Lizzie

Elizabeth Randall

The Happiness Project

HW #1: Reaction Paper

Eat, Pray, Love: Ch.1-18

Reading Eat, Pray, Love now reminds me of the last time I read this book. It was right before the movie came out, which coincidentally was on my birthday in 2010, and all I could remember was wanting to watch the movie of the book I couldn’t put down. In a way Eat, Pray, Love and then The Secret changed my life forever. I remember being enamored with this book because I was going through a hard point in my relationship with Herman, and I dreaded it being my birthday again because I didn’t want another sad birthday two years in a row. I remember feeling exactly how Liz felt when she was lying on her bathroom floor sobbing saying, “I don’t want to be married anymore. I don’t want to live in this big house. I don’t want to have a baby.” Although I wasn’t saying those exact things because deep down I really do want to be married, live in a big house, and have a baby.  I just didn’t want to have those things with Herman. But it wasn’t until I watched The Secret that finally gave me the push I needed to make the decision to be happy and free on my own.  That was the first time I understood how hard it must have been for Liz to leave the life she had built to search for a life she wants rather than a life full of “common expectations”. For me it was easy searching for and getting what I wanted because I had an exact idea of who I wanted, but the hard part is what happens after. Now that I’ve found my dream partner I’m just realizing how hard it is to maintain the relationship I want, while setting up a home together, while thinking of the future. How can I possibly jump to being married, live in a big house, and have a baby basically run if I haven’t even learned how to crawl or walk?  So now this is something I have to learn just like Liz did... How to find one’s balance and happiness?