I was recently watching Eat, Pray, Love; you know, having one of those existential life crisis moments that can only be solved by watching Julia Roberts galavant around the world sharing life wisdom and eating pizza.
I forgot how much I adore Julia Roberts, and I also forgot about the life-affirming moment in the film where Julia and her new found friends in Italy come up with a word to define and reflect places, and themselves. I believe there is nothing more emotionally uplifting than being at one with yourself and truly understanding what you want, and who you are. Enter, the word.
Julia lives her life by taking that leap of faith, it becomes motivation for her to live her best life.
Julia ends the film saying her word is Attraversiamo, an Italian word meaning let’s crossover, take a leap of faith. I think it’s an amazing word, and it obviously supports the whole idea of the book and her adventures to ‘find herself’, but it also encourages everyone to live a life they want, not a life they think they have to live. Their definition for London, however, well stuffy is not something I will support. perhaps Lively, Limitless and Lovely … But I digress.
I thought a lot about my word after this film, and settled on Rêveur, a French word meaning dreamer and idealist. I’m a daydreamer, a romanticist, and a fantasiser. I’ve long had a love affair with this word and the meaning behind it, but it wasn’t until I was reminded of this moment in the film that I realised it was, in fact, my word.
I believe we all have one word that we associate with, this word is not just something we use to define ourselves with, but a word we use to live our life by. Just like in the movie, Julia lives her life by taking that leap of faith, it becomes motivation for her to live her best life.
For many of us, our word stays true as we go through life – no matter what stage we are at. This is who we are, and unless we drastically change our ethos and the way we look at life, it never changes. That doesn’t mean this word is always present; there have been many times in my life where I have felt lost, and stagnant. I didn’t know what I was doing, and more importantly where I was going. I felt unsatisfied, and it was these times where I was not dreaming, I was not fantasising about exciting possibilities and how I could make these a reality. I had lost my word and in a sense, who I was.
And now, to make a big call…I believe that once you find your word and understand the person you want to be then you can truly begin to be happy.
“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
It is likely that there will be times in our lives where we have to fight to stay true to our words, to not let other’s expectations make you change the person you are. But when we stay true to our word and when we fight for whatever it is we want out of life, then we can be happy.
So, what’s your word?