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Dear Ones – Do you want a SIGNED COPY of any of my books? If so, you can buy t…

Jun 18, 2014

Dear Ones –

Do you want a SIGNED COPY of any of my books?

If so, you can buy them now, through my shop, Two Buttons! Click the link below for information!

You want them, we shall send them to you!

(And so sorry, but for now this only works within the United States! Thanks!)

Love,
LG


Shop – Two Buttons
twobuttons.com
Browse and shop for signed books by the # 1 New York Times bestselling author, Elizabeth Gilbert including "The Signature of All Things" & "Eat, Pray, Love"

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

A friend of this page named Katie sent this quote to me yesterday, and it struck…

Jun 18, 2014

A friend of this page named Katie sent this quote to me yesterday, and it struck me so hard, it made me catch my breath for a moment.

Indeed, try as we might (try as I HAVE) you cannot carry somebody to the mountaintop without their own assistance or participation.

I am particularly guilty of attempting to do this at times (OK, many times) and it has always ended in tears and resentment — and usually ends in a destroyed relationship.

Or, as another wise friend of mine has been trying to remind me for years, "You cannot put another person on their path for them. You can love them. You can encourage them. You can open some doors for them. You can even point the way. But eventually people have to get on their own paths by themselves."

These are hard words to believe sometimes, when all you want to do is help someone, and to usher her forward in life. But you must examine your motives very carefully as you set out to reconstruct or rescue an adult human. Be careful of your own arrogance, grandiosity, and self-righteousness, even if they are disguised as charitable impulses. (I am speaking to myself here, as much as to you all.)

To try to carry someone singlehandedly into a new life implies that you know what's best for that person…when in fact, very likely, you do not. You cannot. What's more, it is not your place to fully solve her life on her behalf; that duty (and its rewards) belong to her and to her alone. Or to him. Or to them. Or to us.

Love the people you love. Love them with all your heart. Love them like a hurricane. Help them in reasonable ways. But give them credit for their own power — however they may use it. And let them walk their own journey. Otherwise, their lives will never be their own…

And don't you dare miss your own mountaintop because you're dragging along an unwilling passenger!

ONWARD,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are you a book-devourer, or a book-preserver? OK, I know y…

Jun 17, 2014

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are you a book-devourer, or a book-preserver?

OK, I know you all love books. But my question today is – HOW do you love them? Ravenously, or tenderly? Do you physically devour them, or do you treat them like holy icons? Do you bend the pages and scribble notes in the margins, and place them face-down on the floor, and use them for a door jam? Or do you wrap them in mylar and keep them away from direct light, humidity, and your cup of coffee? Are there crumbs in your books, or could you eat off them (except that you wouldn't?)

I ask because sometimes I'll be doing a book signing and someone will come up with a battered, tattered copy of EAT PRAY LOVE for me to sign (something that looks like it's been to the beach, dropped in a bathtub, chewed on by a puppy, and had red wine spilled on it) and they will apologize for the shabby condition of the volume. As if I would be angry! But I think it's wonderful. I always say the same thing: "This book looks very well-loved."

I also think it's wonderful, though, when people present me with a book to sign that looks as though it's being preserved for the Library of Congress — practically handled with white gloves. I say the same thing in that case: "This book looks very well-loved."

So many ways to show love…

I myself am a book devourer. I love my collection of books but I don't fetishize them. I think they can stand up to some rough treatment, because I think books like to be tussled around a bit — like a lover in the bedsheets. I'll eat over a book, take it out in the rain, fill the margins with exclamation points (when I really love the content), leave it in the yard, lend it out to never be returned. I'm a book monster. I adore books too passionately to treat them gently.

Yet I have friends who, when they drop a book, will tenderly pick it up and kiss it, as if it were a baby. This, too, is love.

How about you? What's your style?

Happy reading,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall