The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi warned, you are destined for unhappiness. Better to live a life of single-pointed focus, he taught. But what about the benefits of living harmoniously among extremes? What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?
Elizabeth GilbertWhen you have only two minutes to say good-bye to the person you love most in the world, and you donโt know when youโll see each other again, you can become logjammed with the effort to say and do and settle everything at once.
Elizabeth GilbertYou were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertBut at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with think, dark hair, He would have made me that way, but He didn't. Useful, then, might be to accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein.
Elizabeth GilbertThis was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if Iโd only ever experienced love and certainty in my life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine?
Elizabeth Gilbert