7/14/06 Are you living your life in the wrong direction?

I’m in the middle of reading a book I’m thoroughly enjoying. It’s called eat pray love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Right now in the story Liz is in an Ashram in India. She is taking a year out of her life two visit three different countries, learning a little about herself in each area.

What I found rather comical is Liz has decided she should be more silent at this Ashram. She feels she talks too much to everyone. To the point where she is trying to make lunch dates with various people and she feels this has been what she was doing back in the states. So she decides to become silent. She plans to buy four of these badges (not just one) that she can pin on her clothes that says, “I’m in Silence.”

The next day as Liz is scrubbing the temple floors (everyone gets a job they have to work at for several hours a day and Liz is scrubbing floors) she gets a message that she needs to visit the seva Office (seva is a Sanskrit word for selfless service). So Liz heads off to the office to find out she won’t be scrubbing the temple floors for her selfless service. They have a new job for her, Key Hostess.

Key Hostess is basically the person that gets to know everyone and makes sure they are happy. If they have a problem, they are to see the Key Hostess…

I guess what got me here was how we THINK we should act a certain way…even if it doesn’t really suit us and is the farthest thing from our personality. Being silent isn’t what Liz was good at…talking to people, getting to know everyone and making others feel comfortable in new surroundings (being in an Ashram learning yoga and meditation in India isn’t something easy to take on) is something Liz was a natural at and everyone knew it.

Liz says, " I could only laugh later when many of them came out of their meditations to tell me that I had appeared to them during the retreat as a "silent gliding, ethereal presence." So this was the Ashrams's final joke on me? Once I had learned to accept my loud, chatty, social nature and fully embrace my inner Key Hostess - only then could I become the Quiet Girl in the Back of the Temple, after all?

Are you living your life in the wrong direction? Do you think you should be acting differently than who you really are? Isn't it about time you embrace and enjoy who you are instead of who you think you should be?

Just a thought…