囊括2007年美国六大主流媒体图书排行榜的销售冠军，红透全球的女性心灵励志小说——《Eat, Pray, Love》（《一辈子做女孩》）出场了！
小说是作者的亲身实录。作者Elizabeth Gilbert（伊丽莎白·吉尔伯特）是美国小说家和新闻记者，在经过了一个惨痛的离婚历程之后，思索到底女人的人生价值在哪里？她在三个不同国度之间寻找自己——（Eat）到意大利品尝美食，在感官满足中治疗伤痛；（Pray）在印度与瑜伽士交流，洗涤混乱的身心；（Love）在印尼巴厘岛上，她寻得了身心的平衡。
本选段出自“印度”篇，作者九岁时的心理危机在离婚后爆发，这归根到底是对满足感不断追逐的空虚；终于，在印度，她学会了放手。而文中提到的“上帝”并不是狭义地指《圣经》里的上帝，而是属于每个人的、哲学上的生命创造者；“寻找上帝”即懂得敬畏、接受自然。
“爱”的最高境界是“不爱”。如果你在恋爱中从来没有想过有“不爱”的可能；如果你完全不能面对“不爱”的现实，那你是没有真正懂得爱了。懂得放弃和改变的女人，即使我们不再漂亮，不再年轻，仍然可以一辈子做女孩！
Written and Read by Elizabeth Gilbert
美式发音 适合泛听
PDF完整版下载：http://www.joyen.net/soft/endown/read/201105/181.html
When I was 9 years old going on 10, I experienced a true 1)metaphysical crisis. Maybe this seems young for such a thing, but I was always a 2)precocious child. It all happened over the summer between 4th and 5th grade. I was going to be turning 10 years old in July and there was something about this 3)transition from 9 to 10, from single-digit to double-digit, that shocked me into a 4)genuine existential panic usually reserved for people turning 50. I remember that life was passing me by so fast. It seemed like only yesterday I was in kindergarten and here I was, about to turn 10. Soon I would be a teen-ager and then middle-aged and then elderly and then dead. And soon everybody else would be dead too. My parents would die, my friends would die, my cat would die. 
在我还是九岁快要十岁的时候，我经历了一场真正意义上的形而上学的危机。也许这样的事情对九岁的小孩来说还是为时过早，但我一直都很早熟。“危机”发生在我即将升上五年级的那个夏天。那年七月，我就要满十岁了。这九岁到十岁之间的过渡——从单位数成为双位数——震荡了我的心灵，让我陷入一种真正的存在惊恐之中，而这种恐惧往往是迈入知命之年的人才有的。我还记得，生命在我身上流逝得太快了，仿佛昨日我还是上幼儿园的懵懂孩童，但彼时，我即将迎来人生的第十个年头。很快，我又要步入青少年时期，然后是中年，老年，然后就要死去。很快，其他人也要告别这个世界。我的父母终会离世，我的朋友，还有我的猫也是一样。
My sense of helplessness was 5)overwhelming. What I wanted to do was pull some massive emergency brake on the universe, like the brakes I’d seen on the subways during our school trip to New York City. I wanted to call a timeout and demand that everything just stop until I could understand it. I suppose this urge to force the entire universe to stop in its tracks until I could get a grip on my thoughts might have been the beginning of what dear friends of mine have called my “control issues.” Of course my efforts and worry were 6)futile. The closer I watched time the faster it 7)spun, and that Summer went by so quickly that it made my head hurt, and at the end of every day I remember thinking, “another one gone” and bursting into tears.
无助感让我束手无策。当时我想要做的，就是拉下宇宙运转的那个重重的紧急刹车闸，就像在学校组织的纽约之行中，我于地铁上所见到的刹车闸一样。我想要让时间暂停，让所有的事情都停下来，直到我能够完全弄清楚怎么回事为止。我猜想让全世界就此原地打住直到我能够理解自己的想法为止的这种紧迫感，就是我开始出现那些挚友称的所谓的“控制问题”的征兆了。当然，我的努力和忧虑也是徒劳无功。我越是留心关注，时间的流逝就越加飞快。那个夏天，时间稍纵即逝，让我头疼不已，我记得当时在每一天结束的时候，我脑子里都会想“又一天过去了”，于是痛哭起来。
This sadness is one of the great 8)trials of the human experiment. As far as we know we’re the only species on the planet who have been given the gift, or the curse perhaps, of awareness about our own 9)mortality. Everything here eventually dies. We’re the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day, and how are you going to cope with this information. When I was 9, I couldn’t do a thing about it except cry. Later over the years, my 10)hypersensitive awareness of time’s speed led me to push myself to experience life at maximum pace. If I were going to have such a short visit on Earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now. Hence, all the traveling, all the romances, all the ambition, all the 11)pasta.
