to love life, to love it evenwhen you have no stomach for itand everything you've held dearcrumbles like burnt paper in your hands,your throat filled with the silt of it.When grief sits with you, its tropical heatthickening the air, heavy as watermore fit for gills than lungs;when grief weights you like your own fleshonly more of it, an obesity of grief,you think, How can a body withstand this?Then you hold life like a facebetween your palms, a plain face,no charming smile, no violet eyes,and you say, yes, I will take youI will love you, again.
Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.''Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure:1. Acceptance2. Understanding3. AppreciationRemove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart.Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it — do you really want to live in a world of only two dimensions?So, for the love of a triangle, please keep love whole.
The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination.
The moment you become miserly you are closed to the basic phenomenon of life: expansion, sharing. The moment you start clinging to things, you have missed the target--you have missed. Because things are not the target, you, your innermost being, is the target--not a beautiful house, but a beautiful you; not much money, but a rich you; not many things, but an open being, available to millions of things.
We awaken by asking the right questions. We awaken when we see knowledge being spread that goes against our own personal experiences. We awaken when we see popular opinion being wrong but accepted as being right, and what is right being pushed as being wrong. We awaken by seeking answers in corners that are not popular. And we awaken by turning on the light inside when everything outside feels dark.
My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks.
We do not have to be ashamed of what we are. As sentient beings we have wonderful backgrounds. These backgrounds may not be particularly enlightened or peaceful or intelligent. Nevertheless, we have soil good enough to cultivate; we can plant anything in it.
Where we fall are the stepping-stones for our journey.
I can't explain that, except to say there's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at least, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.
Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.
Perhaps a physicist would know at once why this whole idea was absurd. But then, perhaps a physicist would be so locked into the consensus of his scientific community that it would be harder for him to accept an idea that transformed the meaning of everything he knew. Even if it were true.
I was born subject like others to errors and defects,But never to the error of wanting to understand too much,Never to the error of wanting to understand only with the intellect..Never to the defect of demanding of the WorldThat it be anything that’s not the World.
If you are involved with the intensity of crescendo situations, with the intensity of tragedy, you might begin to see the humor of these situations as well. As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.
And now, for something completely the same:Wasted time and wasted breath,'s what I'll make, until my death.Helping people 'd be as good,but I wouldn't, if I could.For the few that help deserve,have no need, or not the nerve,help from strangers to accept,plus from mine a few have wept.Wept from joy, or from despair,or just from my vengeful stare.Ways I have, to look at stupid,make them see I am not Cupid.Make them see they are in error,for of truth I am a bearer.Most decide I'm just a bear,mauling at them, - like I care.
I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. Because if even one broken and limited human being could experience even one such episode of absolute forgiveness and acceptance of her own self, then imagine—just imagine!—what God, in all His eternal compassion, can forgive and accept.
Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do.
Expectation has brought me disappointment. Disappointment has brought me wisdom. Acceptance, gratitude and appreciation have brought me joy and fulfilment.
We ought to, as human beings, have the courage to seek a collective “truth” that benefits our species the most, and to accept that all of our doctrines and beliefs may just be incomplete. That we don’t know it all and that perhaps we never will. That others like us may have something to teach us, and we may have something to contribute to their communities. That communities, types of people, are divisions we’ve created for ourselves. That for all of what we know, the knowledge and wisdom that we have gathered in the few millennia may be a small fraction of what is there to be discovered, understood and applied.
I am my own biggest critic. Before anyone else has criticized me, I have already criticized myself. But for the rest of my life, I am going to be with me and I don't want to spend my life with someone who is always critical. So I am going to stop being my own critic. It's high time that I accept all the great things about me.
What if you could pick one day of your life, and everything would stop changing, every day would be similar and comparable to that one day, you'd always have the same people with you? If you could do that, would you do it? Would you pick that day and make that choice? We crave for things to stop changing, we wish that things would never change. But if we got what we wanted, there are so many things that are better, that we would never, ever know about. Sure, things would stay the same as that one wonderful day, but then there would be nothing else out there, ever. So can you remember the very first day when everything really did begin to change? Is there a thing that can remind you? Mine is a blue rose, and that's when everything began to change because that's the day I began to believe in things I never believed in before; the day I found three blue roses. Think about your first day of change, can you remember all the new heights you've soared since that day? All the new people? All the better things and times? Would you throw all of that time away? I wouldn't. Instead, I want to finally accept all the things that I couldn't change, which led to me being right here, right now. Maybe we all carry around inside us one day we wish we could keep forever, something we wished never did change. It's time to let go of that day, and soar.
True Love is when you are able to see yourself in another, when you recognize that there is no separation between you and any other Being in the Universe.
Have you ever had a dream that you were certain was real, only to wake up and realize that everyone and everything in the dream was really you? Well this is how many mystics describe the nature of our reality, as a dream in which we think we are individual personalities existing in the physical universe. But eventually, like in all dreams, we will wake up. Except in this dream we do not wake up to realize we are still in the world, we awake from the world to realize that we are God.
All of Nature follows perfectly geometric laws. The Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Peruvian, Mayan, and Chinese cultures were well aware of this, as Phi—known as the Golden Ratio or Golden Mean—was used in the constructions of their sculptures and architecture.
You are not limited to this body, to this mind, or to this reality—you are a limitless ocean of Consciousness, imbued with infinite potential. You are existence itself.
In Advaita Vedanta, and in many other ancient wisdom traditions, the world is said to be an illusion. This illusion is commonly referred to as maya, a Sanskrit name which refers to the apparent, or objective reality which is superimposed on the ultimate reality in order to generate the phenomena of what we call the material world. Maya is the magic by which we create duality—by which we create two worlds from one. This creation is an illusory creation—it is not real—it is an imaginary manifestation of the one Universal Consciousness, appearing as all of the various phenomena in objective reality. Maya is God’s, or Consciousness’s, creative power of emptying or reflecting itself into all things and thus creating all things—the power of subjectivity to take on objective appearance.
Examples of fractals are everywhere in nature. They can be found in the patterns of trees, branches, and ferns, in which each part appears to be a smaller image of the whole. They are found in the branch-like patterns of river systems, lightning, and blood vessels. They can be seen in snowflakes, seashells, crystals, and mountain ranges. We can even see the holographic and fractal-like nature of reality in the structure of the Universe itself, as the clusters of galaxies and dark matter resemble the neurons in our brain, the mycelium network of fungi, as well as the network of the man-made Internet.
When we perceive the stars, the stars are the object of our perception—they exist within us. When we perceive the ocean, the ocean is also within us. The idea that things exist outside of our Consciousness is an illusion. Ancient wisdom traditions have known this for centuries, and even modern science has recognized that our sense organs merely receive information and project it within our own minds. Vision does not take place in the eye, but in an area located in the back of the brain. Everything that we perceive to be “out there” is being experienced “in here.
We are only able to disrespect, mistreat, and harm one another when we forget that the other person is us; when we only see the objects of form, and not the subjective Consciousness that lies within. Lust, greed, violence, selfishness—all arise from perceiving others in terms of their individual differences, seeing them only as bodies, and what we can get from them as bodies, rather than acknowledging the Being that lies within the body.
Our beliefs shape how we perceive reality to be, and the belief that shapes our current perception of reality was adopted by the worldview of Newtonian physics, which asserts that reality is objective—that there is a material universe existing outside of our experience. But this isn’t true; there is no material universe outside of you; the Universe takes form through you.
Everything exists as information in a field of infinite possibilities, and it is our Consciousness that renders the information and causes it to appear as the material world.
Everything we perceive to be solid and static is made up of almost entirely empty space.
You are not a small and unimportant creature confined to the form of this physical body, contrary to popular belief. At the core of your being you are pure awareness, and this awareness is the same source from which everything in the Universe arises, exists as, and returns to. Consciousness is the dimension of yourself that you have forgotten you are, and of which you long to return to.
Jehovah, the Christian name for God derived from the Hebrew Yahweh, (from the letters YHWH), is translated as "I AM." YOU ARE the essence of life—the Cosmic Consciousness that creates, lives in, and destroys all things. In Buddhism, your true nature is referred to as your “Buddha Nature.” Muslims refer to it as Allah, Native tribes have often called it the Great Spirit, Taoists refer to it as the Tao, and numerous other cultures throughout history have all created their own distinctive names for it. But the one eternal reality that these cultures point to remains the same—and this reality is YOU.
Subject and object are not separate—so-called objective reality is projected by our subjective Consciousness.
The world exists because your mind exists. If your mind didn’t exist, there would be no world. As you look at these words, you see them in what appears to be a reality outside of you. What you are really seeing is the image that your mind is creating from the electrical signals being sent to your brain. While they may appear to be outside of you, this is an illusion, they exist within your own mind, and are being projected to appear as if they are outside of you. This apparent reality that is projected by our minds, is maya, and to believe that maya is the ultimate reality is a result of ignorance, or avidya in Sanskrit.
God is the ultimate ground of Being, and this ultimate ground of Being is YOU. For one who realizes their true nature as God, as Consciousness, life becomes a joy without end.
When we see one another as different aspects of ourselves—as ourselves experiencing a different situation and circumstance—we develop a love, a connection, and a unity that allows us to see beyond the various forms, as well as the various ways that someone may act out when they have forgotten their connection and their formless nature. If you look at another in this light, you will see a Being that is just like you, looking back at you
We are like waves in the ocean, each with a unique character and quality on the surface, but deep down we are eternally connected to one another and to the ocean as a whole. If you practice looking beyond the surface of appearances, you will begin to see the true Being that lies within each form. You will see your Consciousness looking through the eyes of another, and it is when you see yourself in another that you cannot help but develop compassion for them; because in Truth, there is no “them,” there is only YOU, experiencing yourself from an inconceivable amount of perspectives.
According to Zen Buddhists, all things have their existence in The Void. The Void is that which is no-thing, but contains all things within it, or as some Christian mystics state, “God is Nothing; He is Utterly Other; He is the VOID.
We often try to force the experience we want to have, instead of allowing the experience we were meant to have, and in doing this, we miss out on gaining any new insight or understanding.
Until we heal the root cause of our suffering, and awaken to our true nature, our inherent confusion will continue to manifest itself in the world around us.
This witnessing consciousness, this formless dimension of yourself, is the awareness in which your experience happens, yet it remains untouched by this experience at all times. It is similar to the background of white on which you are reading these words. This white background allows any and every word to exist within it, yet it is not confined to any of these words. Similarly, your awareness allows any and every form to exist within it, but it is not bound to any of these forms.
Because we feel ourselves to be separate from the world in which we live, we have also grown to feel quite alone in this world. Our sense of loneliness and isolation not only makes us feel depressed and miserable, but it also causes us to be anxious and afraid of the world and everyone in it. Because of this inherent fear, we put up all kinds of barriers to protect us from the world—barriers that we have created to keep us safe, but that really end up making us feel more alone, more miserable, and more afraid, as they prevent us from being our natural selves.
We have become disconnected from our true selves, and naturally, this has produced a deep sense of lack in our lives, causing us to endlessly search for happiness in objects, experiences, and people to fill the emptiness and make us feel whole again. We crave pleasure, material riches, and stimulating experiences—anything that will distract us from this inherent lack of connection. But no matter how hard we try to escape it, eventually the sensation returns. And that is because we are looking for the answer to our freedom in all the wrong places. We are looking for freedom in the world, when the answer to ending our suffering lies within us. Until we heal the root cause of our suffering, and awaken to our true nature, our inherent confusion will continue to manifest itself in the world around us.
It is because we feel that we are separate from nature that we also feel it is okay to manipulate it, pollute it, and cause it harm. We project our inner turmoil onto the planet, causing outer turmoil. Nearly all of the disasters of our time—war, famine, oppression, social injustice, environmental pollution, extinction—arise from this delusional belief that we have an existence independent of the world we live in. All of this misery, all of this destruction, all of this pain and suffering, is caused by our failure to realize that there is no separation and that really we are all one.
We cannot learn if we are stuck in our mind’s conditioned way of thinking. We must be open to discovering the Truth, whatever it may turn out to be. This requires a state of openness, curiosity, and sincerity, a state of pure awareness, a state of observing reality without jumping to conclusions about what reality is. This state of direct experience is known in Zen as “beginner’s mind,” and it is essential to embody this state when we want to understand our experience.
No label can define the immensity of your True nature. You are the awareness that precedes every label, the awareness that is perceiving these words and turning them into thoughts, the awareness that creates the world with every act of observation.
You cannot be aware of yourself, for you are awareness itself. How can a witness witness itself? That is like trying to see your own eyes without a reflection, or cut a knife with the tip of its own blade—it is impossible. The subject can only observe the object; it cannot make an object out of itself. But by the very act of observing, you indirectly know yourself as the observer, as the subject. No witnessing of the witness is needed to prove its existence.
The modern scientist attempts to step outside of himself in order to observe himself, an attempt that is always doomed to failure. You cannot make an object out of your subjective experience, but you know that consciousness exists, simply because you exist.
We only suffer when we falsely identify with the objects that arise in our awareness, rather than with the awareness itself—when we identify with our thoughts, with our emotions, our personal history, and the many stories we tell ourselves. When you reconnect to your source—the essence of your being, the pure and impartial witness—you become free from all of the troubles of the material world; free from the world of form. You no longer feel the desire to cling to forms or depend on them for your happiness. Instead, you are free to enjoy form, free to let form be, and free to allow all forms to come and go as they please. All forms are impermanent and changing, but your consciousness, being formless, is eternal, and exists regardless of the forms that it gives life to.
Your true being, as Consciousness, is ever at peace, ever at rest, eternally existing in the dimension of here and now. It is the formless and eternal quality within you that expresses itself through the world of form.
If your consciousness is without form, without quality, and without characteristics of any kind, would that not imply that the consciousness in every other being is also formless? And if they are all without form, how can you distinguish their consciousness from your own? What forms would you use to compare them? Isn’t the observing you exactly the same as the observing them?
The consciousness inhabiting your body is exactly the same as the consciousness inhabiting my body. We are one. The delusion that we are separate beings comes from identifying with the world of form—with our names, our bodies, our roles, our beliefs, our thoughts, and all of the mental constructs that we have created; but even these are more connected to the universe than we realize.
Your body and my body are both totally made up of and dependent upon the elements of the earth—the water, the air, the heat, the land, the soil and the food it produces—as well as all of the elements that these elements are dependent upon—the sun, the stars, the galaxies, and a vast field of energy and space to contain them in. Nature is our extended body, and the elements outside of our skin are just as important to our health as the elements within our skin. Our bodies are connected to the universe as a whole, and consequently to each other and the many ways in which we influence our shared environment.
When we look at a tree, we do not see the tree for what it really is. We see how it appears to us on the surface, and we dismiss it as being just another form in the Universe. We fail to realize that the tree is connected to the Universe on every level; that all of nature is expressing itself through that single form. There can be no tree without the earth that it grows from, the sun that gives it energy, the water that nourishes its growth, and the millions of fungi and bacteria fertilizing its soil. Looking deeply into anything in nature, we realize that it is connected to the whole. We see that nature is one seamless web, and the notion that things have an existence of their own is merely an illusion.
You do not have an existence independent of your environment, but rather you are your environment, and your environment is you.
You are just as connected to the Universe as a finger is to a hand, or as a branch is to a tree. The entire cosmos is expressing itself through your being.
Buddhist philosophy points out that the true nature of all forms is essentially formless. Forms do not have an existence of their own, but rather they arise together, and are mutually dependent on one another. Everything in the world of form is constantly changing, constantly dying, and constantly being reborn—which is why Buddhists say that there is no-self; no form that has an existence in and of itself.
