Book Club: Eat, Pray, Love: 16-17

The second book in our book club series is Eat, Pray Love. Is it a Hindu book? Not exactly, but it is very relevant to the experiences of non-Indian Hindus. The author has a Hindu guru (whose identity has been rather easily found out by those familiar with the world of Indian gurus). Julia Roberts after playing the author in the movie, claimed to have become a Hindu. So I think it will be worthwhile to examine the experiences and stories that led these women towards Hinduism…

Bead 16

Depression and loneliness arrive in Italy. Gilbert’s description of them both is very fitting. She personifies them as police officers who have tailed her.

“He asks why I can’t get my act together and why I’m not at home living in a nice house and raising nice children like any respectable woman my age should be. He asks why, exactly, I think I deserve a vacation in Rome when I’ve made such a rubble of my life.”

And that’s what’s really sad. Because she (and we) deserve to be happy. We are right to follow where joy takes us rather than just following along the road that we’re told we have to be on. And yet we do tend to  chastise ourselves like this.

I’m glad Gilbert was brave enough to shake off expectation and do what made her happy. Not the kind of happy that is so selfish that it hurts others, just the kind that aligns her heart back where it belongs. Happy people do good in the world, from their attitude to their natural actions. Sometimes the very best thing you can do for others is to be happy.

Bead 17

Gilbert’s description of depression is hauntingly familiar. I struggle to accept that depression is something that I battle. It doesn’t make sense. Yet there are days upon days when I’m fighting through a thick fog of malaise, when I don’t care enough about anything to get out of bed. I always think I can fight my way back on track. As Gilbert says, “When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes take you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered a few feet off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now.”

The next paragraph is priceless. What causes depression? Where does it come from? Gilbert lists no less than 16 potential causes!

And it’s true, when you try to figure out why is my brain doing this there are just so many possibilities.

I really relate to her reluctance to take medication too. I haven’t reached that point yet, too afraid. A friend did give me a Prozac a little while ago to try to break through my anxiety and relax me even if just for one afternoon, but the pill didn’t help and I regretted taking it without the approval of a doctor. For me, at least, I’m pretty certain my struggles with depression are situational and once I change that particular situation I’ll be able to pull myself out of negativity more easily.

It’s a little scary, though, to see that Gilbert is not free of it when she has thrown off her restraints and gone all the way to Italy to follow her bliss. If even there she is haunted by depression, that does make me more than a little nervous about what will happen when I finally get my life lined up the way I want it.

I know, there’s always something.

They say that you have to be happy within yourself. Happy with you. The circumstances outside yourself shouldn’t matter that much. Happiness comes from within. And I do think that’s true in a lot of ways, the outside does have an effect! Perhaps some people are saintly enough to be happy wherever they are and in any circumstance, but some of us need to “stack the deck in our favor,” as it were.

I remember being really down at the end of High School. And I was hearing that happiness comes from you and if you’re not happy here and now, changing your situation isn’t going to fix it. Which made me feel pretty suicidal, actually. No hope of it getting better?

But then it did get better. College was so much better than High School. Having my own place was even better than that. Even before I changed. Even before I became less rigid and more loving in my religious path, I felt the effect of the change of my environment. Sometimes it does help.