It's all about the journey

So I finally read the book 'Eat Pray Love' a few weeks ago (yes, it has been out for a year or two now...sometimes you just have to wait for the right time to really get into a book!) and I still find myself thinking about some of the messages that I extracted from the story.

First, I will give a big thumbs up and recommendation if there is anyone left out there after me who has not read the book. I felt like the story was pretty personal and Elizabeth Gilbert did a heck of a job of just putting her whole self out there. There were parts of it that were hard for me to read, but much like the personal discovery journey that Elizabeth was on, it was hard to live!

The biggest takeaway that continues to resonate with me revolves around a conversation that Elizabeth had with her medicine man friend while in Bali. They were discussing meditation, heaven and hell. Ketut had been coaching Elizabeth about meditating up through her chakras, which he had done many times before, where he then found heaven. Elizabeth asked Ketut to describe heaven, and during the conversation he also indicated that he had gone down through his lower chakras too, implying that he had also seen hell. Elizabeth asked him what it was like and he said 'the same'. It takes a bit of back and forth banter to realize that he is saying that heaven and hell are the same. The most poignant line in the book (in my opinion) is from Ketut and goes something like, "Same-same. Same in the end, so better to be happy on journey."

We can (and I am always happy to!) engage in a lively debate about the literal meaning of the quote provided, but when all is said and done, the way that we approach things, the attitude that we take and the outlook we have on the big picture makes a HUGE difference in our perception of it being good or not. I'm not going all Pollyanna on you here - sometimes stuff sucks - but pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, hitching up our pants and looking for the most positive way to approach getting through it is certainly going to make a difference.

Here's to a happy journey.