We fail to see the oneness of all things, and because of this, we unknowingly cause a lot of harm to ourselves. We pollute the Earth that we live on, cut down the trees that produce our oxygen, destroy the ecosystems of nature and the animals that maintain them, and we mistreat and harm each other, thinking that these destructive actions will not have a direct effect on us.
Every being experiences themselves as the center of their experience. Consciousness is what lies at our very core, and connects us all to each other. We may appear to be separate and individual because of the various forms our Consciousness inhabits, but below the surface the substance of our being is one and the same.
We are so fascinated by the complexity and beauty of the various forms in nature, that we have been led away from the formless dimension of Consciousness that lies at our very center. When you look at a person, you see many differences in their unique form, and often we compare, contrast, and judge one another because of the forms that we inhabit. But if you look beyond the various qualities and characteristics of form, and look another person in the eyes, you see a Being, and it is this Being that lies beneath the surface of form that connects us all. That is why the eyes are often referred to as the gateway to the soul, because they allow us to see and feel the presence of another Being, and realize our oneness.
Your words, thoughts, intentions and actions today are your best hope, comfort, building blocks and insurance for tomorrow. But it is now alone that is guaranteed – tomorrow is a dream, a maybe a potential gift. It’s now - not tomorrow - where happiness and fulfilment live...awaiting your discovery. It’s all this that will make each extra day that may arrive extra special and rich.
I don't trust anybody who isn't a little bit neurotic
Your fear of becoming a cliche is what turns you into one. If you remove the fear, we are all really walking contradictions, hypocrites and paradoxical cliches
You are not always right. It’s not always about being right. The best thing you can offer others is understanding. Being an active listener is about more than just listening, it is about reciprocating and being receptive to somebody else. Everybody has woes. Nobody is safe from pain. However, we all suffer in different ways. So learn to adapt to each person, know your audience and reserve yourself for people who have earned the depths of you
I am a habitual rule-breaker
Vulnerability is the least celebrated emotion in our society
I have been at war with parts of myself for so long
All my life I have heard the term happiness thrown around like a buzzword as if it is something to be gained. As I have previously expressed, I do not view happiness as a tangible thing. To me happinesss is the elimination of accumulated darkness. Self-sustaining happiness comes from contentment of acceptance, compassion and sympathetic joy, qualities which cannot be developed like a muscle, but rather they must be actualized by the removal of fetters in the mind
I take it as a compliment when somebody calls me crazy. I would be offended if I was one of the sheeple, one of the sleepwalkers in the matrix or part of the collective hallucination we call 'normal
The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
The thing is, there is no certainty in this life - in one second your entire world could shift. I'm not saying it will, but I am living proof that It can. We never prepare for tragedy and that's a good thing but my god what's it's taught me is how little we appreciate what we have or some cases once had.
Harmony is our natural state of being, and so, when our energies become too stagnant, chaos is thrown into the mix to stimulate what will eventually result in balance and invite flow. The trick is to not let chaos trap or define you… simply allow it to create movement in the vehicle of your life so that you can snap your eyes open and take back control of the wheel. Do not lose yourself in the storm, instead, be the calm in the storm.
Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
True friends don't come with conditions.
The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
Without struggle, success has no value.
There is no such thing as loving a child too much.
It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
Successes are those highlights of life we look back on with a smile. But it's the day to day grind of getting them that defines the laugh lines etched until the end of time. Enjoy each moment along the way
There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
O, weary angels, don’t look at me with those eyes.If that is your state then what of our cries?What can I tell you of goodness that you don’t already know?What can I tell you of faith,of hope and lovethat you yourselves bestow?O, angels, don’t pluck another feather,this isn’t the sky, it’s just the weather.Please, angels, try.We are one all together.Look up and listen, I’ll say it once and then put down my pen:We are sorry for our ignoranceand even though we are worldly,it might happen again.We are sorry for your wearinessand even though you aren’t worldly,we are no more than human.
Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief.If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge comes from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.
Even though people experiencing dementia become unable to recount what has just happened, they still go through the experience—even without recall. The psychological present lasts about three seconds. We experience the present even when we have dementia. The emotional pain caused by callous treatment or unkind talk occurs during that period. The moods and actions of people with dementia are expressions of what they have experienced, whether they can still use language and recall, or not.
Bad business last night. Chances are, that would be all Graham had to say about the death of a man he had known his whole life. These folk knew all about death. They killed their own livestock. They died from fevers, falls, or broken bones gone sour. Death was like an unpleasant neighbor. You didn't talk about him for fear he might hear you and decide to pay a visit.
They say the truth hurts. And these words hurt more than any I have ever written. But they are the truth – The cold, hard, undeniable truth.Not letting go doesn’t keep him with you.It’s still over. He’s still gone.… And nothing will ever change that.
Anyone can choose to have success, but only the patient ones will get rewarded by it. Be relentless in chasing your dreams.
Don't live off your past successes or failures, live for the next big pursuit.
Integrity is something we show, not proclaim.
The only real certainty is that if you get to live, you gotta die. Live life now.
The funny thing about money is that you can't take it with you, so don’t try to.
To begin to know ourselves we must have sincere conversations with ourselves as if with a good friend. We must answer without reserve, listen without judgement, and accept without condition. That is self-love.
The point is, being a Christian does not mean hating or belittling the non-Christians. Being a Muslim does not mean hating or belittling the non-Muslims. Being an Atheist does not mean hating or belittling the religious people. In a civilized society, diversity in religious orientation should be the reason for celebration, not the cause for hatred and differentiation.
A Gift for YouI send you...The gift of a letter from your wise self. This is the part of you that sees you with benevolent, loving eyes. You find this letter in a thick envelope with your name on it, and the word YES written boldly above your name.My Dear,I am writing this to remind you of your 'essence beauty.' This is the part of you that has nothing to do with age, occupation, weight, history, or pain. This is the soft, untouched, indelible you. You can love yourself in this moment, no matter what you have, or haven't done or been. See past any masks, devices, or inventions that obscure your essence.Remember your true purpose, WHICH is only Love.If you cannot see or feel love, lie down now and cry; it will cleanse your vision and free your heart.I love you; I am you.
It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we'd like to be. That's not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you've accomplished, rather than thinking of what's left to be done (p. 159).
Diversity of character is due to the unequal time given to values. Only through each other will we see the importance of the qualities we lack and our unfinished soul's potential.
If you were to love, love not for the lust that you yearn but the rather the pain that you earn with it. Remember though that the ones who brave the pain are eternally bound in Cupid's chain. It is these chains that many of us fear. The fear of losing the freedom of choosing for self. The fear of placing the needs of our better halves before our own. The fear is understandable for history has taught us to despise and the society has given us the chance to entice. However, if you were to pause and think ever about - love - then do remember that the chain which upon acceptance binds you in amour is the same which upon rejection arrests us to an ague called lonesome depression. Few survive in love, but fewer without it.
Having a religion doesn’t make a person love or not love others. It doesn’t make a person accept or not accept others. It doesn’t make a person befriend or not befriend others.Being without a religion doesn’t make somebody do or be any of that either.No, what makes somebody love, accept, and befriend their fellow man is letting go of a need to be better than others.Nothing else.
Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another.
Your words control your life, your progress, your results, even your mental and physical health. You cannot talk like a failure and expect to be successful.
You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but there is a subtle difference between tolerance and acceptance. It's the distance between moving into the cul-de-sac and having your next door neighbor trust you to keep an eye on her preschool daughter for a few minutes while she runs out to the post office. It's the chasm between being invited to a colleague's wedding with your same-sex partner and being able to slow-dance without the other guests whispering.
When you want to share something with another person more than anything, it is one of the most difficult things to realize that you can never have it. Accepting this realization is even more difficult. Loving someone does mean saying goodbye to them in some cases, though we will fight that until the oftentimes bitter end before doing the right thing.
Trust is not a gasoline-soaked blanket that succumbs to the matches of betrayal, never able to be used for its warmth again; it’s a tapestry that wears thin in places, but can be patched over if you have the right materials, circumstances, and patience to repair it. If you don’t, you’re always the one who feels the coldest when winter comes.
Just as I’m about to continue walking along the shoreline, the left third of the iceberg breaks off suddenly and crashes violently, like a high-rise apartment building imploding in the heart of the city. Tears roll down my face uncontrollably as I watch the two distinct halves of the iceberg drift further and further apart from each other. It’s devastating to watch something that seems so strong and unbreakable crumble in an instant. Even more devastating is the feeling that there’s nothing I can do about it.
If you love someone, if you think you could make them happy for the rest of your life together, then nothing should stop you. You should be prepared to take them as they are and deal with the consequences. Relationships aren't neat and clean - they're ugly and messy, and they make almost no sense except to the two people in them. If you truly love someone, you accept the circumstances, you don't hide behind them
Be vulnerable! It is not someone else’s responsibility to break down your walls to get to you. It is your responsibility to let them in. This is crucial. Be more vulnerable with people in your life today. Know that being vulnerable is not a weakness – vulnerability means you are strong and secure enough within yourself to walk outside without your armor on.
She had accepted him as he was and had spared him a great deal of loneliness. He had been unfair: while his imagination and vanity had given her too much importance, his pride had given her too little. He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
When you hide your flaws you only give them the power to dominate your life. Every time that you fake who you are to cover your flaws, they become stronger and visible to your own eye. You become comfortable with working every day to hide them from everyone else's view. And maybe you try to show the world those flaws but they are rejected because you've hidden them for so long that they couldn't possibly be a true part of you. But then, you show them to the world every day, day after day, and they finally start to disappear from view because they really never were a really big deal in the first place. Accept your flaws or you will never truly be able to live with them.
And there it was. He knew it, and I knew it. There was nothing left for me to do. Do you know how hard it is to say nothing ? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I just tried to be, tried to absorb the man I loved through osmosis, tried to imprint what I had left of him on myself. I did not speak...
The entire quest is for acceptance. You run from pillar to post for being accepted as you are. This quest ends only when you realize that the most important in life is to accept yourself totally, wholly and completely. Unfortunately, that is a long drawn process and it takes time to reach that level. However, once you reach that stage, you are at entire peace with yourself.
History, too, has a penchant for giving birth to itself over and over again, and those whom it appoints agents of change and progress do not always accept their destinies willingly.
Make peace with yourself before you move forward. Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward.
After a TimeAfter a time, all losses are the same.One more thing lost is one thing less to lose;And we go stripped at last the way we came.Though we shall probe, time and again, our shame,Who lack the wit to keep or to refuse,After a time, all losses are the same.No wit, no luck can beat a losing game;Good fortune is a reassuring ruse:And we go stripped at last the way we came.Rage as we will for what we think to claim,Nothing so much as this bare thought subdues:After a time, all losses are the same.The sense of treachery--the want, the blame--Goes in the end, whether or not we choose,And we go stripped at last the way we came.So we, who would go raging, will go tameWhen what we have we can no longer use:After a time, all losses are the same;And we go stripped at last the way we came.
I don’t dwell on the fact that I may have ridden on planes. That which I can’t remember having needed, I simply accept. It is the most preferable kind of self-insight: one that does not require any accompanying change in behavior.
I think the highest forgiveness is to accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality given outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through the choices we make. Seeking can’t get anyone out of the tangle because everything is tangled up…it’s much easier to keep up the fight between good and evil, holy and profane, us and them. But as awareness grows, these opposites begin to calm down in their clashes, and something else emerges- a world you feel at home in.
Study yourself. Become your own mentor and best friend. When you are suffering stay at the bottom until you find out who you are. Let the storms come and pass. How you walk through the fire says a lot about you. Nobody likes a victimhood mentality and what happened to you is not important. It is about how you use your chaos that matters. The dawn will come
This is a day of celebration!Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present.Dance,and you will find Godin every room.Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness.Sing,and God will find you in every tune.Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love.Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs.We have so much celebrating to do!
It’s okay to experience the flow of all emotions; however, if we get caught up in feeling pity for others and take on the responsibility of being their ‘savior’, we often take away their power to ‘save’ themselves. If I see someone as ‘messed up’ then I am projecting my ‘messed up’ vibration onto them, so I am unable to hold space. Yet, if I already view them as whole, well, and beautiful – then I am able to be a vibrational key (vessel of Spirit) that uplifts their energy so that it may come into alignment with being whole, well, and beautiful. It’s not that I do any of the healing; I’m simply a mirror reflecting acceptance and loving them for exactly who they are, right where they are. That is all that is ever truly asked of us, to accept and to love.
There is no excuse good enough to ever be out of alignment with love. You’re going to get hurt, and you will feel pain. Yet your purpose is to keep loving, anyway. Keep moving forward with an open heart. Love is a Divine gift given to humanity. Wasting it is no longer an option. Love is what brings light to a dark place. Love is what transforms a dying world into a thriving planet.
The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. "Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.
Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction. Each lacks presence. (29)
Insecurity is the lack of trust in your abilities and worth. When you enter into a secured state of consciousness, everything that helped boost your confidence will return.
Yes, it’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to hesitate before plunging from your comfort zone.It’s okay to have scars, pimples, insecurities, moles, cellulite, tremors, debts, redness, regrets, loneliness and uncertainty.It’s okay to have no idea what you’re doing.It’s okay to struggle with some things, while enjoying others. It’s okay to find joy in the beauty in life, even after a great loss. It’s okay to change. It’s okay to move on. And it’s okay to fear changing and moving on.Wherever you are, and whatever you are experiencing, is okay. You didn’t invent the universe and you didn’t invent the human condition.You don’t need permission to live whatever you’re living, even if it looks and feels different from anyone else’s life around you. And it’s okay to feel like you need that permission anyway.
When we can accept reality as it is and are okay with it without needing to change it, we then can begin to take steps toward creating a brighter reality for ourselves and others, coming from a place of understanding. But when we are motivated to change reality due to our discomfort with it, we do not think clearly. The reason that there is so much suffering in the world is because people are too busy judging everyone and everything, and through the judgments they perpetuate the suffering. People are so focused on changing outside conditions, all the while forgetting the judgment and separation within their own heart.
I don't feel that way anymore," Nico muttered. "I mean... I gave up on Percy. I was young and impressionable, and I- I don't..."His voice cracked, and Jason could tell the guy was about to get teary-eyed. Whether Nico had really given up on Percy or not, Jason couldn't imagine what it had been like for Nico all those years, keeping a secret that would've been unthinkable to share in the 1940s, denying who he was, feeling completely alone- even more isolated than other demigods."Nico," he said gently, "I've seen a lot of brave things. But what you did? That was maybe the bravest.
Be easy with yourself. Be gentle. Remember to be your own friend. We all make mistakes. We all say silly things now and then. It's also OK to change your mind. Don't replay the moments. Don't torture yourself with critique and negative self-talk. The expectation is not perfection, it's to keep moving forward. Keep trying. Keep learning and growing. You'll get a lot further with a positive attitude. Love will open and grow you. Love will encourage you. No one can love you more than you can love yourself. Be your own ally. Learn to help not hinder yourself.
Your judgments about another person say more about your own character than the character of the person you are pointing a finger at.This is the key and one of the most fundamental insights about the ‘red flags’ that we often dismiss regarding the people in our lives. If someone complains a lot to you about other people, guess what? That is part of their current character. And, as quickly as the tide changes, you can just as easily become the person they target and criticize, point fingers at, and negatively judge. Forever and always, until vibrations are raised, this will be the cycle of the relationship. So, it’s your choice to continue to engage in the cycle with them, or to move on.There are plenty of people who do not criticize, point fingers, or judge. THIS is the kind of character we want to foster within ourselves. THIS is the character of the kind of people we DO want to develop close relationships with.
