Elle

Elle Randall

8/17/14

The Happiness Project Trio

Homework 2 part 1: EPL ‘Italy’ beads 19-36

            I’m having the time of my life getting swept up on Liz’s Italian adventures. Every time I read this book, I fall in love with her portrayal of Italy over and over and always say that I will get myself there one day (this time hopefully by the summer of 2015). 

            Although this week’s homework is still set in ‘Italy,’ I discovered in bead thirty a saying that she took from the Bhagavad Gita (the ancient Indian Yogic text): “it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”  And right before this bead, Liz talked about her relationship to her sister Catherine.  This got me thinking about my own sister, Lizzie. Lizzie and I have lived majority of our lives constantly at odds with each other due to our differing natures. Yet these differences never stopped us from loving and supporting each other through the thick and thin of it.

            One of the things we deal with is Lizzie’s tendency to compare herself to me. And whenever these issues come up, I would always tell her to live her life the way she wants and to make and follow her own rules. As of late, I’ve begun to notice that I should start taking my own advice. As I near my thirtieth birthday, I’ve discovered that I have been subconsciously trying to ‘keep up.’ Whether it was with what those around me were doing or what my family expected of me, I was desperately trying to fit my life into a mold.

            So this is me actively breaking out of that and saying “I don’t want to be like anyone else but me. And I’m cool with that.” I want a baby, and marriage, and a house in the burbs, but those things will happen when they happen. In the meantime, I want to check off my NYC Bucket List, plan a Backpacking trip through Europe, use everything I learn to fuel my yoga teaching, dive headfirst into my Passion Projects, and most of all… just be me.