这样的忧伤只是人生要经历的一个重大考验。据我们所知，人类是这个星球上唯一被施予这种天赋，又或者说是被诅咒的物种——能够意识到人生终究难逃一死。眼前的万事万物，最终都有消逝的一天。人类比较幸运，每天都要思虑这个事实，以及想想如何应对这个问题。然而，在我还是九岁的时候，除了哭，我别无他法。接下来的年岁里，我对光阴速度的敏感让我催促自己要用最快的速度阅历人生。假如我在这世界上只是一个匆忙的过客，那我现在就要尽数体验这些时日。因此，每次旅行，每段感情，每个雄心壮志，和每顿美味佳肴，我都珍惜有加，不容错过。
When I told one friend of mine back in New York City that I was going to India to live in an 12)ashram and search for 13)divinity, he sighed and said, “Oh, there’s a part of me that so wishes that I wanted to do that, but I really have no desire for it whatsoever.”
当我告诉一位在纽约的朋友说，我要去印度，住进高僧的修行地探索神性时，他叹了叹气，说：“噢，我内心也在某程度上也非常想去，但无论如何，我的期望真的没有那么热切。”
And I don’t know that I have much choice though. I have searched 14)frantically for 15)contentment for so many years in so many ways and all these 16)acquisitions; they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. You have to let go and sit still and allow contentment to approach you. Letting go, of course, is a scary 17)enterprise for those of us who believe that the world 18)revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it, which we ourselves personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even one moment, well, that would be the end of the universe.
然而，我并不知道自己有很多的选择。这么多年来，我千方百计地疯狂地找寻满足感，但眼前的所得一切，最后只是让我精疲力尽。生命，如果你马不停蹄地奋力追赶，它只会把你引向消亡。故此，你要放手，安然就座，让满足感来接近你。当然，对于某些人来说，放手，是个可怕的冒险——我们中有些人认为，这世界不停地转动只因为它的顶部有个把手，而我们自己就是旋动这世界的人；如果我们松开手，即使只是一小会儿，世界末日就会来临。
But try dropping it. This is the message I’m getting in India; sit quietly for now and cease your relentless 19)participation and watch what happens. The birds do not crash to head out of the sky after all in mid-flight, the trees do not 20)wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood, life continues to go on, even the Italian Post Office will keep 21)limping along doing its own thing without you. Why are you so sure that your micro-management of every moment in this whole world is so 22)essential? Why don’t you let it be? I hear this argument and it appeals to me. I believe in it 23)intellectually. I really do. But then I wonder, with all my 24)restless 25)yearning, and with all my 26)hyped-up fervor and this stupidly hungry nature of mine, what should I do with my energy instead. That answer is arriving too; look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
但是，试着放开手吧。这是我在印度领悟到的。暂且静静地坐着，让自己从无情的世界中抽身而出，然后看看会发生什么事。终究，飞行中的鸟儿不会冲撞着从空中坠落，树木不会枯萎消亡，河流不会翻滚着猩红的血液，生活一切依旧如常。没有了你，那所意大利邮局仍然会步履蹒跚地经营下去。为什么你如此肯定，你在这浩瀚世界的每个瞬间所起到的局部的把控就是这般的举足轻重？为什么你不能让它顺其自然？我听到了这样的论点，这让我很受感染。从知性上来说，我对此深信不疑，我确实非常认同。但然后我又想，我天生就是这样孜孜以求，热情狂烈，还有带点傻气的永不满足的个性，我要怎么释放我的能量呢？答案业已揭晓——寻找上帝。就像一个脑袋着火、寻找救火之水的人一样，寻找上帝。
