i shouldn't have read this book

because it owns me now and i also want to go on a 1 year journey to find my 'everything.' i'm serious. the book is an inspiration! its not even fiction! it actually happened and the characters in her book actually exist! (ya ya, everything i read before were fictions, nancy drew and sweet valley high included!)

EAT PRAY LOVE by elizabeth gilbert.

its crazy how i like to think its my life story, except that i'm not divorced and i don't do yoga (because for the love of God, i can't keep my mind still!) the back cover summary:

It's 3 AM and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby--and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realizes it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance.

So she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains 25 pounds; to an Ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor and to Bali, where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up up on her.

and my favorite lines:

"I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

perfect. it is just perfect. couldn't have said it any better.

this book makes me want to meditate. and be in silence. and be spiritual. and learn how to listen (i can say that i know how to pray) to God. and then when i think my life is in balance, i tend to forget to pray, or thank Him even. =(

siyet i'm so funny. the last time i went this crazy over a book was bob ong's ABNKKBSKNPL? so crazy that i brought it with me to bora and did a whole bob ong's book club thing by the beach and read the book aloud to my equally shallow gxs friends.

this year, as i turn 26, i am going deeper. i hope.

this book reminds me so much of what i really want in life: to do volunteer work and live a simple life, even if it means living in the poverty stricken areas. (yes i know sg is not that place but i have to feed myself for now so i gotta work here like mad, save money, and leave the city life for good!) i always get myself entangled with this materialistic unfair world. i always forget what my heart desires because i always get tempted with the worldly things. what can i do? i am only human and temptation always wins. this is where i want to start working on, self-discipline (which apparently i have zero percent of!) and contentment. two difficult yet attainable virtues. (i know for sure i am NOT the only person who uses the 'what can i do, i am only human' excuse for every failure and distress!)

i think i really need to pray. hard. now.

i think i also want silence.