God's way works.

I mentioned Elizabeth Gilbert and her book Eat, Pray, Love (and her glorious description of herself as having a 'putt-putt face') a couple weeks ago, and I must mention her again today.

After reading Eat, Pray, Love in a very short sitting, I was thrilled to see that she was going to be on Oprah. I set my DVR to record the show and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the author that I had come to know so well...to put a face and a voice and a personality to the words on her pages.

On the show, my friend Oprah asked my other friend Elizabeth how people can take what she learned by traveling the world for a year and apply it to their personal lives. Elizabeth offered the following two points (actually there were three, but I only remember two):

1. At the end of each day, write down the happiest moment of your day.
2. Determine your own personal mantra - the statement you consciously or subconsciously repeat in your own mind all day, every day.

I like these two ideas a lot. The idea to write down your happiest moment of each day is such a simple way to keep your perspective in the right place. So many times, when I come to the end of a day, my mind is swirling with the most stressful part of the day, or my biggest mistake of the day, or the sad moments of the day. What a needed shift to actively consider your happy moments, though! I have started doing this exercise - adding to to it my gratefulness to God for granting me that happy moment of the day - and I am going to try to do it forever. (In case you are curious, my happiest moment of today was eating lunch with Angie. :))

The other idea - that of a personal mantra - is a little trickier. The word 'mantra' immediately conjures up images of an old man sitting cross-legged humming for hours at a time while drinking green tea, but I think it can be more than that. The idea of a 'mantra' is about figuring out the lens at which you look at the world, in every moment of every day. Are you looking at the world through the mantra filter of 'It's all about me' or 'My life stinks' or 'I'm not good enough?' Or are you walking through life considering something positive and hopeful?

I've thought a lot about this, and I'm still not sure what my mantra-before-I-knew-I-had-a-mantra was. I do know, though, what my mantra is going to be from now on. 'God's way works,' a simple statement that comes courtesy of a friend of mine in Atlanta. I want to look at my life, my decisions, and the good times and the bad through this lens. I want to constantly remind myself that God's way, even when it is confusing or hard, is always the best in the end - hands down, no questions asked. God's way works. The end. Why is this simple truth so hard for me to remember? I'm hoping that by making this statement the underlying theme of my thoughts - my mantra - it will become an overt theme in my actions.

So that's my insight from Oprah and Eat, Pray, Love...a little corny, I know, but an interesting way to look at life. Enjoy thinking of your own happy memories and mantras as well!