The woman who wrote the book Eat, Pray Love gave a short
Ted talk.
Elizabeth Gilbert described the period in her life before releasing her book as one of continuous failure. She was a waitress in a diner and wrote from a desire deep within her, but met with a long string of rejections from publishers. Then her book slammed onto the best seller list and she was flung into the limelight in a way she could never have imagined. But in the aftermath she hit a different wall. Writing was still her passion, and yet she was immobilized by the fear of trying to follow
a winner. No book could equal its popularity. Why would she step into inevitable failure again?
Her answer came as an echo of the line in Kipling's poem If.
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat these two impostors just the same."
There are days and years when we might be tempted to slap a verdict on our own marriages. Failure. Success. But regardless of the name on the package, we are free to
keep trudging. People who believe that their relationship has Arrived may slip into benign neglect. Yet cruise control is not always a safe strategy. Couples who fall for the illusion that their marriage is a failure may stop trying. But most of the paths to a working design travel through messiness.
Elizabeth Gilbert articulated that she loves writing more than she loves her own ego. Writing is bigger than the result she
gets.
Marriage can be more significant than our own ability to assess it.
