Eat Pray Love Book Review

Oprah interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert a few months ago about her new book Eat Pray Love. Oprah promised viewers that if they read the book and followed it, it would change their lives. Then she interviewed other women who followed Gilbert’s advise and how much happier they were after reading the book. I was really intriqued and decided to read the book to find out if it would change my life.

Eat, Pray, Love is a true story about Elizabeth Gilbert’s life after she almost had a nervous breakdown. The story starts with her living with her husband and crying on the floor in her bathroom every night because she didn’t want to have children with him. Thinking that she would save herself and sanity, she left him and started a relationship with another man. This also didn’t take away her guilt or curb her panic attacks, so she decided to take a year off and travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia to find herself. By the end of that year, she gets better and has a peace in her life. She credits this by finding a balance between meditating and seeking pleasure and encourages women to do the same thing.

Women should only read this book as entertainment and not take it seriously because there are many flaws in Gilbert’s philosophy. This book wasn’t really about her finding a cure for her panic attacks or finding God, but about her finding a belief system to support her selfishness and not feel guilty about it.

Rather than communicating to her husband her fears about being a mom and trying to work things out with him, she leaves him. Then she can’t figure out why he ends up hating her and not even wanting to speak to her. In the meditation school in India, she learns to let go of her guilt over her failed marriage without acknowledging that she was wrong. I am not saying that she should lock herself in her bathroom and cry everyday because of her failed marriage, but I do think that she needs to admit that her actions caused him a lot of pain.

This sort of philosophy is nothing new because criminals do the same thing. The ones that admit that they committed their crimes always try to minimilize and justify it. Their victim had it coming to them. Or the victim’s family will eventually move on. They try to convince people that if society treated them better than they wouldn’t be forced to kill.
Their philosophy flies out the window because they can’t ever look at their victims’ families while they are in the courtroom hoping for justice.

Most of the adults that I know in my life have had disappointments. No one’s life turns out the way that they plan. Some people want to have a spouse, but can’t find one. Some people want children and can’t have them. And some people want a career and can’t get it. The vast majority of them don’t have mental breakdowns and make selfish decisions, but rather deal with their disappointments and move on. The people who I admire the most accept the life they do have and try to make the best of their circumstances. Even if they had the luxuary of taking a year off traveling, they wouldn’t do it.

I seriously wonder what Elizabeth will do the next time she is disappointed with life. Oprah showed viewers what Gilbert’s life is like after writing the book and I have to say it is pretty stress free. She works from home and doesn’t have to keep any set hours and pretty much does whatever she wants. Her philosophy is working because she doesn’t have any stress in her life. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she had a breakdown after dealing with a disability. She will either do that or permanently move to the meditation school and wish her disability away.

If life has no consequences, then yes her philosophy would work. The thing is life bites back. Selfishness is usually a sin that destroys relationships in the long term. Think about how you feel when you are talking to people who only talk about themselves and never ask how you are doing. I admit that I get to where I just avoid them because I get so tired of hearing about them and they don’t ever listen to me when I want to talk. In a more extreme example, lets say a young mom takes the advice of Eat Pray Love and decides to leave her children because she doesn’t enjoy taking care of them. Rather than admitting that she hurt her children, she tries to find all sorts of ways to justify her actions. Her children grow up and forgive her, but don’t want a relationship with her to spare themselves further pain.

Eat Pray Love should only be read for entertainment purposes because it is fun reading about foreign countries. If women want to find peace in their lives, they should accept that sometimes life comes with disappointments and learn to be unselfish. If they are feeling guilty, they should confess their sins to God or the priest and do restitution to their victim rather than indulging in recreational activities or meditating. Doing this isn’t easy, but it will bring you long term peace.