Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
參賽者：鄭〇涵
名次：第二名
書名：Eat Pray Love
得獎作品：
Have you ever thought of leaving all the work behind and escaping from a noisy city alone just to find a balance in your life? Well, the author, Elizabeth Gilbert has. Despite possessing a successful career as a writer and owning a wonderful husband, she was not happy and satisfied. Lack of private space to ponder, she felt confused, helpless and couldn’t figure out what she really wanted. Making up her mind to end her marriage and take a journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia for the sake of purifying spirits, she found out where she belonged to in the long run.
Travel alone is a way to pursue pleasure. Without familiars, you face a whole new environment and all you can do is feel free to the strange city and embrace it. Enjoying delicacies, beautiful scenery, and new friends in Italy, Elizabeth realized that romantic love was not the only choice to fill her empty mind. Besides, she seemed to be able to smile to herself. This was the first change as well as a good start for her. “Smile with face, smile with mind, even smile in liver.” this is quite interesting and important for people in modern society. Most people are too busy chasing for fame and wealth to smile. In fact, we are kind of similar to Elizabeth. The way we keep following might not be what we really want, leading to complaint about working tiredness and dissatisfaction. Maybe we can learn from Elizabeth, just go and search for our own word.
Travel alone is a way to confront self. Listen to the dreaded voice in your deep heart instead of fleeing from it, and you can control and change it. Leaving from Italy as a heaven, Elizabeth headed for a substance-deficient country, India, in order to see the real ego clearly. In the beginning, she slept over for the religious practice and dozed off during meditation. Day by day, she gradually stayed on track and straightened out the messy thoughts, knowing that the only way to conquer it was open her mind and face it at ease. Something impresses me is that Elizabeth made a great influence on a seventeen-year-old Indian girl, Tulsi. At first, Tulsi was reluctant to get marry by the custom. Through Elizabeth’s support and dedication of Guru Gita to her, she finally felt released and believed to be happy in her marriage. Not only did Elizabeth find the peace in her spirit, but also inspired people around her. I think this change of Elizabeth is worthy of respect. From this part of story, I discover that being alone is more challenging than it looks. Maybe the reason is that most people don’t really know their mind completely and can’t find the sense of belonging. This is why sometimes being accompanied is lonelier than being alone. And the sentence, “No looking at world through your head, look through your heart instead.” will always keep in my mind.
Travel alone is a way to find a balance. People run after balance, but what is the definition of balance? Elizabeth’s final destination was Bali, Indonesia, for the purpose of meeting a medicine man, Ketut Liyer. In the day time, she kept daily routine, religious practice. At night, she had fun in the party to enjoy her life. Here, she remained a balance between body and mind. Until she met a Mr. Right, Felipe, she was plunged into confusion again. Afraid of breaking her balance and being hurt, she refused Felipe flatly. At that time, Ketut told her “Sometimes to lose balance for love is part of living balanced life.” Realizing the meaning of “one body two sides”, she decided on her word: “Let’s cross over.” I’m so delight to see the happy ending that the author eventually got over her deficiency and gained bliss. In addition to her love story, I pay attention to good deeds made by Elizabeth. She donated to help a healer named Wayan Nuriasih who was a single mother with bad living condition. It reminds me of what teacher ever said: volunteering is a way of life. If you already reach your balance, please help those who are in need to make them balanced.
Divorce was a turning point for Elizabeth. Even though it destroyed the original life in marriage, it ended up bringing her the real bliss. After reading this book, I make self-examination. “You have to learn to select your thoughts the way you select your clothes every day.” I can’t agree with it any more. By learning from Elizabeth, I will spare time for self thinking in order to ensure the right direction I’m going forward. As for traveling alone, it is a process to understand self condition. Courageous enough to depart from original life, you can see the broadened road waiting for you. Changing the aspect you treat yourself, you can truly face the problem. And when you are no longer scared of losing balance, probably you have achieved the genuine balance. Due to advantages of traveling alone, I would like to map out a journey on my own, hoping to search out my exclusive word and be a better guy.
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