Quotation Wednesday_Thoughts Menu

Once again, I turned to Eat Pray Love - this time a random selection, I've just opened a dog-eared page (and they are MANY) and this is what I've got:

''I can choose my thoughts.''

Another smack on the head. What should I say - have you ever thought THAT possible? Well, it obviously IS possible, though right now it feels like trying to feel relaxed in a most complicated yoga position you take for the very first time after you've spent some months in total immobility (since I've never went too deep into that time-wasting activity, yoga, that is, I don't even know which position it is. I would suggest it has something to do with a dog).

Honestly, I've always had a suspicion that we can control our thoughts at least to a certain degree, though never tried. Laziness, I guess, and unwillingness to give up that little sweet habit so many of us have - feeling sorry for myself. It's like craving chocolate - you know it's not really good for you and barely healthy, but it brings comfort, however dubious. But now it's time to give up chocolate unhealthy thinking, since

''I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore.''

Quotation Wednesday_On discontent

I'm still ploughing through Eat Pray Love right now (though ploughing refers to my lack of reading time and not the quality of the book, which is, by the way, superb). The book is already totally dog-eared (I'm prone to that, but only with my own books), but this sentence made me want to rip out the page completely and ... I donno, maybe eat it? So that is stays with me forever? Because otherwise I'm afraid I can occasionally forget it...

I don't mind anything these days. I can't imagine or remember discontent.

Imagine is not the biggest here. Remember is bigger. It's like when you want to quit smoking, or drinking coffee, or popping chocolate into your mouth while going up the hill with the pram with the 10-kg baby inside and thus reducing all your pram-pushing to mere nothingness. Not remembering what pleasure that bad habit of yours used to give you is pure bliss.

A Quote for Wednesday_Please, buy a ticket

One more feature on my blogging schedule - a quotation every Wednesday. Why Wednesday, of all days? Well, in my prehistoric working life Wednesdays were always the worst days - they were the longest. And I changed jobs several times! Besides, it's in the middle of the week, it's like a breaking point - if you drag yourself through Wednesday, you can draw a sigh of relief and look forward to the weekend already.

I'm an avid reader (well, or used to be, in the BB time, that is, Before Baby), and I've always collected quotes from books I've read. Inspirational, philosophical, or just strikingly similar to my own thoughts - I think I have already accumulated volumes, if I really put it alltogether. And then I even moved on to the movies, thanks to DVDs, otherwise you have to be pretty darn quick to jot down what catches your attention.

This time it will be a movie - Eat, Pray, Love, you know, where Julia Roberts is gorging herself on Italian food and then goes to India to detox (well, that's my version, somewhat simplified). Honestly, I haven't seen the entire movie yet, somehow I haven't been able to see it to the end, mainly due to disturbances of a baby-ish kind. Well, anyway, I've seen enough to hear a story about an old Italian man, who every day goes to church and begs a statue: Dear statue, please, please, please, let me win a lottery. One day an exasperated statue comes to life and says: Dear man, please, please, please, buy a lottery ticket. I was so astounded by this that I'm actually not able to find any words, and yet something is bubbling inside every time I think about it and has to be put into those so-hard-to-find words.

I mean, it's so obvious, isn't it, that if you want to win a lottery you have to start somewhere? Like, buying the damn ticket? BUT THEN, IF IT'S SO OBVIOUS, WHY DO WE FORGET IT ALL THE TIME????? This wisdom is international - don't expect favours raining down on you while you are enjoying a siesta on your backyard. You have to work, just to get that very backyard. And then to work some more, to be able to have a siesta. And maybe to afford a comfy chair to stretch out on. And a gardener, to mow your lawn... But I'm deviating. I guess I can call myself a fatalist, though not necessarily in a pessimistic way - I do believe that we have a path to travel, and yes, some bad things have to happen to us too, but they are stepping stones, lessons to be learned. In the end you will get your reward. There's only one teeny-tiny catch: you don't know from the start how hard you must try. Oh, if we could know everything beforehand, life would have been so much easier, don't you think? (And so exceedingly boring, too).

But reading about this statue, so annoyed by the human stupidity, made me contemplate about my own life. Have I done enough? Do I sit idly and wait for things to happen? (well, some events, and wonderful, marvelous, long expected and almost given up on DID occur without any interference on my side whatsoever, but I see it more as an exception).

I guess, it's not a lame starting point for thinking about you weekend, huh? What about a nonchalant remark to your husband about that intriguing restaurant you passed by earlier this week...

P.S. Yesterday I've started reading Eat, Pray, Love. Only a few pages, and she's already my guru. Elizabeth Gilbert, here I come!