul rode his horse all the way to Damascus and nothing happened, except maybe it rained a bit.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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bcc6657
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I finally said, "Tutti, where did you learn to speak such good English?" "From a book!" she proclaimed. "I think you are a very clever girl," I informed her. "Thank you!" she said, and did a spontaneous little happy dance. "You are a very clever girl, too!"
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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118d186
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Then I give her a grim shake of my head and say aloud, 'This blows ass.' She nods sympathetically. She doesn't understand, but of course, in her way she understands completely.
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understanding
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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092a396
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I realized as a songwriter that all I really do is make jewelry for the inside of other people's minds.
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philosophy-of-life
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Elizabeth Gilbert |