DeziGal

Lately, I've had opposing life goals. I touch-typed a list on my iphone, before the New Year high had worn out, titled 'life-goals'. In it are a few random desires -- fly a plane, sail a boat, read a book each month, post at least one blog entry a month, travel two countries a year, volunteer in africa, adopt a dog and eventually a child (if I come around to motherhood). The thought that keeps me up at night though, is how I am going to balance it all. And more so, how can a person come to terms with opposing lifeviews. How could I still love gucci when I've experienced true joy with charity. How could I enjoy luxurious hotels and their finely packaged amenities when I rally for recycling and hybrids. How will I climb up the career ladder while trying to ride a lama in patagonia. How can one woman make babies and money, all while not looking like a back of a bus, mind you. My hope, as I enter the third decade of my life, is that somehow god is kind enough to bless me with a life where I can experience both self-love and selflessness.

I lay in bed mulling these thoughts, until I came across the following in my lastest read, "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. She says," What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could snychronize seemingly incongrous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing? The truth is, I want to experience both worldy enjoyment and divine transcendence - the dual glories of human life. I want what the greeks called kalos kai agathos, the singular balance of the good and beautiful. I have been missing both during these last hard years. Both pleasure and devotion require a stress free space in which to flourish and I'd been living in a giant trash compactor of non-stop anxiety."

Thank you Elizabeth. For showing me that these tough decisions are not just my own. And thanks for writing about your life-changing journey that has been an inspiration to thousands of women who grapple between the "good and the beautiful."