Eat, pray, love...for grownups
a mid-life awakening...
Do you remember that wildly popular book… Eat, Pray, Love…One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia? It was the ultimate "priv-lit" (a literature of privilege) written to appeal to the neurotic, self-absorbed crowd.
The author, after 8 years of marriage, finds herself trapped in a seemingly perfect life, complete with a beautiful home and a prosperous career.
Bored, she pitches a book, receives a $200k publisher's advance with which she finances her world travel, divorces her husband, winds up on the NY Times best seller list for 150 wks and is soon named one of the 100 most influential people in the world and named to Oprah's SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders-replete with TED talks.
Roger Ebert says it well in “A Confederacy of Narcissists” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eat-pray-love-2010.
I felt embarrassed for the state of our culture.
I’ll reserve comment regarding the author, but I wished that we could have had a grown-up version. I could have written that book, but given the decades-long trends in bookselling, it likely wouldn’t have been published.
I was a book seller in New York City for 10 years. I was witness to the decline in the quality of writing and the decline of bookselling…at least in America. The “80/20 Rule” prevailed (80% of sales were to be found in 20% of the titles, so why bother carrying all that extra slow-moving inventory?) Our access to literature was curtailed…guided by unseen forces to lower and increasingly banal expressions.
Self-publishing has its potentials, not the least of which is being free to write what I want in the way that I want…but in the end, you will also have to become a marketer, which, for a writer, is neither attractive nor expedient. My writing covers a lot of different subjects, experiences and stories. In the end, I couldn’t be bound to or molded by the marketplace. Decoupling from the monetary and marketing aspects of writing set me free….but if you’re interested… https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C1KQ4Z1T
Substack is a pleasure in that it gives more immediate access to a world of fascinating readers, thinkers and diverse people to interact with on wide-ranging topics…in real time.
But moving on…
Another WorldviewDebra Robinson·April 28, 2025Read full story
Another Worldview is one chapter of the ‘grown-ups edition’ of eat, pray, love.
A glimpse into Indian philosophy on a memorable flight from NYC to London UK…
Another chapter…this one…set in Bangkok, Thailand.
This is one of the most valuable and illuminating perspectives that I have ever encountered…the kind of outlook that could do our culture a lot of good.
You be the judge…
It was the first day of the highly anticipated International Gift Fair in Bangkok, Thailand …an annual buying trip that would set the tone for the year ahead. I had planned my day carefully. My first stop would be at Patchanee’s booth. She and I had done business the year before. I would likely spend the bulk of my budget with her company.
I was fresh and ready for the myriad decisions that would have to be made. There were some 30,000 people entering the pavilion that morning. With only 4 days to visit all the vendors and buy for the year ahead, time was of the essence.
When I got to Patchanee’s booth we greeted each other warmly…and that’s when the unexpected happened. Rather than sitting down to write business, Pat invited me to her home for lunch.
Now the first day of these shows is the busiest one for vendors…and the most lucrative! This is the day they meet with their major customers. The first day is critical for their year ahead. How many workers they will employ, the raw materials needed, the international shipping arrangements, etc.
Her invitation came as quite a surprise under the circumstances.
It knocked my carefully planned day right off its rocker (this was back when I lived according to the second hand on my watch…)
But something on the inside said to say ‘Yes’.
I sensed a rare opportunity…
Patchanee gathered her things and gave a little nod to her staff and we left, making our way against the incoming crowds to the exit. Pat hailed a cab and we got in.
In a second surprise, I found that her home was a five-hour cab ride across Bangkok!
My schedule lay in ruins! This would be an all-day event, not even considering the infamous Bangkok traffic!
“Mai Pen Rai,” I reminded myself.
“It doesn’t matter…” A phrase that deserves it’s own post.
As you might imagine, we got to know each other pretty well over the next five hours!
Patchanee started to tell me a little bit about her family life. She came from the upper echelons of Thai society…from a privileged background. She was well-educated, as was her husband. In fact, her husband was the Minister of Forestry for the nation.
She had founded and managed a substantial business. On a side note, it’s worth mentioning that Asian business women are quite accomplished. There isn’t the sort of glass ceiling that we experience in the west. These Asian tiger women are highly successful dynamos!
Patchanee had a brother and sister who assisted her in her business. She also had a son and a daughter on the cusp of entering university.
So that gave me a little insight into her background. Then we discovered that we were both turning 40 that year. She had accomplished much in her 40 years.
That made things interesting!
Little did I know how interesting this was going to get!
She began to tell me that as she was approaching 40, her life was about to change…in some very significant ways.
She had just put the finishing touches on her children’s higher education plans as she prepared to launch them into the world.
