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530e181
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Marriage is what happens "between the memorable." He said that we often look back on our marriages years later, perhaps after one spouse has died, and wall we can recall are "the vacations, and emergencies" - the high points and low points. The rest of it blends into a blurry sort of daily sameness. But it is that very blurred sameness, the poet argues, that comprises marriage. Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations,..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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00b8779
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I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all the acquisitions and accomplishments- they run you down in the end.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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cdecb4c
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One must bear what cannot be escaped," she told Alma, as she rubbed clean her face. "You will not die of your grief - no more than the rest of us ever have."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9eba3a0
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I felt like I was some kind of primitive spring-loaded machine, placed under far more tension than it had ever been built to sustain, about to blast apart at great danger to anyone standing nearby. I imagined my body parts flying off my torso in order to escape the volcanic core of unhappiness that had become: me.
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unhappiness
tension
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b06ae2c
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And even beyond the flaws, there are just some simple differences between Felipe and me that we will both have to accept. He will never--I promise you--attend a yoga class with me, no matter how many times I may try to convince him that he would absolutely love it. (He would absolutely not love it.) We will never meditate together on a weekend spiritual retreat. I will never get him to cut back on all the red meat, or to do some sort of fad..
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marriage
romance
truth
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a794b78
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'n lstu wthqh mm 'rydh , '`lmu 'nny lTlm rGbtu bsm`i rjlin yqwlu ly " d`yny '`tny bk ll'bd " , wlm ysbq l'Hdin 'n qlh ly mn qbl , wfy lsnwt l'khyrh , twqftu `n lbHth `n dhlk lshkhS , wt`lmtu qwl hdhh ljml@ lmshj`h lnfsy , l sym fy 'wqti lkhwf ."
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9d7f959
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I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume.
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writing
lobster
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6451647
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The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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fd83ea6
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It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don't have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It's a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: "So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it's also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun... The most evil trick about perfe..
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writing
perfectionism
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0e180cf
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I think a lot of people quit pursuing creative lives because they're scared of the word interesting. My favorite meditation teacher, Pema Chodron, once said that the biggest problem she sees with people's meditation practice is that they quit just when things are starting to get interesting. Which is to say, they quit as soon as things aren't easy anymore, as soon as it gets painful, or boring, or agitating. They quit as soon as they see so..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2433b77
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This is intimacy: the trading of stories in the dark.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2604af4
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Show up for your own life, he said. Don't pass your days in a stupor, content to swallow whatever watery ideas modern society may bottle-feed you through the media, satisfied to slumber through life in an instant-gratification sugar coma. The most extraordinary gift you've been given is your own humanity, which is about conciousness, so honor that consciousness. Revere your senses; don't degrade them with drugs, with depression, with wilfu..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6c91874
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m`Zm lbshr '`ynhm mGlq@ bGbr lkhyb@ l~ HdW ymn`hm mn rw'y@ lHqyq@
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people
truth
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b9463b3
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The guardians of high culture will try to convince you that the arts belong only to a chosen few, but they are wrong and they are also annoying.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6eddf82
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My soul, when I tend to it, is a far more expansive and fascinating source of guidance than my ego will ever be, because my soul desires only one thing: wonder. And since creativity is my most efficient pathway to wonder, I take refuge there, and it feeds my soul, and it quiets the hungry ghost--thereby saving me from the most dangerous aspect of myself.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0a2acbd
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Because the truth is, I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment--not entirely human in its origins.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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e1a70fc
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We're already separated that's official but there's still a window of hope left open that perhaps someday we could give things another try.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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6642d27
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The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. .. Even in the Eternal City (Rome), says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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020c876
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I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more that I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ceee74f
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I watched them, thinking that little girls who make their mothers live grow up to be such powerful women.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f1c41fc
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From the most sacred ancient text of Yoga: Oh Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, strong, and unyielding. I consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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0aa3f94
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If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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164c106
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Maybe the difference between first marriage and second marriage is that the second time at least you know you are gambling.
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marriage
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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a360a40
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Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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b182932
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If you're going to live your life based on delusions (and you are, because we all do), then why not at least select a delusion that is helpful?
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ee737f2
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Now imagine a life in which every day a person is presented with not two or even three but dozens of choices, and you can begin to grasp why the modern world has become, even with all its advantages, a neurosis-generating machine of the highest order.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2908d85
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When the past has passed from you at last, let go. Then climb down and begin the rest of your life. With great joy.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3d7c043
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People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything you're holding back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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59d43ba
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Desperate love is always the toughest way to do it.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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4dc5958
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In the end, I've come to believe in something I call the 'physics of the quest', a force in nature governed by the laws of gravity. The rules of quest physics goes something like this: If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting and set out on a truth seeking journey either internally or externally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept..
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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192bc38
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I had long ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It's the least you can do, really, as a polite guest.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9c2eb5f
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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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2dd0c81
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I like it when science and devotion find places of intersection.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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9a110d2
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There is a theory that if you yearn sincerely enough for a Guru, you will find one. The universe will shift, destiny's molecules will get themselves organized and your path will soon intersect with the path of the master you need.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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ccfec5f
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You are still young, so you think only of your own self. You do not notice the tribulations that occur all around you, to other people. Do not protest; it is true. I am not condemning you. I was as selfish as you, when I was your age. It is the custom of the young to be selfish... But someday you will understand that nobody passes through this world without suffering--no matter what you think of them and their supposed good fortune.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f8da758
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To feel physically comfortable with someone else's body is not a decision you make. It has very little thing to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not.
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sex
passion
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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8399f86
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If I'd had any way of knowing that things were- as Lily Tomlin once said- going to get a whole lot worse before they got worse, I'm not sure how I would have slept that night.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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1b96c7a
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Let it be sufficient to say that, on this night, he was still my lighthouse and albatross in equal measure. The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f9820bb
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your life is short and rare and amazing and miraculous, and you want to do really interesting things and make really interesting things while you're still here.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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2cda242
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Send him some love and light every time you think about him, and then drop it. You're just afraid to let go of the last bits of David because then you'll really be alone. But here's what you gotta understand, Groceries. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, an open spot - a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with that doorway? It will rush in ..
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let-go-let-god
let-go
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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d656792
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I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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f5f876d
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for you, I am even willing to suffer. Whatever pain happens to us in the future, I accept it already, just for the pleasure of being with you now. Let's enjoy this time. It's marvelous.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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3ef0cac
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You must learn in life to take things more lightly, my dear. The world is always changing. Learn how to allow for it.
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take-it-easy
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Elizabeth Gilbert |
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5583efd
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She wanted to understand the world, and she made a habit of chasing down information to its last hiding place, as though the fate of nations were at stake in every instance.
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Elizabeth Gilbert |