What keeps [friends] together? Common history, some shared conquests, a delight in ideas and people and living. But they will also be distinguished by their ability to listen to you. They will not be uncritical, but they will understand and accept you. You will be interested in each other's happiness and well-being.
He relaxed into the dirt, it was all right, he was infantry and the dirt was home. He felt warm liquid all over his left thigh and wondered if he’d peed himself, it didn’t matter, none of it mattered, the stars were out in the blackness overhead and that was where he was going.
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.
When we ourselves are not truly in a place of peace and we go out and try to create peace in the world, it becomes a fragmented and sometimes even corrupt form of peace. This happens because only peace can create peace, and unless we are the embodiment of it, we are projecting our bias of what peace should look like onto other people’s lives. To be at peace means to accept reality as is. Embodying peace is, in fact, the very essence of what it means to be free, as well as offering this freedom to others.
Chaos brings movement to whatever is stagnant in your life. Stagnation leads to apathy, numbness, illness, suffering, etc. Be grateful for the situations in your life that may seem chaotic in the present moment, and realize that, in the greater scheme of things, chaos is Spirit giving you an opportunity… or possibly pushing you to move, grow, and be in the flow.
...Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way....
Embrace contradictions for they make upall of life:You will eternally be looking for yourself andseeking ways to lose yourself.
I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be. There are parts I don’t love—until a few years ago, I had no idea that you could have cellulite on your stomach—but not only do I get along with me most of the time now, I am militantly and maternally on my own side. Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? You bet I would. That is why it’s such a blessing that I’m not left to my own devices.
Change is never convenient. I'm talking about acceptance here. Don't be misguided into thinking change is going to be easy. If you're facing change then you're challenging a norm, your norm. You've adapted to that and now it's being challenged. It's being turned inside out and upside down. You may feel that can't quite find your footing. It's all foreign. You may feel lost in it, quite unsure of yourself, unsure of what to do, or how to do it. Don't worry. Everything new was once like this, and you made it through. You'll find a way. Have faith. Keep hope in your heart. If you want to get to the other side of anything you need to work through and endure change. It can be awkward and uncomfortable. Change is never comfortable. It takes time and patience. It takes self-love and acceptance. It takes grace and self-forgiveness. Take it one step at a time. Break it down. You'll make it to the other side.
Fuck normal.” [Varick] took [Kieran’s] crumpled wrapper and slowly straightened it out on the table. He began to fold it in half, then half again, and finally one last time in half, making a neat square. “Normal is a societal construct that is created by people. There is no consistency across civilizations or cultures. What is normal to one person is not normal to another. It once was normal to own slaves and be prejudiced against people of color like yourself. It was once normal to make women wear dresses and cover themselves. And long ago it was normal to cut off someone’s hand for stealing instead of putting them in jail. Eventually, all societal constructs fall to new ideas. Normal is one of them.” Kieran stared at him with his mouth slightly open. “Now, just fold up your silly wrapper like you want to.
Romance novels feature nuanced portrayals of female characters having adventures, making choices, and accepting themselves just as they are. When we say these stories are silly and unrealistic, we are telling young girls not to expect to be the heroines in their own real lives.
Our call to action is to be in the flow of life, accepting life as it is and as it comes. We must allow life to be life in all its impermanent grandeur. Nothing remains the same, and those who fight change, or are in denial of it, create chaos within their own lives and the lives of those they have influence over.
When you’re a kid, you don’t think about big stuff that could change your life. You think about small things that might terrify you –like a bad report card or missing a goal in front of all your friends or your friends no longer wanting to play with you. Because that's the biggest stuff you know. The biggest disappointments are all tied to this small little universe of yours, because bigger things cannot fit into a small universe. If you wanted bigger things in there you needed to have more room –or make more room. Perhaps you thought about your parents or your pets dying, which was rare. But all you knew was you would be terribly sad and lonely. And on those occasions when people or pets actually died, someone usually came along and distracted you from feeling too much of your actual feelings. Grownups did that –they never left you alone to feel alone or think alone too much. They tended to think you are too small to know how to think and feel in big heaps, so they took parts of your heap onto themselves. To help – but in the long run –it doesn’t help at all. Because if you do not see, or feel or think, or taste the bitter things in life, you don’t know they exist. You have not seen enough of the world to know how terrible it could be. And unfortunately for Sam, this inability to process change persisted into adulthood.
I guess that sometimes it just takes a long walk through the darkness, a long walk through the darkest shadows and corners of your soul to realize that those are a part of you as well, that you've created through your experiences and thoughts those parts within yourself and as much as you can choose to fear them and repress them, they will require your attention one day, they will need your care and acceptance before you can clean them away and turn the lights on. For you refuse to shine the light on something that is imperfect, because you fear judgement and rejection, but you can always choose to look towards the light as the only source of true beauty and love that can help you in the cleaning process. Healing, after a long time of struggle and mess is a complex process, but a necessary one nevertheless. We are so overwhelmed by the amount of work it requires that we so often choose to run away from the light, hide in our dark corner and hope that we will never be found, hope that we will never be seen, or desperately look outwards for that love and compassion that we can no longer find within ourselves, for our soul's light no longer shines as it used to. And sometimes we just find those people that can see the light beneath all that dust and darkness that's been pilled up, those kind of light workers that understand our broken souls and manage to pick us up and see the beauty within us, when we find it so hard to see it ourselves. Sometimes I get so tired of separation, of division, of groups and different religions and belief systems. Even if you do find the truth, once you've put it into words, books and rules it already becomes distorted by the mind into something that is no longer truth. So I no longer hope for understanding, no longer hope for the opinion of a judgemental mind, but I hope to find the words that touch the soul before the mind, I hope to find the touch that warms the heart from deep inside, and hope to find that far away abandoned part of me which I've left behind.
What is it about our expectations, plans, or ideas that hold such sway over us? It is as if we've written a script for a play of our lives that runs about a month ahead of actual life; if reality varies from what we've created in our minds we disengage or pout.
Before you commit to loving someone,make effort to understand their heart,make effort to understand their soul,be open to seeing even their darkestcorners, without prejudice.If you have understood, accepted andloved their heart and soul, you will love them just as they are without ever wanting to change them.
I’m interested in this humbler approach, one that is more accepting of human foibles, and indeed sees dignity and peace as emerging more from that acceptance than from any method of transcending the human condition.
The soul accepts the mystery within and all around, immersing itself in it, celebrating it.
The deepest-lying and most pervasive part of character is disposition: it accompanies us everywhere, and shows itself in all we do. It is the attitude of the soul toward life, the way in which we accept our situation and our daily experiences. On the inner side it gives color and tone to our own conscious life: on the outer side it pervades and modifies our conduct toward others and our reactions to events. A good disposition is indispensable to good character, though of course not all of character; without it one cannot hope for perfection; even with it one may fail through lack of higher elements. It is a sort of foundation layer.
Pain is inevitable, yet suffering is optional. It is our heart connections that make all the difference. When we experience mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual pain – love is the one medicine that transcends any synthetic or organic drug we use to suppress pain.
It’s important to have a vision of the long run and make wise decisions for our highest good in the present moment; however, we don’t want to become attached to how everything must look. When we show up in good faith, life provides. And when we trust, we are always in the flow of manifestation.
When faced with contrast, take nothing personally and don’t try to defend yourself. Defending one’s self is a vibrational relative of guilt. People will think what they like; do not feed fuel to the fire by reacting. Simply ask questions for clarity and in response say ‘Is that so?’ Take responsibility for the energy you brought to the situation, acknowledge the illusions without attachment, and move forward. Other people’s opinions are none of your business. Remember that each person is on their own unique path, and the mirror of contrast you hold up to them may be exactly what is necessary for their conscious growth at that time.
On the road to success there is absolutely no room for criticism of self or others. Insecurity and fear masquerade as jealousy and judgment. Finding faults in others wastes time as we attempt to remove the bricks from other people’s foundations – time that could be better spent building our own. And worrying about what other people think about us also wastes the time that could be better spent expanding upon what we have built.
People who suffer the most often inflict the most pain onto others. Compassion can be found through understanding this. When someone is internally suffering, sometimes the only reality they know is that of pain and thus their only knowledge is how to be a victim or an abuser. That’s all they are able to communicate. Holding onto the thorn of resentment does not help them or you, but fostering compassion and forgiveness will.
Accepting evil is worse than committing evil.
Accepting evil is worse than committing evil. You must – I repeat – you must, as a human being, stand up on the side of humanism, against barbarian inhumanism, for it is your action, that shall determine whether your children shall live in a world of peace and harmony or a world of chaos and discriminations.
Acceptance does not mean accepting those who disregard humans on the basis of race, religion and sexual orientation.
A quiet mind is the quickest and biggest step to a peaceful world.
I like nature and I enjoy walking through the forest admiring its beauty and breathing not just the fresh air but, also the quietness and peacefulness of the place. There I feel serene. I feel I am accepted just the way I am whenever I arrive and for as long as I stay. Yes, there it doesn’t matter how I look, what country I come from, if I am from rich or poor family, what is my education, income, religion, sexual orientation and color of skin. It doesn’t even care if my hair looks messy and whether I wear the latest fashion cloths.
Later, Ella looked for the two swallows in the eaves outside the window, watching them even more closely now. The thought of them flying all that way, across mountains and seas and returning here, because this was their home - of them knowing how to find it - changed things. It was a new way of seeing; this was no longer just the place where women and men were kept, but the home of other creatures too, ones that had travelled far and still chosen it because this, above all other places, was the place to bring their families into the world.
Whenever you find your mind wandering to the past or future, pull yourself back into the present. Making peace, working through forgiveness of yourself and others over whatever happened in the past will help you to not revisit the past. Acceptance is an important tool when dealing with all that happened before the present moment. Remember, you cannot go back and change anything that has happened. Nothing at all. It was, what is was. You are here now, in the present, and as such, have the power to affect only the present.
Life is not a sport. Life is not math. There is no final end goal and there is no right answer. Just because your truth does not match someone else's truth does not make either of you wrong. Life is not a zero sum game. If I am right, that does not make you wrong. If you are right, that does not make me wrong either. A jar of vinegar can sit in a cupboard beside a box of baking soda peacefully, and we can allow those who disagree with us to exist alongside us without reacting to them. There is nothing to prove. There is enough room in the world for all of us.
Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep with a mixture of angst and gratitude all at the same time. It is finally ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years.
Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but is never quite ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place.” When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain; that quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years.
Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown hours, days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep a special cocktail of tears made of angst and gratitude, permeating us with some of the deepest emotions we will ever know. Finally, the release is ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. It also envelopes us in a warm cloak of acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet hours, days, weeks... or years.” Until that day of our own flying away, and beholding our loved one again, in that Beautiful Paradise.
Words have power, and when you speak you give them life. Speak into the atmosphere. Speak into existence what you believe, desire, dream, and hope.
We rise, we fall.Life is a lesson.But, if not lived with the heart,holds no depth, no meaning.We must feel pain, to feel the joy, to feel the pain, and so on, so forth.It requires great courage.I try with all my mightto hold gratitude in the lesson.Thank you universe for showing mefor teaching me.
When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well. If we were scarred socially, by an incident of rejection or bullying, we immediately start trying to heal. Like pus comes out of wounds, emotions flow from psychological wounds.And what do we really need at that moment? When we are out of that dangerous situation that scarred us, and we become triggered by some little thing - what do we need? Do we need someone to look at us and say, "Wow, you're really sensitive, aren't you?" or "Hey, man, I didn't mean it like that."? Do we need someone to justify their actions or tell us to take it easy, because the situation didn't really require such a reaction?And, from ourselves, do we really need four pounds of judgment with liberal helpings of shame? Do we need to run away, to suppress, to hate our "over-sensitivity" to situations that seem innocuous to others?No. We do not need all of these versions of rejection of a natural healing process. You would not feel shame over a wound doing what it must do to heal, nor would you shame another. So why do we do this to our heart wounds? Why do we do it to ourselves? To others?Next time some harmless situation triggers you or someone around you into an intense emotion - realize it's an attempt at emotional healing. Realize the danger is no longer there, but don't suppress the healing of old dangers and old pains. Allow the pain. Don't react, but don't repress. Embrace the pain. Embrace the pain of others.Like this, we have some chance at healing the endless cycles of generational repression and suppression that are rolling around in our society.Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine.
Whatever you did today is enough. Whatever you felt today is valid. Whatever you thought today isn't to be judged. Repeat the above each day.
Change your focus, give power to the positive and starve the negative. We reduce our inner wisdom to think with logic that's been instilled in us whilst expecting miraculous results. Retrain the core issue and the pathway will build itself.
You work so hard to fix yourself, but maybe what you need isn't another tactic, another book, another expert, another five-step plan. Maybe, you don't need to be fixed. Maybe, what's really holding you back is the idea that you need to be fixed. Maybe you just need to let yourself play instead of always making yourself do homework.
Sometimes, we expect life to work a certain way and when it doesn’t we blame others or see it as a sign, rather than face the pain of the choices we should or shouldn’t have made. Real healing won’t begin until we stop saying, “God prevented this or that.” Often in our attempt to protect ourselves from pain, we leave things to fate and don’t take chances. Or, we don’t work hard enough to keep the blessings we are given. Maybe, we didn't recognize a blessing, until it was too late. Often, it is the lies we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck in a delusion of not being responsible for our lives. We leave it all up to God. The truth is we are not leaves blowing toward our destiny without any control. To believe this is to take away our freedom of choice and that of others. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This can’t be reached through always believing God willed the outcomes in our lives, despite our inaction or actions. To think so is to take the easy escape from our accountability. Sometimes, God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, we just screwed up and guarded our heart from accepting it, by putting our outcome on God as the reason it turned out the way it did. Faith is a beautiful thing, but without work we can give into a mysticism of destiny that really doesn't teach us lessons or consequences for our actions. Life then becomes a distorted delusion of no accountability with God always to blame for battles we walked away from, won or loss.
Being willing to feel my pain isn't another strategy I can use to avoid my pain. It is genuinely accepting that sometimes stuff really sucks. Sometimes life can really hurt. Sometimes this world isn't what I signed up for. Sometimes I still feel like I would do anything not to have these feelings and these thoughts... Willingness to allow suffering to be there is hard. Damn hard. And often frightening too. And the only thing harder is not being willing to allow suffering to be there.
To love is to accept a soul entirely, not wishing that the person was otherwise, nor hoping for change, nor clinging to some ideal past. To love is to cherish the individual standing before you presently―charms, quirks, and all. To love is to give someone a piece of your heart that you will never, ever reclaim.
The unlikely group that resulted from the union of five diverse characters in their late twenties operated with surprising harmony. This cohesiveness could be attributed to two factors: 1) everyone’s issues and embarrassing pasts were plainly disclosed prior to the gang’s formation and 2) the clan had been expressly conceived as a male support group.
The truth no matter how hard it is to bear, must be accepted and confronted head on because it is real. Businesses and people who accept truth soar.
Will is… difficult,” Jem said. “But family is difficult. If I didn’t think the Institute was the best place for you, Tessa, I wouldn’t say it was. And one can build one’s own family. I know you feel inhuman, and as if you were set apart, away from life and love, but…” His voice cracked a little, the first time Tessa had heard him sound unsure. He cleared his throat. “I promise you, the right man won’t care.