That very morning she turned over her big business to her younger brother and sister…
And she continued on nonchalantly, she had just told her husband that she was leaving for the convent!!!
As she started to tell me these things, I was quaking on the inside! Our lives were running strangely parallel!
Back home in the states, I had just given my husband the funds for his two children’s college education.
Where my business was concerned, I had reached a point where I wanted to turn it over to my employees. We were like family anyway. I had been grooming them to take over. I had a curious sense of being done with this experience. If they wanted the business, they could have it.
Earlier that year, I remembered walking up the hill to the factory from the farmhouse, just as I would on any other morning, but that day something unexpected happened. As I crested the little hill, I saw the factory yard…filled with employees cars and the overflow of raw materials on pallets.
Something inside arrested me…caught my attention…and I saw the familiar scene with fresh eyes.
My thought was “Omg…I came here just a few years ago with nothing but a little debt. And now I have all of this! How on earth did this happen?! I swear I have more stuff than God!”
Then I hurried into work as usual, not quite realizing that I had turned a corner on the inside.
That’s when I first began to feel something stirring. It was faint in the beginning. But I began to have the feeling of having too much stuff (if you remember George Carlin’s comedy routine called ‘Stuff’, that will give you an idea). Everything was becoming too much…burdensome…even annoying.
I began to turn loose of some of that stuff. I put the brakes on and stopped acquiring. I began to give stuff away and the more I gave, the better I felt. My feet were finding the path…
When I began to let go of some of the excess, my husband became quite alarmed. I tried to explain to him that I was only giving away my things, not his. (In fact our finances had always been separate.) When he discovered that I was giving money to charity, he became really upset…arguing and insisting that charity begins at home. (I was to realize that, for him, charity began and ended at home.)
He took pains to explain that in the great American scheme, as you approached 40, that was the time to really start hoarding in earnest…to glom onto and pile up all you could for your very comfortable future. (He also had a few more first-class trips in mind. He could always spend it faster than I could make it and that stress was beginning to show.)
He never took time to be grateful for any of it. That scared me on some level…
In those few years of unexpected wealth, I had tasted the good life, which was fun in its way, but it wasn’t the life that I wanted to give myself to somehow, nor was it the company I wished to keep.
Then, in a more troubling development, I was fighting the urge to leave my marriage.
Though I had paid for 90% of things, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to divide everything down the middle, give him half plus the money for his kids’ college.
In return, I simply wanted my life back.
Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Those details would follow in due time.
I was listening to Patchanee describe such similar circumstances, but she did it with a sense of peace, simplicity and composure. She described these major developments in such a calm, matter-of-fact way.
Meanwhile, the more she told me, the more striking the parallels were.
I was just having a much bumpier time of it.
While I was going through the every day motions of life on the outside, my insides were in turmoil. I had even chucked myself into counseling, telling the poor man “I‘m married to the nicest man in the world and I am going out of my mind. What is the matter with me?!”
He smiled and said “Oh, they’re the worst kind… Have a seat, dear.”
(fortunately, I was working with a cognitive therapist…short term, very practical therapy that helps you jumpstart your own thinking…and a little bit of support went a very long way.) My husband attended one session, but since I was the one with the problem…
Our paths continued to diverge.
My mind was whirling as I listened to her. She was as calm as I was distraught. I hardly knew where to start, but I finally blurted out. “What did your husband have to say about it?!”
“Oh, he was just fine with it” she said with an easy smile.
My eyes must have been as big as saucers by this time!
Then came her little Cheshire cat grin. Patchanee said “I guess this calls for a bit of explanation.…
You know, here in Thailand, we are Buddhists. But we are middle path…not too extreme.
And we see life in three parts…
The first 20 years of your life is for growing up in your family and for your education. That is the time where you learn how to use your little vehicle…your body. You learn about family…then society. You go to school. You begin to master the world around you… your immediate world...the small world.
The next 20 years of your life is for your marriage and children, if you so choose… (these things are less mandatory in their culture. They are not imposed on everyone as they are here) This is also for your career and working life. In this 20 year period, you gain experience of the wider world. You learn many things. This is the phase where you learn to master the greater world…the world at large.
And the last third of your life is YOURS…for your personal and spiritual development.
So my husband will do the same. He is inclined to go to the mountains and I will go to the seashore. At the monastery I will rest, take long walks, meditate, journal and take stock of my life thus far. And then I will prepare for the next life…
Again, my husband will do the same. We do not divorce or break up the family. In fact, we come back and revisit the marriage as often as we like. In practice, it is very fluid.
