You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
We invented marriage. Couples invented marriage. We also invented divorce,mind you. And we invented infidelity,too, as well as romantic misery. In fact we invented the whole sloppy mess of love and intimacy and aversion and euphoria and failure. But most importantly of all, most subversively of all, most stubbornly of all, we invented privacy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Marriage and love are human inventions, complete with their complexities and challenges.
Elizabeth Gilbert emphasizes that marriage, divorce, infidelity, and all the accompanying emotions are human constructs. She highlights the chaotic nature of love and relationships while asserting that even the concept of privacy in these matters is a product of our own making, underlining the significance of individual boundaries in our tangled emotional lives.
Themes
MarriageLoveRelationshipsDivorcePrivacyIntimacyHuman Constructs
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about modern relationships, this quote can illustrate the complexities of love and commitment.
More from Elizabeth Gilbert
All quotes →Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
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