The older Kit gets, the less confident he feels judging other people as spouses or parents. These days, driving past the home of the Naked Hemp Society, he finds himself more curious than contemptuous about their easily ridiculed New Age ways. Why shouldn't they nurse their babies till age four? Why shouldn't they want to keep their children away from factory-farmed meats, from clothing soaked in fire-retardant chemicals, from dull-witted burned-out public school teachers whose tenure is all too easily approved? Why not frolic naked in the sprinkler---under the full moon, perhaps? Why not turn one's family into a small nurturing country protected by a virtual moat?
The New Man means to develop all the three dimensions of being, all the three doors to God: the head, the dimension of thinking, logic and reason, the heart - the dimension of joy, trust, intuition, relationships, beauty, creativity and a sense of unity in love and the being, the dimension of meditation, silence, emptiness and oneness with life.The first level of the head is the dimension of ideas, intellect, hypothesis, theories, logic, analysis, rationality and dualistic thinking.The first level is the level of the mind, which means a continuous oscillation like a pendulum between the mind's memories of the past and the ideas, dreams and expectations of the future. The second level of the heart is the dimension of joy, acceptance, trust, understanding, trust, friendship, intuition, empathy, creativity, compassion, humor, playfulness and a sense of unity in love. The third level of being is the dimension of presence, awareness, meditation, silence, emptiness and wholeness. The third level is our connection with our inner life source.
The difference between impossible and possible is a willing heart.
Purpose drives the process by which we become what we are capable of being.
When enforcing our boundaries, first and foremost, we are caring for ourselves, but we are also helping others to have a clear understanding of what we consider acceptable behavior. We are reflecting back to them what is not acceptable and, therefore, providing them an opportunity to consider that information and make necessary changes.
Free your mind of that which you have no control. It is not only good to do so for your mental, but your overall health. Some people must learn from experience. You can convey knowledge to them and offer to show them the way. But, that doesn't mean your wisdom will be accepted or appreciated.
You have two choices in life when it comes to truthful observations by others that anger you: You can be ashamed and cover it up by letting your pride take you in the extreme opposite direction, in order to make the point that they are wrong. Or, you can break down the walls of pride by accepting vulnerability as a strength, not a weakness. As you walk through your vulnerability, you will meet humility on the way to courage. From here, courage allows us to let go of shame and rise higher into the person we are meant to be, not the person that needs to be right. This is the road to confidence and self worth.
Is it a weakness not being able to hate? Or is it preparation for what is inevitable, the ability only to love.
To win or lose often depends on set parameters. Expand the bounds of what is possible, and you may come out the true winner, outside the confines of its defining.
Time is an illusion, only the keepers of the illusion are real, and the reality they have spun, keeps us, until we set upon the path of the dream.
More and more obstacles seem to be other people's issues that form in the way of a hand to block one, to take notice of them? Sometimes noticing ahead of time, and taking the time to notice them, makes the hand part of an arm that embraces you. The obstacles become bridges for both to cross over, even if in opposite directions.
God is not a God of confusion, although at times one's judgment, for a period, may become clouded in the mi(d)st of one's growth process. I stopped fooling myself into thinking that Christ is always for the cool kids and never for those upright and uptight religious people everybody hates.
Love is one of the most motivating and self-defining forces in our lives, whether we turn from it or allow ourselves to be drawn to it. If you allow romantic possibilities with others to consume all your time and energy, they will distract you from the things of interest that fill your life with passion and purpose.
Excuses will always be made, and blame will always fall on the other. Though the truth is before you, your own love will forever blind you from it. I will not lose you just to prove a point, nor to shatter your heart with the reality before you. Instead I will smile. I will live. I will accept that it just is. I do not do this for them, but I will do it for you. I will do it because I love you." - from an untitled script
People often tell themselves lies, in order to reach what they consider acceptance in difficult situations. In reality, they fool themselves into believing they are healed, until that lie is corrected by time, further information or their own personal growth. True healing comes when we learn to not avoid truth, but face it. Only then will we be set free.
Jesus was a man of love, of immense compassion. He loved this earth, the people, the threes, because that is the way to love God. God is life. Jesus is very life-affirmative. He says total yes to life. When you look into the eyes of each being that you meet, you meet God. Everybody is an incarnation of God - the threes, the flowers, the rocks, the animals, the people and the mountains. Love the people, love the threes, love the animals - and through the love you meet God. All are brothers here, because God is one. The threes, the flowers, the birds and the rocks are all your brothers, because they all come from the one source. if you are not reconciled with the world, you cannot pray to God. Prayer is only possible when you are in harmony with existence. The whole existence is your brother. The first step for prayer is to be reconciled with your brother. And your brother means all beings. Jesus is a celebration of being, a celebration of life. If you deny life, you deny God. If you say no to life, you say no to God, because God is life. To understand Jesus, you have to understand that life is God. If you say yes to life, you will feel a prayer arising in your heart, a yes arising in your being. The ego is a no to life, the ego is a separation from life. The inner being is a yes to life. The inner being is a deep yes and acceptance of life. Saying yes bridges you with the whole. It makes you a part of the whole. Saying yes will make you more and more spiritual. Jesus whole message is yes. The word "amen" means yes. You will never meet God, you will meet human beings, animals, stones and threes. You can love God through other human beings, through threes, through stones and through animals. And when you have learnt to love God through all his forms - then only love changes into prayer.
I Love You! Three words that mean nothing if not followed through with actions. It seems to be more relevant in the terms of showing verses saying. Anyone can say it, because there are different kinds of love. But, few are willing to actually show it. Saying is one thing. Living proof is another.
Healing is the way of the heart. This book is an invitation to open our heart. Healing is a love affair with life.Healing is pure love. Love is what creates healing. Spiritual healing is to be one with ourselves. And to be one with ourselves is to be in joy.Healing is to develop our inner being. Healing is to discover that which is already perfect within ourselves. It is to rediscover our inner life source. Spiritual healing is to be one with life. We are never really alone, it is our idea of a separate "I" that creates the feeling of being separate from life, from the Whole.In reality there is only one heart, a pulsating Existential heart. Our own heart pulsates in unity with the Existential heartbeats. We are all notes in the Existential music, and without our unique note the music would not be complete. We are all needed in the Whole; we all have our unique fragrance, quality and gifts to contribute to the Whole.More than 30 years ago, I had an individual consultation with a spiritual teacher. I did not have time to sit down before I got the question: "You are interested in healing, are you not?" It was the first time that I encountered the topic that would become my way and deep source of joy in life. This spiritual teacher finished the consultation saying: "You will be a fine healer."The art of healing is the psychology of being, the science of inner transformation. The psychology of being begins where Western psychology ends. It goes beyond Skinner, Freud, Jung, Rogers, Maslow and humanistic psychology. The psychology of being is the psychology of consciousness, a psychology for inner transformation. It is not basically a question of psychology, it is a question of being. The psychology of being begins where we are, and take us to everything that we can be.The underlying theme the psychology of being is meditation - but not meditation as a static technique - but as the capacity to BE with ourselves and others in a quality of watchful awareness, acceptance and realization.The art of being is a search beyond the personality. It a search beyond the thoughts, the emotions and the learned attitudes of the personality, to the inner being, to the depth within, which is hidden in ourselves.The inner being is a deep acceptance of ourselves as we are; the inner being is to be available to life. The inner being is to be in unity with life. This book is an invitation to meet the inner being, our inner source of love, joy, acceptance, humor, intuition, understanding, wisdom, truth, silence and creativity.
Acceptance" is a very important word in our lives. People drive themselves into madness and death thinking about the chasm that exists between their ideals and their actual reality that they are living. There must be a balance between improvement of one's self and one's circumstances and the acceptance of reality. There is a beautiful dance that one must learn, which involves embracing the reality of your life as you would embrace a Latin dance partner on the ballroom floor, and moving that partner (your reality) in graceful strides, towards where you want to be situated, on that dance floor. If you dance with no partner (your current reality), you will arrive at your destination empty. Empty. That is, if you ever arrive at all. But when you dance with that partner, embracing and accepting it for all of its flaws and its redeeming qualities, you will be able to move across that dance floor as a full, whole person. Wherever you end up stopping in that ballroom, you will stop there as a whole person, not an empty one. So, accept the mistakes that have been done unto you and the mistakes that you have done. Accept the fact that you didn't grow up perfectly and you are not perfect now. Accept, embrace, love the people who are given to you to love. And love yourself just as you are.
Teach your children this from a very early age: "Everybody in this world is different, you're going to meet people who don't look like you, think like you, or even feel like you. This world is filled with so many different colours and shapes, so many different thoughts and feelings. You should never expect anyone else to be the same as you and you should never expect yourself to be the same as anybody else. But everyone can have so much fun learning about each other and celebrating one another" and when you are all able to do this, the world will begin to change for the better.
I don't put my ideas in a meeting for acceptance or rejection, I put them in the market for success or failure.
Capability can handle challenges, it doesn't accept charity.
So many people think that they are not gifted because they don’t have an obvious talent that people can recognize because it doesn’t fall under the creative arts category—writing, dancing, music, acting, art or singing. Sadly, they let their real talents go undeveloped, while they chase after fame. I am grateful for the people with obscure unremarked talents because they make our lives easier---inventors, organizers, planners, peacemakers, communicators, activists, scientists, and so forth. However, there is one gift that trumps all other talents—being an excellent parent. If you can successfully raise a child in this day in age to have integrity then you have left a legacy that future generations will benefit from.
How far we claim to have come - accepting all men as created equal. Gender being the requisite qualifier, as women are not reviewed in the same fashion - their fashion hopefully better suited to the bedroom than the boardroom. And, you know, homosexuals not really being 'men,' cannot be judged equivalent to their stiffer-wristed brethren. On religion, well, some Christians are willing to make room for a Jew or two in their inner circles. But Mecca-facing prayer must be met with flaming crosses. Close your eyes to the details, the big picture can still be viewed through rose-colored glass. But go any distance beyond the rhetoric, truth becomes a shadowed lens.
Projections' - attempts to blame all and sundry for my own past folly - will be found of no avail, and we must learn to withdraw them. None other is to blame for our body, home or circumstance, our friends and enemies, our job and place in the world. We made it all; let us accept and use and better it.
All the words that appear in the inner circle are attributes of God. To develop a relationship with Him we must know the implications of each for our lives. We need truth. His Word contains it. We need the ability to understand the truth. His Spirit will teach us. We need strength to cope with inner turmoil. His is omnipotent. We need a model to follow. Christ is God in human form. We need standards. He is righteous. We need acceptance. He is love. We need to know who is in charge. He is.
Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life,the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.' It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment--not discouragement--you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.
It’s not the good we see in the people we love, but what we refuse to see that gives us strength.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “Sometimes when we care about someone, we deny what’s right in front of us so we can move forward, so we have a reason to continue to love.
The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it.Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction.
So many years of being lonely and discounted, no one ever truly seeing me, the person that I really am. The Gabriella I so desperately wanted to be. Yet somehow he broke through the walls and barriers and penetrated my frail, dejected heart. He loves me for all that I am and what I will become, even though it scares us both to death. He accepts the darkest parts of me and doesn't try to change me, in all my shattered complexity. Meeting him has given this facade of my life new meaning. He's given me purpose, strength. He's given me love. Dorian has given me everything and, in turn, is everything to me. Designed by the Divine Power especially for me.
If you could do one thing to improve yourself today, it would be this: Rid yourself of bias. If you can do this, you can learn to listen. If you learn to listen, then you can learn to communicate. If you can communicate, then you can begin to verbalize your feelings. When you verbalize your feelings, then you can release stress and frustrations. When you free yourself of what bothers you, then you can fully give yourself to others. When you come this far, then you have learned to grow spiritually.
I started to discover the meaning of happiness when I started to discover--and practice--the art of acceptance. When I started to accept life for what it was and I started to accept whatever situation I was in as the way things were, I started to see that my happiness depended on my own attitude. When I started focusing on getting the most out of my life the way it was rather than trying to turn it into what I thought it should be, I started to realize that I was, indeed, becoming a much happier person.
the only source whence any thing like consolation or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone.
Learning to sit with ambiguity can be a very important start at a life liberated from anxiety—and the way to do it is to resist the urge to chase answers to questions that may actually be unanswerable.
I know my time will come soon enough, but I will not dwell on it. What is the purpose? We might as well dwell on the work of our teeth or on the mechanics of our walk. It is there, it will always be there, and I don't intend to spend my glorious hours looking over my shoulder to see death's icy face.
If you refuse to accept what is, and choose to see what could be, then you set a course for yourself that makes others take notice of you, respect you, revere you. It is then that they become objects of your destiny instead of you playing a support role in theirs.
Patience is the antidote to the restless poison of the Ego. Without it we all become ego-maniacal bulls in china shops, destroying our future happiness as we blindly rush in where angels fear to tread. In these out-of-control moments, we bulldoze through the best possible outcomes for our lives, only to return to the scene of the crime later to cry over spilt milk.
Becoming aware of our inner man and woman means to discover the roots and creative potential of both the male and female aspect within ourselves. Becoming aware of the inner man and woman means to understand that they have different visions of life. It means to understand that they have different perspectives and views of life. The inner man and woman are our two wings of love and freedom. Through awareness, acceptance and understanding, we can allow our two wings to develop in a deep and natural harmony. In the world today, a one-sided development of the male side leads to destructivity. A one-sided development of the male side leads to ego, struggle, exhaustion and a separation from life. A one-sided development of the female side leads to passivity and dependence.
Past experience doesn't go away, so the secret is to accept, embrace and learn from it. However the key to the secret, is to keep it at bay and be open minded about the future from the second after the experience and never let the experience be the bar or commission of anything thereafter.
I’ve got a question for you… Are you the person who you thought you’d be by now? I know I am not. The fact is that life may not be what you thought it would be by now (If It is, I congratulate you & applaud you) You may feel stuck in a job you don’t like, not making enough money, jobless, or maybe you are in a bad relationship/marriage, or unhappy because you are out of shape…but don’t let that get you down.The key is 2 focus on what you have (Health,Fam,friends etc) instead of what you don’t have. And also in the things that you have done (Finished a Race-College/Got that Diploma/Raise a Family etc) Instead of the things you haven’t done. yetIF where you are now, it’s not where you want to be…know that where you’re going is far more important than where you are now or where you’ve been.Forgive yourself, Accept the current situation & MOVE ON, knowing that from now on you will focus your time & energy on the possibilities & opportunities that lie ahead 4 you in the near future.
It is what writers do, imagine and feel the pain of others, sometimes at the expense of feeling their own. Here, then, in these pages is mine, the fear of death, of loss, of unexpressed love. Here is the truth told in a story. And in the telling of it perhaps I have found some way to have courage, to believe.
Why did you revive me?” Alecto repeated. “Well… uh, well….” Mandy hesitated, her voice full of sudden misery. “They say there are five stages of grief, you know… five stages. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not in any particular order. Anyhow, I denied your death, I was angry about it, I bargained with Mearth to try and get her to un-bury your site and I was depressed about the whole ordeal. One thing I just froze up on though was acceptance. I just couldn’t accept your death. It was really cruel the way you died, and I missed you so much… Mearth, my parents, the cops, Dr. Pottie, they all thought I was crazy. When people think you’re crazy, that label automatically dehumanizes you, because people can use it to discredit everything you say with, “oh, pay no mind to her, she’s just this crazy lunatic with a dead imaginary friend.” I just wanted to do something, anything to make it all go away, and I decided that I wanted to revive you.