But we remember that we came into this life as individual souls. We came together for this 20 year experience. But we will leave this world as individual souls…
So we give each other the space needed to grow. It takes energy and space to evolve into the next stage. We need freedom…freedom from our former obligations and attachments, space to think our own thoughts and the energy that was formerly spent in worldly pursuits.
So this is how it works out practically…
I raised my children for nearly 20 years. If I have done my job well, I have equipped them for the next stage of life. My job and my role as mother is essentially complete. The love is still there, but the roles have shifted. They no longer lean on me or rely on me as ‘mom’. They will take up their responsibilities now, they will begin to experience the world at large and live their lives. I put the finishing touches on their higher education plans and I am essentially done…free for the next stage.
As for my business, I have had an amazing 20 year experience. I learned the world. I extracted all of the juice and the learning from this experience. I have set enough money aside for my future and now I want my younger brother and sister to have this experience. I have been grooming them for two or three years now.
This morning, I knew that today was the day to step away and turn it over to them. I gave them a little smile and a nod. It is done. It is their turn now.”
She just knew. She walked out at the top of her game. What a life statement… She was now free to engage the next stage of life…
“In your culture, people think that they are supposed to be ‘joined at the hip’ for their whole lives. If they are not joined at the hip always, they think something is wrong!
But they inevitably grow apart. And when they do, they think of that as a tragedy! They do not see it as a natural part of growth.
Like leaves on a tree…new leaves separate so each may receive the sun and the rain. It is natural and appropriate to grow apart as you enter the next stage of your life… It is not a tragedy at all.
We release each other in order to grow. The old roles can be relaxed now.
I am fascinated to see who I will become in this next stage of life. I am also fascinated to see who he will become! There are dimensions to be discovered. There are new depths to explore.
We release the identities and roles that have fulfilled their purpose.”
What we in the West call a mid-life crisis is not a crisis at all in their culture…
In fact, their whole culture supports these changes…this growth.
To me, they had arrived at a much more elegant solution…
We begin the experience of individuation as soon as we are born…first from our mothers.
Life is a continual process of growth marked by instances of individuation…from our family of origin, our first loves, jobs, living situations, beliefs, our ways of showing up in the world.
Our former selves even have to be shed at times. Coming together and letting go….
Our culture tends to lead us into unnecessary and harmful enmeshment.
Are we holding on to what is passed or are we learning the art of relinquishing?
The art of moving forward cleanly in life…
If so, can you extend that to your companions in this life? Spouse, child, friend, parent?
If we could learn to have an appreciation of their process and not reflexively resist and panic, we might be better off.
I sometimes liken these changes to puberty…a kind of spiritual puberty…the one no one told us about or prepared us for in our culture.
Looking back, as the next stage of your maturation began in early adolescence, you began to change on the inside. Hormones began to make their presence seen and felt. You had no control over the process. For some, it was a relatively benign process, but for many, it was bumpy!
You didn’t understand what was happening, you were powerless to stop it, you had no idea what you were going to look like when it was all over! It was a time of turbulence, mood swings, chaos.
But somehow, we all lived through it. We came out the other side of the experience just like we were supposed to. We came ‘of age’ and everything in life changed! We moved forward into adulthood.
No one told us in the West that another major phase would occur as we hit mid-life. Something is bubbling up from inside…changing us…into what?!
Into the next stage of…ourselves!
It can be as turbulent and confusing as puberty. Someone is changing and trying to emerge, but society panics, labels it derogatorily and tries to work against it with all its might.
It is new life trying to emerge…needing to emerge. An old life is falling away.
Sometimes I see it as the last stage of a rocket falling away as it heads into space…
We are still evolving into more of what we are…
It is a necessary season of deeply personal self-involvement…
The Soul is making itself felt. It is weighing in. It was always there in the background. It’s time had not come…
In our culture, it gets all twisted up somehow, because we lack a workable mental framework for the experience.
The problem in our culture is that we view this stage of life as the beginning of our descent into illness, aging and death.
We are blind to this reality of continued growth!
If you haven’t relegated yourself to the status quo, Life takes on more depth, richness and color after the ages of 40-50 (for the Thai people, maturity and the next stage come around the age of 40, while westerners come to things a bit later)
Even though that period of life was strangely confusing, I was right on time…Thai time!
Life is what you make it in the end! I would have to say that in so many ways, life after 40 became the springboard for the most surprising and meaningful experiences of Life. That is the Soul’s urge…and the good trajectory of Life.
Another WorldviewDebra Robinson·April 28, 2025
I made my way down the aisle of the crowded Air India plane, scanning the overhead bins for my seat number. A huge sense of pleasure and anticipation filled me. This was a moment I had dreamt of for years. I was embarking on the first leg of a round-the-world tour…solo.
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