Smile with your liver

So I finally watched Eat, Pray, Love. A movie well made, with quite an excellent script and yet true to the book. I think there's something so reassuring in reading a book or watching a movie based on a true story, knowing that these things happened to someone and not just in their head. Sometimes, you need that. Fiction sustains, but there's nothing more inspiring than a real life miracle. That's what I got from Liz Gilbert's story. That, and more.

It's funny how we spend our lives doing things that we think will one day contribute to our happiness. We study hard to ensure a good future, we give up vacations for internships and entrance exams, we get jobs which are demanding and leave us with no time for ourselves or anyone else, for that load of money we want to hoard up for the future; we put off breaks and holidays, always focusing on the urgent and forgetting that time waits for no one. And then it's too late and we feel like we wasted away, because all those college day vacations will never return, and maybe those internships added a line to our resume and landed us the job that kills us and doesn't give us any time to use up the money we've hoarded up. Or maybe they didn't.

Everywhere I turn, people are in a rush. Or worried. Or busy. I find this the most when I turn to myself. Always trying to do too much, always wanting more. Being a dreamer is one thing, but when those dreams start to ruin your life, maybe it's time to stop dreaming for a while. Maybe it's time to put a stop to the quarter-life crisis you find yourself in, every moment of every day. Maybe it's time to unwind, accept, breathe, be. Time to do nothing, even if just for a while every now and then. To switch your cell phone off or put your ear phones in. To forget the world around you, and be absorbed by it. Dolce far niente. Sweet idleness. I'm going to remember that.

Oh, and I'm also going to remember to smile with my face, mind and liver.

zemni.deviantart.com