One weekend it rained for 48 hours without stopping. The rain beat like bony fingers against the window panes. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Fungus was growing on the walls. I polished off a bottle of gin sitting huddled over the two-bar electric fire and wrote a poem, one of the few that has lasted through the moves and the years. It is called 'Where Can I Go?'If this is not the place where tears are understood where do I go to cry? If this is not the place where my spirits can take wing where do I go to fly?If this is not the place where my feelings can be heard where do I go to speak? If this is not the place where you’ll accept me as I am where can I go to be me? If this is not the place where I can try and learn and grow where can I go to laugh and cry?
There was a lot about my life that was crappy, now that I couldn't talk. But if I hadn't gotten drunk that night, if I hadn't gotten in that accident, would I have ever had this moment? Lying there in the sun, holding Sam's hand like time didn't exist and the real world couldn't touch us? Somehow I didn't think so.
And then there is this jewel with its many facets of wisdom. It’s not difficult to imagine the breadth and depth of this sentiment – at least where astuteness and faith are an inseparable dynamic duo running rampant: “…while God does listen, knowing what He knows about us, and how well we take disappointment, often He will find a way to save us all the heartache and trouble we unwittingly plead and beseech and continually pester him for; ever a loving, wise Father, He will just simply answer, “no,” by default; by not answering, “yes.
There is really no natural limit to the practice of loving kindness in meditation or in one’s life. It is an ongoing, ever-expanding realization of interconnectedness. It is also its embodiment. When you can love one tree or one flower or one dog or one place, or one person or yourself for one moment, you can find all people, all places, all suffering, all harmony in that one moment. Practicing in this way is not trying to change anything or get anywhere, although it might look like it on the surface. What it is really doing is uncovering what is always present. Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone. (
Smiles and kindness bring so much more than money can buy. Help and acceptance are all that is needed when you see someone cry.Open your eyes, and let everyone be free. Free to be you and free to be me. Take comfort in knowing we are all leaves on the same big, beautiful tree.
Awareness is a choiceless consciousness. Awareness is the capacity to embrace, accept and include both joy and sadness, love and aloneness, light and darkness, male and female qualities and life and death. Through saying “yes” and accepting both tendencies and including whatever aspect that happens in the moment, we meet our unlimited and boundless inner being. The inner man and woman need to find their own independence and integrity.
I have always felt deep within myself that I do not trust that I am already OK as I am, and that I do not trust that life takes care of me. But now I discover a silent place in the depth of my inner being, where I am already one with life, where I am OK as I am. It is also a silent inner place of healing and wholeness, where I can find a love and acceptance for that which is imperfect within myself.
Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory.
When our hopes for performance are not completely met, realistic optimism involves accepting what cannot now be changed, rather than condemning or second-guessing ourselves. Focusing on the successful aspects of performance (even when the success is modest) promotes positive affect, reduces self-doubt, and helps to maintain motivation (e.g., McFarland & Ross, 1982).... Nevertheless, realistic optimism does not include or imply expectations that things will improve on their own. Wishful thinking of this sort typically has no reliable supporting evidence. Instead, the opportunity-seeking component of realistic optimism motivates efforts to improve future performances on the basis of what has been learned from past performances.
I loved Enso Roshi’s teachings. I loved learning about life. I loved life. It was a good thing to feel. I loved life, and I loved learning, and I was still learning. I was not, yet, done. At the end of our journeys, there would be an end to the journey. Maybe. If I was lucky. If providence shone down upon me gently. I would find love. I would find acceptance. Complete love. Complete acceptance. I would know, that the self, is an illusion. I would come to enlightenment, but that would also mean, there would be no ‘I’ there. I would realize that the ‘I’ was an illusion, all along, just like some great dream. This is what the wise sages say, the great teachings, the mystical teachings, not only from the East, but also from the West. The Gospel of Saint Thomas. Thomas Merton. Thomas, like I was Thomas, and also doubting, the main reasons I’d chosen the name. If nothing else, it was lovable, just as it is. My life. Even the parts I didn’t love, could I love them? The struggles. It was all part of the journey, and would I not look back fondly on this, at some time? Look at how arduous and sincere I’d been. Look at how worried I’d been. Look at how insecure I’d been. Look at how I’d struggled. Trying to find my way. Would I not look back upon myself, affectionately and fondly and with love?
I learned to accept that everything happened in her time. When you live in the moment, it’s easier to wait. When you trust and have faith, you just know that whatever it is will come when it will come. Your master will always bring everything to you at the perfect time.
I have a vision. In this vision, I see men not being distrustful of women and I see women not being distrustful of men. I see a world wherein people don’t say, “I want to win, I want to control, I want to make him/her...” when talking about a potential lover. I see men believing in women and women believing in men, believing in each others’ dreams and ambitions. And I have another vision. In this vision, I see women looking at other women with eyes of love and men looking at other men with eyes of acceptance. In these two visions, I see all people looking at all other people and remembering that we are all children on the inside. We all don't want to be hurt, we all don’t want to be left behind and we all want to know where home is.
The most wonderful type of love, she had learned, was the kind built with care and over time, through forgiveness and understanding, compromise and compassion, trust and acceptance. It was hidden in the minutiae of every day life; it was in the traded smiles during a radio show or the peaceful lulls on an evening stroll.
relationship is home . not like a bazar . you like so you visit . other part does not even see you ,if they like to. you want to buy ,choose ,you are free .but that's business . in relationship feeling is important ,more than that equally acceptance is base of relationship . if someone stopping to accept this they must stop to continue to be used in a relationship .
But don't you see, I say, I don't care. I don't care what you've done or how bad you are. Edward, we belong together. We both know it. Now I know your worst secrets and you know mine. Isn't that what you've always wanted? For us to be completely honest with each other?
My fear of being real, of being seen, paralyzes me into silence. I crave the touch and the connection, but I’m not always brave enough to open my hand and reach out. This is the great challenge: to be seen, accepted, and loved, I must first reveal, offer, and surrender.
These are the few ways we can practice humility:To speak as little as possible of one's self.To mind one's own business.Not to want to manage other people's affairs.To avoid curiosity.To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.To pass over the mistakes of others.To accept insults and injuries.To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.To be kind and gentle even under provocation.Never to stand on one's dignity.To choose always the hardest.
--I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.
It is up to each one of us to immunize ourselves from any disabling bolts of anger and defend ourselves from the thunderstorms of hatred. No matter how maliciously anyone might act towards us, humankinds’ ability to express empathy, compassion, and mercy is the only life-sustaining panacea. Whenever we foster empathy and compassion and display mercy towards other people, we overcome the vilest actions and greatest atrocities committed by other persons. If we love everyone, we can never feel victimized or hate anyone. If we love ourselves, we will never act in a degrading manner.
He nods, looking through the pictures on the screen on the back of his camera. Some relationships can only exist as memories. But unlike ephemeral digital images that can be sorted and deleted, we can’t erase the past. We have to learn to live with all the images that are stored in love's archive, memories tagged good and bad. No Photoshopping. Accept the negative before moving forward.
...Perhaps part of the secret of leading a life in which you would not always be worrying about things, or complaining about them, was to accept that there were people who just saw things differently from you and always would. Once you understood that, then you could accept the people themselves as they were and not try to change them. What was even more important, perhaps, was that you could love those people who looked at things so differently, because you realized that they were not trying to make life hard for you by being what they were, but were simply doing their best. Then, when you started to love them, love would do the work that it always did and it would begin to transform them and then they would end up seeing things in the same way that you did.
I am sure that if we can find reconciliation with our past – whether parents, partners or friends – we should try and do that. It won't be perfect, it will be a compromise . . . but it might mean acceptance and, the big word, forgiveness.
Let us not despise the woman who is neither mother nor daughter nor wife. Let us not limit our esteem to family life, narrow our tolerance to simple egotism. Given that heaven rejoices more at the repentance of one sinner than over a hundred good men who have never sinned, let us endeavor to make heaven rejoice. We may be rewarded with interest. Let us leave along the path the alms of our forgiveness for those whose earthly desires have marooned them, so that a divine hope may save them, and, as the wise old women say when they prescribe a remedy of their own invention, if it doesn't help, at least it can't hurt.
I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation– of remorse, or apology or restitution or restoration or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But, I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.
You're badly wounded.You're bleeding but not cut.You feel like dying but you're not.It’s a Love accident an emotional injury.You are not going to the hospital, aren't you?You don't need medicines and first aides, don't you?You just need to move on. Accept it, forgive and forget it.
Vengeance and forgiveness are about reconciling the accounts, but accounting is an ugly description of the tangled ways we're connected. I sometimes think everything comes out even in the end, but an end that arches beyond the horizon, beyond our capacity to perceive or measure, and that in many cases those who trespass against you do so out of a misery that means the punishment preceded and even precipitated the crime. Maybe that's acceptance.
Chuang-tzu once told a story about two persons who both lost a sheep. One person got very depressed and lost himself in drinking, sex, and gambling to try to forget this misfortune. The other person decided that this would be an excellent chance for him to study the classics and quietly observe the subtleties of nature. Both men experience the same misfortune, but one man lost himself because he was too attached to the experience of loss, while the other found himself because he was able to let go of gain and loss.
This is the way it ought to be, he thought to himself, to be able to dance with a girl you like and really get a kick out of it because everything’ on an even keel and one’s worries are of the usual ones of unpaid bills and sickness in the family and being late to work too often. Wh can’t it be that way for me? Nobody’s looking twice at us. Nobody’s asking me where I was during the war or what the hell I am doing back on the coast. There’s no trouble to be had without looking for it. Everything’s the same, just as it used to be. No bad feelings except for those that have always been and probably always will. It’s a matter of attitude. Mine needs changing. I’ve got to love the world the way I used to. I’ve got to love it and the people so I’ll feel good, and feeling good will make life worthwhile. There’s no point in crying about what’s done. There’s a place for me and Emi and Freddie here on the dance floor and out there in the hustle of things if we’ll let it be that way. I’ve been fighting it and hating it and letting my bitterness against myself and Ma and Pa and even Taro throw the whole universe out of perspective. I want only to go on living and be happy. I’ve only to let myself do so.
I forgive you. But just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want to continue to be your friend. It doesn't even mean I respect you as a man because you are not. You are a miserably scared little boy who can't tell when to let go and when to hold on. You will never be worth my time nor my friendship.
a shift in thinking’ toward someone who has wronged you, ‘such that your desire to harm that person has decreased and your desire to do him good (or to benefit your relationship) has increased.’ Forgiveness, at a minimum, is a decision to let go of the desire for revenge and ill-will toward the person who wronged you. It may also include feelings of goodwill toward the other person. Forgiveness is also a natural resolution ofthe grief process, which is the necessary acknowledgment of pain and loss.
We would be in each other's lives again. No, he hadn't been the best father, but he was my father, and we loved each other. We needed each other. Though he'd disappointed me countless times through the years, life had already proven too short for me to hold on to that. So I let go of my hurt. I let go years of frustration between us. Most of all, I let go of any desire to change my father and I accepted him for who he was. I took all of my anguish and released it like a fistful of helium balloons to the sky, and I chose to forgive him.
We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.
The moonlight rained down on the beach as if to shine a spotlight on my solitude, and I wanted to cry out at it, ‘Why did you take her? You, surrounded by all of your twinkling stars and infinite wonders and darkness. There’s already enough beauty where you are.
We are born into a realm of constant change. Everything is decaying. We are continually losing all that we come in contact with. Our tendency to get attached to impermanent experiences causes sorrow, lamentation and grief, because eventually we are separated from everything and everyone we love. Our lack of acceptance and understanding of this fact makes life unsatisfactory.
Pain and grief have been kept buried for ages, bred in secrecy and shame, wrapped by an ongoing conspiracy of smiles and well-being. Pain and grief are most healing and ecstatic emotions. Yes, sure, they can be hard, yet what makes them most devastating is the perverted idea that they are wrong, that they need to be hidden and fixed. The greatest perversion I can conceive is the idea that illness and pain are a sign that there is something wrong in our life, that we have unresolved issues, that we have made mistakes. In this world everyone is bound to get ill, experience pain and die. The greatest gift I can give to myself and the world is the joyful acceptance of this. Today I want to be real, I will not hide my pain as well as my happiness. I will not care if my gloomy face or desperate words cause concern or embarrassment in others. I do not need be fed with reassuring words about the beauty of life. The beauty of life resides in the full acceptance of All That Is.
I turned to face Audrey, and everything I loved was right there in her eyes, the memories tangible: the schooldays and sleepovers, the cheap bottles of wine and sappy chick flicks. She was there for my mother’s drunken relapses, there to hold me until I fell asleep the first time the ex from Seattle hit me. It was all there, and my God, each memory was suddenly sacred and the sun rose and set upon it.
Countless times, I have imagined A. rising through the rivers of this land, to the surface of Florida to be found again, pulled into the air by new hands. The possibilities are endless, but most often I imagine him found by children. Above him, the sky shimmers and undulates blue through transparent springwater. Then four small brown hands break the surface and pull him into the air and into their excited and frightened vocabularies. The delicate bones of their arms and ribs absorb his voice, shattering their knowledge of what is possible.
And then Jonah heard God’s voice. “Jonah, do you know what the difference is between you and the trees?” He was confident it was God because God usually asked questions but gave no answers. Jonah didn’t need a divine answer to this question, he knew it. “Yes,” he said. “The difference between me and the trees is that the trees let go of their leaves. I keep holding onto mine. The trees make room for new life. I don’t.
One by one, the thoughts and memories of sadness raised their hands, stood up to identify themselves. I looked at each thought, at each unit of sorrow, and I acknowledged its existence and felt (without trying to protect myself from it) its horrible pain. And then I would tell that sorrow, "It's OK. I love you. I accept you. Come into my heart now. It's over."...
I don't think I've ever felt anything other than lonely. "The saddest part of this was not the words, but the tone he said them with. So matter of fact; as though loneliness was the same as the colour of your hair or having too many freckles. A fact about yourself that could not be permanently altered.
Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.
Not every environment accepts the dream shaping progress you want to put across. Take a second look at what you dream about, be sure it can progress very well where you are; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile grounds for a farmer’s dream seeds. Go and relocate!
Sometimes you just don't know what's going to happen, exactly. And that's because sometimes you just don't have control over circumstances in your life. The amazing thing is that— it is during these times that we free-fall through the sky! All we have is the breath in our lungs right here and right now and it's just exhilarating! And it takes humility to accept that we might not have everything we want in our hands at the moment— but that what we do have is good, is worth keeping. Even if something isn't everything, yet, it can be worth everything, right now! You just have to spread your arms in the air and start gliding!
Please do not break your heart over the withering of a dream you once held, that never became yours! After all, the shattered dream could have very well been a nightmare and not a dream at all, you wouldn't really know because you didn't have it yet! Let the sparks fade, let the flame dim and die, you'll never know it wasn't poison.
Close both eyes see with the other one. Then we are no longer saddled by the burden of our persistent judgments our ceaseless withholding our constant exclusion. Our sphere has widened and we find ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new expansive location in a place of endless acceptance and infinite love.
It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations. As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no expects us to be 'as gods'. We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
It is Christlike to assume that people are trying to do the best they can. I know I am a better person when I cultivate empathy, and I have been blessed for having received it from others. As members of the body of Christ, we are each responsible for creating a space not only of acceptance, but of joy and encouragement for our sisters and brothers and the stories they are working so hard to live well.
Never let your desire to have an accepting heart towards others keep you from your strong boundaries. The hurricane may come blasting at our door; yet it doesn’t mean we have to invite it in for tea. Sometimes, it’s important to recognize that the hurricane is a powerful and damaging storm, not a light spring shower.
