Eat Pray Love – a dissenting opinion

I don’t know what it is about me that has to be contrary. It happened first with the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. Everyone I knew saw it before I did and RAVED about how funny it was. When I finally got to the theatre to see it, my response was much less enthusiastic. It wasn’t a bad movie, I just didn’t get the same excitement that the crowd before me got.

So I have heard all the ruckus about Eat Pray Love. Many of my friends LOVED it. Some even said it changed their lives! I decided to read it also, and while I loved the section on Rome (because I love Rome), I just didn’t get infected with enthusiasm for the book the way my friends had.

In case you haven’t read it, let me give you a very brief synopsis:

Our author goes through a horrible divorce followed closely by a turbulent rebound relationship. In an effort to find herself and God, she takes a year and travels to three exotic locations (Italy, India and Indonesia) to search.

I have no complaints about the quality of the writing, about the way the story progresses, about the character development, or anything like that.

I came away from the book with two stories in mind:

The Wizard of Oz and The Blue Bird of Happiness.

I guess I just don’t understand why you need to search the whole world over to find God, yourself, or happiness.

Travel because you enjoy it, because you want to learn about different cultures, or because you want an adventure.

If you want to find God, yourself, or happiness, perhaps you could start looking in your own backyard.