If you don’t know the story, the movie is based on a book which is based on a trip that overindulged white woman had to take to find herself. Read that sentence again, because I mean EVERY WORD.
I get it. A middle aged woman has lost her ‘gusto’ for life. She was going through a nasty divorce, and perhaps even lost her country home. Believe me, I know how traumatizing losing a country home can be. So she decides to…wait for it…take a year off. Wow, why didn’t I think of that?! Yes, she takes a year off and goes to Italy, India and Bali. She is going to how to learn how to eat, pray, and love. And then- THEN- she is going to come back to the US and write a book about it, so that we can all experience her self-indulged year-long temper tantrum. Seriously.
First, let’s be practical. This trip cost her well over $100,000. AT LEAST. That doesn’t include the lost wages and opportunities. Do you have that kind of money? Neither do I. And if I did, I wouldn’t waste it on a trip to commune with elephants for a year. My kids need to go to college, yo.
But never fear, she is going to get her money back. And then some. Who’s going to give it to her? All of us who fawn over her and soak up her bits of wisdom as if she is the second coming of Ghandi. We are going to buy her book (cha-ching), her perfume (cha-ching), buy her trip-inspired merchandise on HSN (CHA-CHING, BABY!). We will be the poorer, she the richer and will you have learned something profound from it all?
No.
I mean it, you won’t.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you could take this wonderful trip- that you could pause your home, career, kids (don’t forget this woman does not have kids. And she needs to get away from stress? That lady does not know stress.) and go to where ever you need to go to ‘find’ yourself.
A couple of things will become apparent:
1) Ms. Gilbert’s realizations will not be your realizations. Yours would be different. Therefore to read about hers are meaningless.
2) The world will move on without you. Your friends will go away, you job will go away, and all will be unforgiving about your need for discovery.
3) Your book will suck and no one will buy it.
4) You will not look like Julia Roberts or meet someone like Javier Bardem.
Save your money and your time. You don’t need to go to India or Bali or Italy to find your zest for life. You don’t need to buy the book, the perfume, the clothes to get in touch with your inner self. Trust me.