Your self-worth and self-esteem cannot be changed by doing positive affirmations. If that were the case many people would be super confident and are not. It may appear to work for some, but only because they have already faced the hurts inside that have caused low self-worth and low self-esteem, and are ready to feel differently. Acknowledging the pain and the suffering that take place inside you, and allowing the feelings, will take time, but this new way of handling these feelings will change the way you relate to you and to the outside world.
Love is the state of being; it is not a personal feeling directed to a particular someone. Love is beyond romance and attraction.Love is when it doesn't matter when you get that person or not because you have met your own self through that person and that self will always be with you....within you.Love is not your loftiest fantasy you always thought will happen to you. Love is not wanting someone at any cost and cursing them if you do not "get" them. Love is who you are - your very essence felt and experienced by all that come into your vicinity
There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this -- which will not be tomorrow and will not be today and may very well be never -- the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.
Because…” Gabriel closed his eyes to his truth. Because the premise that a child must be threatened with harm to earn God’s blessing is no longer acceptable to me; because that smug face cannot be the face of my God; because a rejecting and shaming God is a God of men created by men to serve the agendas of men; because I couldn’t find any stained glass window maker who is able to capture the face of the God I want to see—the God of hope, of compassion, of acceptance.
True devotion and humility is when you carelessly allow yourself to fall in love with things you consider will make you look inferior, which in essence, makes you superior.
What a strange revelation of self-esteem it is when people only love those who think and feel as they do - an extension of themselves, in fact! Even Christianity does not cure us, since one cannot feel right without assuming that the rest must be wrong. Personally I would rather feel wrong with everybody else than right all by myself: I like people different, and agree with the man who said that the worst of the human race is the number of duplicates.
It is one of those simple but beautiful paradoxes of life: When a person feels that he is truly accepted by another, as he is, then he is freed to move from there and to begin to think about how he wants to change, how we wants to grow, how he can become different, how he might become more of what he is capable of being.
You cannot be fair to others without first being fair to yourself.Know that a well-honed sense of justice is a measure of personal experience, and all experience is a measure of self.Know that the highest expression of justice is mercy.Thus, as the supreme judge in your own court, you must have compassion for yourself.Otherwise, cede your gavel.
To fully appreciate the depth of love, we must captivate ourselves in the moment. Whether it is fate or humanism, it produces a great capacity for happiness with a throw in of anxiety, grief, and isolation. Use those whales as an insidious beginning to produce meaning and humility in your life.
The deflation, or flattening out, of values in Modern art does not necessarily indicate an ethical nihilism. Quite the contrary; in opening our eyes to the rejected elements of existence, art may lead us to a more complete and less artificial celebration of the world.
We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.
You will never let go of the past by ignoring the most painful thing the person you loved has done to you. When you begin to minimize it, second guess yourself and others, ignore it or even pretend it didn't happen you cheat yourself out of healing. Naturally, your mind would rather believe the lies you are telling it, rather than accept the truth. The soul has a way of protecting itself from trauma, but if left in denial there is no growth or change. Healing requires going to that place you avoid and asking yourself why you are so afraid to accept the reality of what happened to you? Why have you minimized it like this person has wanted you to? What is it about your self esteem that allows you to continue being a doormat?
I'm not talking about the blood ecstasy. I'm talking about my being able to fill that emotion void she has. You know her as well as I do, maybe better. She aches with it. She needs to be accepted for who she is so badly. And I was able to do that. Do you know good that felt? To be able to show someone that, yes, you are someone worth sacrificing for? That you like them for their faults and that you respect them for their ability to rise above them?
Your suffering needs to be respected. Don't try to ignore the hurt, because it is real. Just let the hurt soften you instead of hardening you. Let the hurt open you instead of closing you. Let the hurt send you looking for those who will accept you instead of hiding from those who reject you.
At some point, we have each said through our tears, "I'm suffering for a love that's not worth it." We suffer because we feel we are giving more than we receive. We suffer because we feel we are giving more than we receive. We suffer because our love is going unrecognized. We suffer because we are unable to impose our own rules.But ultimately there is no good reason for our suffering, for in every love lies the seed of our growth.
There are certain people who will always seek to criticize. This has nothing to do with you. It must be hard to be inside their head, you know? I mean if they find so much fault in everyone around them... then one can only imagine the faults they must see in themselves.
You cannot become good enough for your own approval just like you can't become good enough to have hair. You cannot earn your own self-acceptance just like you can't earn your own ears. You can't become what you are. Stop looking out there. Look in the mirror. You're already everything you've ever wanted to be.
People always, always talk about confidence, it’s supposed to be such an attractive thing. I wonder why though, why is it supposed to be such an attractive thing? When confidence hides so many other things that are so much more beautiful! When you think of being confident, you think of tucking away all those other things that you consider to be nuisances; but those nuisances make up whom you are! And those nuisances are beautiful. They are beautiful and they are you and they’re always going to be there, even when you try to cover them up! So what happens when they all come out one day? Are you going to feel like less of a person? Are the people who are supposed to love you, going to see you as less of a person? I say that it’s not about going out into the world and putting on a certain face— it’s just about going out into the world. I’ve gone out into the world! And I don’t put on that face! Or any other face, as a matter of fact! I don’t want to hide the way I play with my hair to feel more secure or the way I laugh at all the wrong times. I don’t want to hide those things because those things are a part of me. And I can still go out into the world— and all alone, too! I know so, because I’ve actually done it! So more important than confidence— is serenity and acceptance. The serenity comes from having a deep acceptance of all those little things about you that add up like the trillions of molecules and atoms you are made up of! And that’s just beautiful. Being beautiful is something rooted and strong; being confident is just a matter of putting on something that isn’t even a real part of you. Falling in love with the molecules that make up your essence is so much more attractive. And maybe that’s what confidence really means— the acceptance and belief in every single atom that you are.
And suddenly, lying in bed, I became aware of every inch of my body and I apologised to it, quietly. I apologised for bring so ungrateful for so long. Then I thanked my arms, hands and fingers for always trying so hard. I thanked my legs and feet for holding me up all the time. I thanked my brain for working so amazingly well and conjuring up thoughts and dreams and sentences and images and crazy poems. And I thanked all my organs for working together and giving me life. It had taken four and a half billion years for me to be here. Right now. In this universe. And in that moment, I felt totally overwhelmed at being alive. There could be nothing but there was everything. I didn't want to waste a single second more worrying about trivialities. Worrying that I'd never match up to an ideal that didn't even exist. Nobody is normal. We are all different. I had to make sure that every moment I had left on this planet counted.
I want to share my story, and I want to know yours. I believe with all my heart that sharing our stories, the real, ugly, broken ones, is one of the most powerful things in the world, because to share our story we must first accept it. We must own it. We must stop running from it or shoving it into the corner when company comes over. To share our story is to admit that we've been changed.
There is no way to genuinely, powerfully, truly love yourself while crafting a mask of perfection. I know, you know, we all know—it's hard to let your pimples and your flaws be seen. It's hard to stumble and bumble. It's hard to not know the right things to do or say. It's hard to not look like TV.Sometimes, it's really hard for me to be the awkward mess that I am when I'm authentic, instead of having runway authenticity—all natural, but flawless. But every time I allow that to be okay, not just around myself but around others—I affirm something to myself. I affirm, to myself more than anyone else, that I am lovable and acceptable unconditionally. I affirm that it's okay to take on and take in all the flavours and hues of human experience, and not just the ones that are acceptable in this culture, in this time, in this place.And that kind of acceptance, that kind of love—that's the kind of love that creates miracles. That's the kind of love I really need. That's the kind of love that makes approval taste like cardboard.
No one's approval is enough to make up for a lack of self-love, which is really a lack of self-awareness.When we feel a desire to be loved, it isn't other people's love we need. It's our own relationship with love that we're longing for, our own awareness of being interconnected with others, our own sense of the magic of our own interwoven existence. To seek the fulfillment of this desire in others' approval is a losing battle. It will never be enough. No one can compliment you enough to supplement for the acceptance that you need from your own self, in each moment. Acceptance for your struggles and your talents. Acceptance for your humanity. Celebration of that humanity.Love is an inside job.
Self-love is not the process of ignoring things, paying attention to fewer flaws or forcing yourself to look away from the parts of you that you perceive as ugly or unwanted. Self-love is the process of expanding your awareness, of seeing those flaws and imperfections alongside the incredible potential of the universe flowing within you, alongside the eternal truth of life flowing within your veins in each second, alongside the flickers of creativity and opportunity present within each moment of your existence. Like this, the imperfections persist, but only as lovable quirks, like a bad doorknob on the front door of a cottage in paradise, like a few thorns on a beautiful rose, like a cloud in a sunset. Like this, what was once unwanted becomes essential, memorable, humbling.
We’re hungry for acceptance—from ourselves even more than from others—for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.
I haven’t been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don’t go into the bedroom—if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because of that, I suppose that I should be scared out here in the dark, but I am finally past that, I think.(p.204)
Something must be radically wrong with a culture and a civilisation when its youth begins to desert it. Youth is the natural time for revolt, for experiment, for a generous idealism that is eager for action. Any civilisation which has the wisdom of self-preservation will allow a certain margin of freedom for the expression of this youthful mood. But the plain, unpalatable fact is that in America today that margin of freedom has been reduced to the vanishing point. Rebellious youth is not wanted here. In our environment there is nothing to challenge our young men; there is no flexibility, no colour, no possibility for adventure, no chance to shape events more generously than is permitted under the rules of highly organised looting. All our institutional life combines for the common purpose of blackjacking our youth into the acceptance of the status quo; and not acceptance of it merely, but rather its glorification.
We must be willing to get rid ofthe life we’ve planned, so as to havethe life that is waiting for us.The old skin has to be shedbefore the new one can come.If we fix on the old, we get stuck.When we hang onto any form,we are in danger of putrefaction.Hell is life drying up.
But if I hope to understand in order to accept things - the act of surrender will never happen. I must take the plunge all at once, a plunge that includes comprehension and especially incomprehension. And who am I to dare to think? What I have to do is surrender. How is it done? I know however that only by walking do you know how to walk and - miracle - find yourself walking.
It’s easy to love those we like, but what about those we don’t, and why would we anyways? There may be someone who doesn’t like us, yet they’re accepting of us, unconditionally loving us.Love means, I accept you as someone as imperfect as I am, someone who wants security and acceptance, someone who may be scared and shows it in the wrong ways, someone who is as worthy of my understanding, love, and acceptance as may feel I am of theirs. Someone who needs someone to love them first.
My father nodded. His nod was for me. Different. But not different at all. My father understood. Maybe he had known. Maybe he hadn't. It didn't matter anymore. He understood. I knew he understood, just from his nod, just from his eyes on mine, making his eyes kind for me, and the wave of pain went away for a moment.
Only he whose bright lyrehas sounded in shadowsmay, looking onward, restorehis infinite praise. Only he who has eatenpoppies with the deadwill not lose ever againthe gentlest chord.Though the image upon the pooloften grows dim:Know and be still.Inside the Double Worldall voices becomeeternally mild.
[Jack:] 'I was twenty-four when I met Walker. Do you know I've never lived alone? I'm forty-four years old and I've never lived alone. The first few weeks Walker was gone, I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd stay in the store until late, pick up some takeout, and just watch television until I fell asleep.'[... Melody:] 'Sounds kind of great right
Anyone can possess, anyone can profess, but it is an altogether different thing to confess.
Patience is an ever present alternative to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience. Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger. It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it. This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to. It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully, moving fast because you have chosen to.
But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I know. And the sick must husband their resources even as they are resourceful for their husbands. But I couldn't help wanting for her, couldn't help the feeling that she'd given in, that she had measured out with coffee spoons what it was that she might ask of life and having found it lacking, tragically, gapingly lacking, had decided none-the-less to accept her modest share. I wanted her ignoble, irresponsible, unreasonable, petty, grasping, fucking greedy for the lot of it, jostling and spitting and clawing for every grain of life.
But are the twin souls destined to be together? Synchronicity is at work here to bring the two back together again. How entrancing to find the same magical alchemy still at work, just as it was at the first meeting – a recognition of a deep rooted love so entrenched and so accepted, it could only have been forged in other lifetimes together. And probably that is what love at first sight is, recognition of an ancient love.
While the differences between love and hate can be blurred and difficult to decipher at times, the dichotomy of denial and acceptance are much more distinct. One is halting and aggressively rejects all truth, while the other is more passive and at peace – welcoming whatever truth is in waiting, whether fortunate or tragic.
We stay the same as we've always been, keeping to the path we've walked our whole lives. Paths that carry so much importance and perceived stability that we are utterly convinced it is the only one to walk – that anyone not walking it with us is being misled.
One day in my pharmacology class, we were discussing the possibility of legalizing marijuana. The class was pretty evenly divided between those that advocated legalizing marijuana and those that did not. The professor said he wanted to hear from a few people on both sides of the argument. A couple students had the opportunity to stand in front of the class and present their arguments. One student got up and spoke about how any kind of marijuana use was morally wrong and how nobody in the class could give him any example of someone who needed marijuana. A small girl in the back of the classroom raised her hand and said that she didn’t want to get up, but just wanted to comment that there are SOME situations in which people might need marijuana. The same boy from before spoke up and said that she needed to back up her statements and that he still stood by the fact that there wasn’t anyone who truly needed marijuana. The same girl in the back of the classroom slowly stood up. As she raised her head to look at the boy, I could physically see her calling on every drop of confidence in her body. She told us that her husband had cancer. She started to tear up, as she related how he couldn’t take any of the painkillers to deal with the radiation and chemotherapy treatments. His body was allergic and would have violent reactions to them. She told us how he had finally given in and tried marijuana. Not only did it help him to feel better, but it allowed him to have enough of an appetite to get the nutrients he so desperately needed. She started to sob as she told us that for the past month she had to meet with drug dealers to buy her husband the only medicine that would take the pain away. She struggled every day because according to society, she was a criminal, but she was willing to do anything she could to help her sick husband. Sobbing uncontrollably now, she ran out of the classroom. The whole classroom sat there in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, my professor asked, “Is there anyone that thinks this girl is doing something wrong?” Not one person raised their hand.
If there is a single factor that spells out the difference between the cafeteria fringe headed for greatness and those doomed for low self-worth, even more than a caring teacher or a group of friends, it is supportive, accepting parents who not only love their children unconditionally, but also don't make them feel as if their idiosyncrasies qualify as "conditions" in the first place.
My heart broke not only for the daughter who already was forced to become her mother's alarmingly narrow ideal, but also for the middle daughter who knew that her in mother's mind she had already failed.
I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.
If all we ever offer is blanket praise without any meaning behind it, kids will always seek approval because they'll never feel satisfied. If we offer genuine encouragement for their accomplishments, they won't need our approval; they'll approve of themselves.
To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted. But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.
It is the lies he's telling her - as he has been, Nassun understands suddenly, her whole life - that really break her heart. He's said that he loves her, after all, but that obviously isn't true. He cannot love an orogene, and that is what she is. He cannot be an orogene's father, and that is why he constantly demands she be something other than what she is.
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Accept who are you and your uniqueness. Define your choices and believes.
Since then I have searched for my heroes among small-t truths. I always find them among people learning the art of acceptance: not acceptance of defeat or acceptance of some inability to influence their own futures, but rather acceptance of life on the planet, acceptance of the grays rather than the black-and-whites, acceptance of the astonishing range of human emotion and human behavior.
