"Don’t try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig." Anthony de Mello
Besides the funny yet practical short stories that stuck inside my head I also loved his natural way of writing. I've always been interested in what the message is saying not how sophisticated the words are. Sophisticated words with no meaning leave me cold whereas simple words with great meaning do move me. And that's exactly what Tony's message is all about, therefore I adored it from the very start.
Another great thing about the book was that it made me think, whereas some books I just read and moved on saying: "Aw yeah, that's so cute." or "So impractical, let's move on" and some just seemed a complete waste of time, having a book to make me stop reading to consider for more than two seconds what is written inside it, is a great experience for me. Sometimes I just passed pages smiling, reading the confirmation of what I've always thought but there were times when I just had to stop to think about what was written in there, to try and see if there was indeed a connection between what the book said and certain aspects of reality. And nine out of ten times, I was amazed to see he was actually right.
This book changed me - in a good way I like to believe. Truth is, this book helped me get rid of a whole awful lot of headaches and helped me see things through one more perspective. He did open my eyes once and for all regarding the expectations I had of others with the following phrase"A young man came to complain that his girlfriend had let him down, that she had played false. What are you complaining about? Did you expect any better? Expect the worst, you're dealing with selfish people. You're the idiot—you glorified her, didn't you? You thought she was a princess, you thought people were nice. They're not! They're not nice." It made me realize that I always used to judge people as this or that and then I expected from them what I thought of them, which was really rude and wrong of me. With that phrase in mind, I started looking at people differently, stopped expecting them to be the way I thought they should and guess what? they turned out to be way cooler than I would've imagined it. And oh, that was not the only thing this book helped me with. It also confirmed my beliefs on happiness.
I'm a happy person most of the times and with no apparent reason. I don't know why, all I know is, I've been this way ever since I know me. Oh and trust me, I have problems as well, actually loads of them, but they never stepped in the way of my happiness. Being like this, I rarely place my happiness in things. Of course, I cursed a couple of times when things didn't go my way, I might have even been rude to those that "stood" between me and my happiness, and I even cried a couple of times, but I was never the obsessed kind, the one that completely refuses to be happy unless they get what they want. That's why this passage of the book convinced me I was right "...we don't want to be happy. We want other things. Or let's put it more accurately: We don't want to be unconditionally happy. I'm ready to be happy provided I have this and that and the other thing. But this is really to say to our friend or to our God or to anyone, 'You are my happiness. If I don't get you, I refuse to be happy.' It's so important to understand that. We cannot imagine being happy without those conditions. We've been taught to place our happiness in them." It would make me a big fat liar to say I don't act stupid sometimes and refuse to be happy unless I get things my way, but it's even less than before and I snap out of it faster.
Not to mention the thing that triggered my interest from the very beginning of the book was this "Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence." Now, I could talk about this book all day long but I don't intend to ruin the reading experience for you by commenting each phrase of the book, so I will finish this post by telling you that this book helped me very much in life and I hope it will help you as well. If, however you don't like it, just let it be, don't waste your time trying to like it or waste energy disliking it. If it doesn't appeal to you, if it doesn't feel natural, just let it go.
Wishing you the best,
Rachel
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