So whenever that brittle voice of dissatisfaction emerges within me, I can say "Ah, my ego! There you are, old friend!" It's the same thing when I'm being criticized and I notice myself reaching with outrage, heartache, or defensiveness. It's just my ego, flaring up and testing its power. In such circumstances, I have learned to watch my heated emotions carefully, but I try not to take them too seriously, because I know that it's merely my ego that has been wounded--never my soul It is merely my ego that wants revenge, or to win the biggest prize. It is merely my ego that wants to start a Twitter war against a hater, or to sulk at an insult or to quit in righteous indignation because I didn't get the outcome I wanted. "At such times, I can always steady my life one more by returning to my soul. I ask it, "And what is it that you want, dear one?" "The answer is always the same: "More wonder, please." "As long as I'm still moving in that direction---toward wonder--then I know I will always be fine in my soul, which is where it counts. And since creativity is still the most effective way for me to access wonder, I choose it.
Elizabeth Gilbert
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ELIZABETH GILBERT I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expec... ELIZABETH GILBERT I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly ... ELIZABETH GILBERT Which is - you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I sti... ELIZABETH GILBERT When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of o... ELIZABETH GILBERT That is who Barack Obama is - a person of admirable character - and that is who he has remained for ... ELIZABETH GILBERT There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is... ELIZABETH GILBERT You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the ves... ELIZABETH GILBERT I don't hate humanity and I'm not interested in people who do. Although, it's funny, act... ELIZABETH GILBERT Unfenced by law, the unmarried lover can quit a bad relationship at any time. But you - the legally ... ELIZABETH GILBERT Ketut, why is life all crazy like this?" I asked my medicine man the next day...So what can we do ab... ELIZABETH GILBERT My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with peopl... ELIZABETH GILBERT Man, they got mosquitoes 'round this place big enough to rape a chicken. ELIZABETH GILBERT You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something ... ELIZABETH GILBERT I have my own set of survival techniques. I am patient. I know how to pack light. But my one might t... ELIZABETH GILBERT I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in... ELIZABETH GILBERT God dwells within you, as you. ELIZABETH GILBERT Look for God, suggests my Guru. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water. ELIZABETH GILBERT Dear me, how I love a library. ELIZABETH GILBERT That’s the thing about a human life-there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us ... ELIZABETH GILBERT There's a reason we refer to "leaps of faith" - because the decision to consent to any notion of div... ELIZABETH GILBERT Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advanc... ELIZABETH GILBERT I think sometimes we look at other people's marriages and we think they must always be so happy ... ELIZABETH GILBERT In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic e... ELIZABETH GILBERT يعتقد المرء أن توأم الروح هو الشخص الأنسب له ، وهذا ماي�... ELIZABETH GILBERT Still it is true that many same-sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrat... ELIZABETH GILBERT There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whisk... ELIZABETH GILBERT Nothing in the last few years has dazzled me more than Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall,' whic... ELIZABETH GILBERT I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-... ELIZABETH GILBERT [Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and o... ELIZABETH GILBERT I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimac... ELIZABETH GILBERT Part of the elasticity that you need, in order to continue to try to create, is the foregone conclus... ELIZABETH GILBERT stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be... ELIZABETH GILBERT He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standin... ELIZABETH GILBERT The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things th... ELIZABETH GILBERT The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this p... ELIZABETH GILBERT You have the opposite of poker face. You have like.. miniature golf face. ELIZABETH GILBERT Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that’s not fair to say. To have issues with bo... ELIZABETH GILBERT Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, ... ELIZABETH GILBERT He lived in sight of both worlds, but he looked toward the unknown. And he was a scholar.... You can... ELIZABETH GILBERT The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, w... ELIZABETH GILBERT One year, Alma bought Prudence- who liked to draw flowers (beautifully, though not 'accurately')- a ... ELIZABETH GILBERT Let me ask you something, in all the years that you have...undressed in front of a gentleman has he ... ELIZABETH GILBERT Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely express... ELIZABETH GILBERT What worked yesterday doesn't always work today. ELIZABETH GILBERT This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe r... ELIZABETH GILBERT In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back people in this world who sustain ou... ELIZABETH GILBERT Alma had grown as tall as a man by now, with broad shoulders. ... This need not have necessarily pre... ELIZABETH GILBERT We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal ... ELIZABETH GILBERT Pardon me, sir," Prudence said, directing her words and her placid gaze precisely at Professor Peck,... ELIZABETH GILBERT There’s this human capacity for joy and endurance, even when things are at their worst. A joy that... ELIZABETH GILBERT When it comes to developing a worldview, we tend to face this false division: Either you are a reali... ELIZABETH GILBERT People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weath... ELIZABETH GILBERT I push every day against forces that say you have to go faster, be more effective, be more productiv... ELIZABETH GILBERT This food won't be wasted; after the offering ceremony, Balinese families are always allowed to eat ... ELIZABETH GILBERT But doesn't that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed... infinite? That even the most holy... ELIZABETH GILBERT I got to tell you, I think (deifying artists) was a huge error. You know, I think that allowing some... ELIZABETH GILBERT I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as t... ELIZABETH GILBERT The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted ... ELIZABETH GILBERT