I have learned over a period of time to be almost unconsciously grateful--as a child is--for a sunny day, blue water, flowers in a vase, a tree turning red. I have learned to be glad at dawn and when the sky is dark. Only children and a few spiritually evolved people are born to feel gratitude as naturally as they breathe, without even thinking. Most of us come to it step by painful step, to discover that gratitude is a form of acceptance.
I am here. I am in the present tense. I'm not always here, and sometimes here is a very difficult place. Sometimes it is a labyrinth, or a Minotaur, or a rope I can neither let go of nor follow. It's hard to find the right words, but I guess I would say that it's something like feeling the floor. And that it is my privilege to feel it.
Everyone has a right to love the land that gave them the things they need to live. It gives them beauty to look at, and food to eat, and neighbors to bicker with and then eventually to marry. But I think... that your own devotion to your familiar homeland should inspire you to allow other people to embrace their homelands as beautiful too.
Being happy where you are does not mean that you must unquestioningly accept parts of your environment that don't serve you. Where you are is inside of this amazing body, this beautiful moment, this capable mind. Where you are is inside of an eternal opportunity. And sometimes you need to change your environment to remember that.
I have learned to accept that, in the present moment at least, things are exactly as they are meant to be, and although I cannot control the future any more than I could control the wind and the weather, I can manage it and influence it in a positive way.
Love – Acceptance – Unity – Peace –Integrity – Respect… a strong, pure creed is short on words and long on nourishing ideas. For me, the longer the creed the more it has been diluted, manipulated, and spoiled. The results of this creed poisoning can be seen in the behavior of its followers. We have all heard the expression, “The devil is in the details”; my observations have led me to suspect this is true.
There were so many places in my time with Rogerson that I wished I could go back to, hitting the stop button at just one moment to stop everything that came after. I had so many If Onlys, but each place I thought to stop meant missing something that came later. I needed it all, in the end, to make my own story find its finish.
We are all going, I thought, and it applies to turtles and turtlenecks, Alaska the girl and Alaska the place, because nothing can last, not even the earth itself. The Buddha said that suffering was caused by desire, we'd learned, and that the cessation of desire meant the cessation of suffering. When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.
What's been important in my understanding of myself and others is the fact that each one of us is so much more than any one thing. A sick child is much more than his or her sickness. A person with a disability is much, much more than a handicap. A pediatrician is more than a medical doctor. You're MUCH more than your job description or your age or your income or your output.
Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender
No, the secret is that there's no reward and we have to endure our characters and our natures as best we can, because no amount of experience or insight is going to rectify our deficiencies, our self-regard, or our cupidity. We have to learn that our desires do not find any real echo in the world. We have to accept that the people we love do not love us, or not in the way we hope. We have to accept betrayal and disloyalty, and, hardest of all, that someone is finer than we are in character or intelligence.
To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.
The best thing about coming out is, it's totally liberating. You feel like you've made this incredible discovery about yourself and you want to share it and be open and honest and not spend all your time wondering how is this person going to react, or should I be careful around this person, or what will the neighbors say? And it's more. It's about getting past the question of what's wrong with me, to knowing there's nothing wrong, that you were born this way. You're a normal person and a beautiful person and you should be proud of who you are. You deserve to live with dignity and show people your pride.
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree
Observe the rhythm of passers-by on the street, at work, everywhere. Summon loving acceptance and let their tempos move you emotionally and corporeally. Try to assimilate new ideas by trying out the rhythms of those you encounter.
He plants himself right there in front of Craig’s mother and says, “You need to love him. I don’t care who you thought he was, or who you want him to be, you need to love him exactly as he is because your son is a remarkable human being. You have to understand that.”And Craig’s mother whispers back, “I know. I know.
What to AcceptThe fact of mountains. The actualityOf any stone — by kicking, if necessary. The need to ignore stupid people, While restraining one's natural impulseTo murder them. The change from your dollar, Be it no more than a penny, For without a pretense of universal penuryThere can be no honor between rich and poor.Love, unconditionally, or until proven false.The inevitability of cancer and/orHeart disease. The dialogue as written, Once you've taken the role. Failure, Gracefully. Any hospitalityYou're willing to return. The airEach city offers you to breathe.The latest hit. Assistance.All accidents. The end.
Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their responsibilities have been decreed by our species... the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
You will think you take generous views of her; but you will never begin to know through what a strange sea of feeling she passed before she accepted you. As she stood there in front of you the other day, she plunged into it. She said 'Why not?' to something which, a few hours earlier, had been inconceivable. She turned about on a thousand gathered prejudices and traditions as on a pivot, and looked where she had never looked hitherto.
To be loved and to love, takes courage. To be fully seen is incredibly rare and breathtaking. We lower our masks and see a celestial inner being. It is our full self -- the supernova as well as the black holes. Our fears and doubts. Our anger and joy...This is love.
Any meaning of life derives from amiably accepting our anonymous role in the singular order of the universe. Such gracious reception of life’s turbulences stems from willingly capitulating to whatever fomented experiences life brings us without harboring a disconsolate degree of remorse or regret.
With thousands of years of history frozen in time, it's no wonder that many southerners like me romanticize the north as a place where we can freeze our former selves, thaw, and then bloom anew. Here it’s just you, the land, and your thoughts, and you can't leave until you've wrestled with yourself and emerged a survivor. But then again, the light is much more intense up here and everything looks different because of it. The sun hasn’t set in a couple of months, and you can see things much more clearly when it is light all of the time.
We have laws about human rights in place for a reason and even if those laws are so often not enforced BY the law, these laws teach us our rights as human beings. I was shocked when I first discovered them, but at the same time I found them empowering; especially the ones about emotional abuse and neglect. Always remember that we are healing from the damage and that before the damage can be overcome, it has to be acknowledged.Acceptance in the context of accepting what happened is not the same thing as acceptance of the person who did it. Accepting the way a person “is” does not apply when abuse or mistreatment is involved. There is a big difference in accepting someone’s “faults”, verses accepting abusive treatment.
In recent decades we have emphasized the value of teaching people 'tolerance.' Tolerance is not only inadequate, it is a negative concept which only alienates society further. Learning to tolerate absolves people of the responsibility of learning to understand different people, accept and appreciate their differences, and progress towards respecting them for who and what they are. It is only when we build acceptance between people that we will rid ourselves of the scourge of prejudice and liberate ourselves from violence.
Take delight on a woman’s pubic hair for its a signature of maturity and a secretive covenant . . . the hair signifies potent sexual energy and strength hold but also signifies virility of the animalistic tendencies and royal power . . . A woman who rejects narcissism of complete vaginal hair removal gives a signature of strength, virtuously liberated, body acceptance, and more womanhood.
The second hugely seductive move is to signal that we view the other person with a mixture of tenderness and realism. It’s often imagined that it’ll be seductive to convey an air of adoration, to hint that the other strikes us as exceptionally attractive or accomplished. But surprisingly, it is deeply worrying to be obviously adored, because everyone, from the inside, knows very well that they don’t deserve intense acclaim, are often disappointing and sometimes quite simply pitiful.So seduction involves suggesting both that one likes the other person a lot – and yet can see their frailty quite clearly, that one cope with it and forgive it with gentle indulgence. One might, towards the end of the evening drop in a small warm tease that alludes to our understanding of some less than perfect side of them: ‘I suppose you stayed under the duvet feeling a bit sorry for yourself after that?’ we might ask, with a benign smile.Such a gesture implies that we like another person not under a mistaken notion that they are flawless but with a full and unfrightened appreciation of their frailties. That ends up being powerfully seductive because it is, first and foremost, reassuring. It suggests the ideal way that we would like someone to view us within the testing conditions of a real relationship. We crave not admiration, but to be properly known and yet still liked and forgiven.
He had a harder time helping her out though. He was asleep while she was doing stars. Without wings, he couldn't reach anyways. In the end though what he could give her was better than magic wands and magic frogs and magic lamps. Better and more magical. What he gave her was moral support and unconditional love. He promised to be there for her always, even times when the sky proved too vast and the night was dark because she couldn't kindle all the stars. He would light her way instead, he promised. He would be her Polaris, her celestial navigator, her astral guide. And whenever she cam back to Earth, Grumwald promised, he would be there, waiting.
He had a harder time helping her out though. He was asleep while she was doing stars. Without wings, he couldn't reach anyways. In the end though what he could give her was better than magic wands and magic frogs and magic lamps. Better and more magical. What he gave her was moral support and unconditional love. He promised to be there for her always, even times when the sky proved too vast and the night was dark because she couldn't kindle all the stars. He would light her way instead, he promised. He would be her Polaris, her celestial navigator, her astral guide. And whenever she came back to Earth, Grumwald promised, he would be there, waiting
Be not virtuous beyond your powers! And seek nothing from yourselves opposed to probability!...Shy, ashamed, awkward, like the tiger whose spring hath failed—thus, ye higher men, have I often seen you slink aside. A cast which ye made had failed...The higher its type, always the seldomer doth a thing succeed. Ye higher men here, have ye not all—been failures?Be of good cheer; what doth it matter? How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh!What wonder even that ye have failed and only half-succeeded, ye half-shattered ones! Doth not—man's future strive and struggle in you?Man's furthest, profoundest, star-highest issues, his prodigious powers—do not all these foam through one another in your vessel?What wonder that many a vessel shattereth! Learn to laugh at yourselves, as ye ought to laugh! Ye higher men, Oh, how much is still possible!
We are never through with the requirement for acceptance. This isn't a curse limited to the inadequate and the weak. Insecurity may even be a peculiar sign of well-being. It means we haven't allowed ourselves to take other people for granted, that we remain realistic enough to see that things could genuinely turn out badly and that we are invested enough to care.
So she steeled herself. “I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it's mine,” she said, blinking past the burning in her eyes, “and it's time for me to tell it.”Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him.“Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom . . . very much.”And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion.
I took a breath and watched as he leaned down over my exposed, lumpy belly. Very lightly, he kissed it. He kissed the spot beneath my ribs and all the way down to my navel. He kissed across my lower stomach, that wretched expanse where the stretch marks raked across my skin, then up and down my sides. Harry kissed every inch of my horrible flesh with a tenderness so great and loving, and all the while, my eyes stayed clenched tight. 'I am loved,' a voice inside me declared.
It doesn't matter if the group is a church or a gang or a sewing circle or masculinity itself, asking members to dislike, disown, or distance themselves from another group of people as a condition of 'belonging' is always about control and power. I think we have to question the intentions of any group that insists on disdain toward other people as a membership requirement. It may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn't necessitate disdain.
With the constant pile of past experiences having a toll, most people get too scared to see beauty in themselves. A very honest compliment and they try inevitably to cook up conspiracy theories. Although there are ulterior motives (to the compliments) most of the time, look past it, accept, and appreciate your magic.
I am giving you permission to tell the truth about where you are in your process of dismantling your fucked-up schemas. I am not pressuring you to dismantle anything. I am saying let’s be here together, undismantled, and just accept that this is where we are. Let’s love each other right where we are, even as we compare ourselves to one another. I am saying, yes, baby, I know it’s hard.
Rather than trying to control what can never be controlled, we can find a sense of security in being able to meet what is actually happening. This is allowing for the mystery of things: not judging but rather cultivating a balance of mind that can receive what is happening, whatever it is. This acceptance is the source of our safety and confidence.When we feel unhappiness or pain, it is not a sign that things have gone terribly wrong or that we have done something wrong by not being able to control the circumstances. Pain and pleasure are constantly coming and going, and yet we can be happy. When we allow for the mystery , sometimes we can discover that right in the heart of a very difficult time, right in the midst of a painful situation, there is freedom. In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go. As we begin to understand this, we move from a mode of struggling to control what comes into our lives into a mode of simply wishing to truly connect with what is. This is a radical shift in worldview.
Have you ever worried about something so much that it becomes debilitating? But when you finally accept there’s nothing you can do, when your choices are taken away, fear dissolves and you can finally relax…and perhaps even enjoy?
Acceptance is a thing... look into it.If it is something in you, about you, done by you... and you aren't happy with it... you don't have to accept it. You have the power to affect change.If it something in someone else, about someone else, done by someone else... and it doesn't directly effect you in a negative way (actual effect, not perceived, mind you) ... you can rally against it, or accept it. While you may have the power in someway to force change on others... acceptance is also totally a real thing... seriously. Look into it.Don't like what others think, or feel, or do with their lives? Neat.Do those things have a direct negative impact on you?If yes, then communicate (in whatever means are situationally appropriate) and seek a positive resolution.If no, then do as I tell my eight and ten year old children... ignore them.You... no matter your age, gender, sexual orientation, belief structure, occupation, or affluence (real or perceived)... You absolutely have the right to accept others.Honest.
Tell me about love when you've been with someone for years, cared for them when they're ill, put up with them when they're miserable or grumpy, taken the sharp side of their tongue and still come back. Tell me about love when you've acted quite appallingly, and the other person has still accepted you.
Stop running from me and listen. I do want you. I want you even knowing if I marry you, I’ve got an instant family, complete with a suicidal brother-in-law and a Gypsy houseboy with the temperament of a poked bear.” “Merripen is not a houseboy.” “Call him what you like. He comes with the Hathaways. I accept that.
the only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.. live wild dont be a normal person.. to become presence, means accepting the risk.. and be sure if u don't take risks u'll have a wasted soul..
Whatever is going on- accept it rather than try to fight it. When you accept what is- then you are free to act. You have the energy to take action. You haven’t used up all of your energy trying to fight and force things into place. What we resist persists. You will know you are in resistance when you look at what you are trying hard to push away and out of your life.
They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed smoothly into each other's, through their arms and fingers. . . . There was a shared space between their bodies, the confines of which were not well delineated, from which nothing seemed to be missing and in which the air seemed motionless, undisturbed.
Until then I had rejected him, refused him his own reality. He had been quite right to say that he, the only person on Gethen who trusted him, was the only Gethenian I distrusted. For he was the only one who had entirely accepted me as a human being: who had liked me personally and given met entire personal loyalty: and who therefore had demanded of me an equal degree of recognition, of acceptance. I had not been willing to give it. I had been afraid to give it. I had not wanted to give my trust, my friendship to a man who was a woman, a woman who was a man.
I made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with tons of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks. I have spent a lifetime coming to terms with this idea and I would say I am about 15 to 20 percent there. Which I think is great progress. Decide what your currency is early. Let go of what you will never have. People who do this are happier and sexier.
To be able to accept everything that comes our way, even the things we don’t want to accept, is the art of Love. However, this acceptance isn’t to become conformists or martyrs. The art of accepting has to do with surrendering the need for control; it’s ceasing the effort to regulate our environment and manipulate the human beings, as well as the other creatures, within it.“When we give up our attachment to the outcome and rest our minds in a peaceful state, then we have a better chance to act free from the results. Such a state of surrender could be described as “just be-ing”.“Whatever happens is an indication that at some level we’re ready for it, or at least we’ve got all the tools required in order to become ready, and face any problem or obstacle that may arise along this path.
DENIAL OF EMOTIONSOur culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain.
The sentences still form in my mind, and thoughts still do their little show-off dance, but I know my thought patterns so well now that they don't bother me anymore. My thoughts have become like old neighbors, kind of bothersome but ultimately rather endearing - Mr. and Mrs. Yakkity-Yak and their three dumb children, Blah, Blah and Blah. But they don't agitate my home. There's room for all of us in this neighborhood.
When we accept our own wild beauty, it is put into perspective, and we are no longer poignantly aware of it anymore, but neither would we forsake it or disclaim it either. Does a wolf know how beautiful she is when she sleeps? Does a feline know what beautiful shapes she makes when she sits? Is a bird awed by the sound it hears when it snaps open its wings? Learning from them, we just act in our own true way and do not draw back from or hide our natural beauty. Like the creatures, we just are, and it is right.
