This book completely changed my vision of what could be, what we really want, and what it takes to get there (while I was reading it) Once you have finished a book, and put it on your bookshelves, it is easy to forget it's lessons. Same as going to an inspirational speaker, feeling the excitement and completely energized, and going home going to sleep, and waking up to the same old same old. I am not saying that I want to run away from my life, but I do want it to change in a good way. Finding a way to let my shoulders rest below my ears, not just say I'm taking time to smell the roses, but really smelling them. Most of all to enjoy my friendships, people, the world, and what makes and unites a community. What I took to heart the most was that it's easy to say, if only....then life would be better. It's all about making what you have what you want it to be, and realizing there is no magic answer. We are going to take who we are wherever we go. We aren't going to change us just by going to another state, country, losing weight, or making money. Here are some quotes from the book that moved me."We've come here to make a life scrubbed clean of clutter, a life that follows the rhythms and rituals of this rural culture. A life, as they say here, that 's made a misura d'uomo, to the measure of a man."
"We've just broken down the structure of one life and so the immediate building up of another would be only backlash. especially before we've given ourselves the chance to determine what we truly desire from and believe we can accomplish by raising up new structure."
"People who search for change, new beginnings, another kind of life, sometimes imagine they'll find it all set up and ready for them simply because they've changed address, gone to live in some other geography. But a change of address - no matter how far away, how exotic - is nothing more than a 'transfer.' And at the first moment they look about them, they see everything they thought to leave behind has arrived with them."
