You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embrace loneliness as a part of the human experience without relying on others for fulfillment.
In this quote, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on the importance of acknowledging and understanding loneliness rather than fearing it. She encourages individuals to accept their solitude and explore it deeply instead of using others to fill emotional voids, ultimately highlighting loneliness as a valid and valuable aspect of the human experience that can lead to personal growth and self-discovery.
Themes
LonelinessSelf-DiscoveryHuman ExperienceEmotional FulfillmentGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about mental health, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of understanding and embracing loneliness.
More from Elizabeth Gilbert
All quotes →Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
Elizabeth GilbertRead
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
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