The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again.
I feel like there are fifty ways it's my fault. I fantasized. I took the big pill and the small pill, stuffed myself with substances to make being out in the world with people my own age a little easier. To lessen the space between me and everyone else. I was hungry to be seen. But I also know that at no moment did I consent to being handled that way.
Acceptance doesn't mean tolerating unhealthy relationships or problem behaviour. In relationships, acceptance has two key qualities. First, it means being willing to recognize that your partner, right here and right now, is struggling too. It means allowing for the possibility that his motivations might be good and constructive, even if it doesn't feel that way. It means not getting caught up in the belief that he's wrong or doesn't care about you, and instead embracing the possibility that he's doing the best he can. He may even be trying to make you happy--but in a way that only makes sense inside the male mind. Acceptance also means embracing the formidable task of empathizing with your partner's struggle when you least want to do so.
Acceptance is a gift that helps you to skip forward and live in the present. Everyone needs a chance to be fulfilled with acceptance which is the impetus to heal old wounds. Sometimes you meet someone and you can skip forward because of the greeting, the acceptance, and the goodbye. Say hello to a stranger. They will greet you with a smile almost every time.
I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Everything changes. The leaves, the weather, the colour of your hair, the texture of your skin. The feelings you have today - whether they kill you or enthrall you - won’t be the same tomorrow, so let go. Celebrate. Enjoy. Nothing lasts, except your decision to celebrate everything, everyone, for the beauty that is there within each moment, each smile, each impermanent flicker of infinity.
I have breathed my way through so many people I felt wronged by; through so many situations I couldn't change. Sometimes while doing this I have breathed in acceptance and breathed out love. Sometimes I've breathed in gratitude and out forgiveness. Sometimes I haven't been able to muster anything beyond the breath itself, my mind forced blank with nothing but the desire to be free of sorrow and rage.
Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes--and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of her life.
Stop fishing for deep sea perch in a pond, because when you reel in gold fish, you’ll only end up disappointed. In time the thrill of catching will wear off, and then you’ll realise it’s not the deep sea dwelling creature you were truly after.See when your own depths match that of the ocean, you will eventually need to accept that no pond can fill you.
How often do we truly feel accepted?Are we aware of the collateral effects inflicted when we reject someone or something? How do we move on from a state of constant rejection?How do we gratefully accept rejection?With acceptance, we grow not in a constant state of rejection.
And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation "some fact of my life" unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
What made her most beautiful, was the way she quietly touched those around her unknowingly changing the lives of the many, she smiled at. She didn't want praise; approval or admiration, she just wanted all of whom she loved to be the most authentic side of themselves & openly living to the means of their hearts & truth.
There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet.
Karma does never return to punish. Its role is to assist with solving what has been left uncompleted. It always returns to you, when you are strong enough to look at it. You never are asked to deal with more than you can handle. So relax and accept what is being offered to you. Accept it as a gift of love.
I learned that, while rejection is the name of the game, I’m always going to be exactly what someone is looking for, eventually. Whether it is looks or personality, be it in the professional world or the dating world, what others have over me is irrelevant, because there’s always someone out there looking for an exact type of someone – a someone that I can completely fulfill. I’m not going to be everyone’s ideal, so focusing on the times I get passed over – be it the modeling industry or in real life – is a colossal waste of time.
You ask a certain question again and again, in a sincere fashion, and the answer appears. But, in my experience, at least, that answer arrives according to it's own mysterious celestial timing, and often in disguise. And it comes in a way you're not prepared for, or don't want, or can't at first, accept.
Acceptance. It sounds so gentle; you foolishly imagine you might try it. As if you could choose. You don’t choose. You plummet into acceptance, because the floor has collapsed beneath your feet.
I have learned a great deal from other Witches, Wiccans, Odinists, Voodoo and Hoodou practitioners, Druids and many others who consider themselves Pagan. The one common thread is that every single person has been nonjudgmental. Isn't this what it's all about, acceptance? Are we not here to design our own spiritual path? --Icinia
We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.
To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking. It's akin to letting your palm open to unhand something you have been holding on to.
Scientists gladly accept any new truth demonstrated by evidence, that is, proved by the very law of the cosmos. Not so with any new conceptions of religion; these are fought by the use of persecution and venom. Many of the current religious beliefs literally carried into practice would stampede humanity into the old jungle ideas and habits.
One of my professors in college used to say As the wise man said, Do or do not, there is no try, but the advice columns generally say the opposite. If someone promises to try, and you're happy with that, don't push. It can backfire. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble asking for too much.
And now I am sitting in the graveyard, staring at two headstones, and feeling good and bad at the same time. The way we do when our own lives continue to unfold, but the lives that gave us life and others that gave our lives meaning have ended.
All of us sport an invisible sign around our necks -- “AS IS.” It means, take me as I am. I may not become what you want me to be. And I’m far, far from perfect. But I have some great qualities, too, as well as my share of faults. You will have to take me “AS IS” and I’ll take you that way, too.
Many rulers would have spent the morning complaining loudly about the cold and the discomfort, as if their complaints would actually serve to alleviate the situation and as if their attendants should be able to do something about it. Not the emperor. He accepted the situation knowing that he could do nothing to change the weather. Best to endure it without making life more difficult for those around him.
I shall not be afraid of anything I haven't even seen yet. If Fairyland-Below is a terrible place, well, I shall feel sorry for it. But it might be a wonderful place! Just because the wild striped cats don't know what diamonds are doesn't mean they're vicious; it just means they have wildcat sorts of wants and wealth and ways of thinking, and perhaps I could learn them and be a little wilder and cattier and stripier myself.
Loving someone who does not love you back hurts,alot, i know.It is liking seeing these pair of shoes at theretail store which do not fit you.Chances are, if you buy them knowing theyare a small size,you will have blisters and probably hurt your toes.What i mean is,not everyone will love you back,therefore, never shove your love downanyone's throat.Accept it and appreciate the ones that do love you.
I, too, am a drum major for justice. I will continue to speak out-LOUD and PROUD- as long as gay youth are killing themselves because someone instilled in them they are not enough. Well, baby, you're more than enough. You were molded with the same care and precision as your heterosexual counterparts. You are unique. God has a special plan for you that only you can fulfill. Live your life!
For me- and for everybody else, probably- this is my first experience growing old, and the emotions I'm having, too, are all first-time feelings. If it were something I'd experienced before, then I'd be able to understand it more clearly, but this is the first time, so I can't. For now all I can do is put off making any detailed judgments and accept things as they are. Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river. And there's also something kind of comical about it all, something you don't want to discard completely.
This need to be right has put a huge burden on me, one that I never deserved to have to carry. Part of it, I know, is cultural--in this age of information at a moment's notice, we've come to expect people to have answers--the right answers--at the drop of a hat. I feel very fortunate that over the last decade or so I've been able to leave the need to be right behind me and move on with my life with a more healthy perspective. I'm now willing not just to admit that I'm wrong, but also to stick my neck out with ideas or thoughts that may be wrong. The possibility of being wrong no longer threatens my emotional well-being; if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I learn from that.
When you stop pretending to be who you are not and start being yourself, there is a big risk: significant people in your life may not accept you and leave. Yet, when you stop being yourself and pretend to be who you are not, there is a much bigger risk: the people who would accept and love you just as you are, may not accept you and leave.
I can't promise you that I won't hurt you," he said softly after it became clear I wasn't going to speak. Sincerity flowed from him like water in a river and it nearly broke my heart. "I can't say that I won't ever do something stupid, or forget your birthday or our anniversary or your favorite flavor of ice cream. I'm fallible; I'm gonna make mistakes. But I can promise you that I won't lie to you, and I'll never cheat on you. Your Cat is a part of you. She makes you who you are. I can't ignore that, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. All you need to do is trust me, Riley. That's all I'm asking.
It amazes me that we are all on Twitter and Facebook. By "we" I mean adults. We're adults, right? But emotionally we're a culture of seven-year-olds. Have you ever had that moment when are you updating your status and you realize that every status update is just a variation on a single request: "Would someone please acknowledge me?
I was always reaching for love, but it turns out love doesn't involve reaching. I was always dreaming of the big love, the ultimate love, the love that would sweep me off my feet or 'break open the hard shell of my lesser self' (Daisaku Ikeda). The love that would bring on my surrender. The love that would inspire me to give everything. As I lay there, it occurred to me that while I had been dreaming of this big love, this ultimate love, I had, without realizing it, been giving and receiving love for most of my life. As with the trees that were right in front of me, I had been unable to value what sustained me, fed me, and gave me pleasure. And as with the trees, I was so busy waiting for and imagining and reaching and dreaming and preparing for this huge big love that I had totally missed the beauty and perfection of the soft-boiled eggs and Bolivian quinoa.
It wasn't a perfect body but it was the body she deserved. Not just from every bar of chocolate or bag of crisps or laden plate of food that she'd eaten. This body was also testament to all the hours in the gym and cycling up hills on her bike and glugging down two litres of water a day and learning to love vegetables and fruits that didn't come as optional extra with a pastry crust. She'd earned this body.This was her body and she had to stop giving it such a hard time.
Acceptance. We want someone to look at us, and really see us—our physical flaws, our personality quirks, our insecurities. And we want them to be okay with every square inch of who we are. We’re always afraid we might be too needy or too much work. We put all these limitations on ourselves and our relationships because we’re afraid that we’re not really loved. That we’re not really accepted. We hide little pieces of ourselves because we think that might be the one thing that finally drives away the person who’s supposed to love us.
What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let's go have a beer. America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.
When I saw you on the stairs before, I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,’ he whispered against her skin.‘Spotty, not beautiful,’ she corrected gently, running her finger along his crooked nose. ‘Now you, you’re beautiful.’‘I even missed your inferiority complex.’ Max smiled and shifted against her.‘Not being inferior. It’s a point of fact. I’m covered in zits,’ Neve said and she didn’t know why she felt the need to share that with Max but then she was glad that she had because he was kissing each one of the angry red bumps along her forehead and chin and cheeks, even though a few of them were starting to suppurate. ‘Don’t do that, it’s completely unhygienic. Kiss my mouth instead.
You solve it as you get older, when you reach the point where you've tasted so much that you can somehow sacrifice certain things more easily, and you have a more tolerant view of things like possessiveness (your own) and a broader acceptance of the pains and the losses.
What's more, the kaleidoscopic blend of gender-variant and gender-typical traits that characterizes gay people is exactly what enables us to make our own unique contributions to society. It's the reason that we should be valued, celebrated, and welcomed into society rather than merely being tolerated. The aim should be to foster acceptance of gay people as we are, in all our rich diversity and not to seek acceptance by shoe-horning ourselves into conformity with the straight majority.
One person simply can’t be all things to another person – sexually or otherwise—and unmet needs, unfulfilled desire, and unexplored possibilities are prices we pay to be in LTRs (long –term relationships). Monogamous, polyamorous, Femdom, or whatever: All couples people walk around feeling a little unfulfilled. (Single people, too). Because no one gets everything they want.
Is it your background, then?" Lord Franton smiled and shook his head. "That need not worry you. You're a wizard now; what you were before does not matter to me.""Yes, it does," Kim said softly. "Because part of the time you're sorry about it, and part of the time you think it makes me interesting, and part of the time you ignore it. But you never forget it.
Mary watched the sunset from her carriage window, realizing that such beauty could never last. Life was a golden glory that faded in the wink of an eye. Life was a village fair that only lasted for a single day. As the carriage rattled along, rocking her like a babe in arms, Mary felt very old and wise. She found that she didn't mind being taken back to the castle, to a caring captivity that was filled with comforts and kindness. And she also found that she couldn't keep her eyes open.
Count Ayakura’s abstraction persisted. He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes. However precipitous the future might seem, he learned from the game of kemari that the ball must always come down. There was no call for consternation. Grief and rage, along with other outbursts of passion, were mistakes easily committed by a mind lacking in refinement. And the Count was certainly not a man who lacked refinement.Just let matters slide. How much better to accept each sweet drop of the honey that was Time, than to stoop to the vulgarity latent in every decision. However grave the matter at hand might be, if one neglected it for long enough, the act of neglect itself would begin to affect the situation, and someone else would emerge as an ally. Such was Count Ayakura’s version of political theory.
A love of neighbor manifests itself in the tolerance not only of opinions of others but, what is more important, of the essence and uniqueness of others, when we subscribe to that religious philosophy of life that insists that God has made each man and woman an individual sacred personality endowed with a specific temperament, created with differing needs, hungers, dreams. This is a variegated, pluralistic world where no two stars are the same and every snowflake has its own distinctive pattern. God apparently did not want a regimented world of sameness. That is why creation is so manifold. So it is with us human beings. Some are born dynamic and restless; others placid and contemplative…One man’s temperament is full throated with laughter; another’s tinkles with the sad chimes of gentle melancholy. Our physiques are different, and that simple difference oftentimes drives us into conflicting fulfillment of our natures, to action or to thought, to passion or to denial, to conquest or to submission. There is here no fatalism of endowment. We can change and prune and shape the hedges of our being, but we must rebel against the sharp shears being wielded by other hands, cutting off the living branches of our spirits in order to make our personalities adornments for their dwellings.
The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday and wrong the day beforeAnd each mistake leads back to something worseAnd every nuance of your hypocrisyTowards yourself, and every excuseStands solidly on the perspective linesAnd there is perfect visibility.What an enlightenment. The colonnadeRolls past on either side. You needn't move.The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.And this dismay at this, this big mistakeIs made worse by the sight of all those whoKnew all along where these mistakes would lead — Those frozen friends who watched the crisis
If you accept others as equals, you embrace them unconditionally, now and forever. But if you let them know that you tolerate them, you suggest in the same breath that they are actually an inconvenience, like a nagging pain or an unpleasant odour you are willing to disregard.
And the view was suddenly clear to me. The world opened out to its grim beyonds and I realized that, at forty, one must learn the rigors of acceptance. Capitalize it: Acceptance. I needed to accept what was put before me--be it a watery grave in Ireland's only natural fjord, or a return to the city and its grayer intensities, or a wordless exile in some steaming Cambodian swamp hole, or poems or no poems, or children or not, lovers or not, illness or otherwise, success or its absence. I would accept all that was put in my way, from here on through until I breathed my last.
He accepts life in all its facets, in all its climates and colors. He alone does not choose he accepts life unconditionally. He does not shun love; being a man he does not run away from women. As one who has known and experienced God, he alone does not turn his face from war. He is full of love and compassion, and yet he has the courage to accept and fight a war. His heart is utterly non violent, yet he plunges into the fire and fury of violence when it becomes unavoidable. He accepts the nectar, and yet he is not afraid of poison.
No man can be everything. A successful long-distance cyclist can't be a bodybuilder. Though there are exceptions, dedicating one's time to becoming exceptional at one thing usually means not being exceptional at a whole lot of other things.Since no man can be everything, one of the best gifts to give is acceptance-'You don't have to be anything other than what you are.
I find myself making excuses for this kind of bullying behavior. Not everyone has been to college, learned trans 101, studied queer theory... But this is unfair to myself and other trans people. I've come to realize that understanding me isn't a matter of being an intellectual. Likewise, one doesn't have to be a radical to respect my feelings. Decent people consider how their comments affect others.
I believe that our ability to worship God, to reaffirm our covenants and receive the healing power of the Holy Ghost, to receive the instruction we need in order to make personal progress - all of these things are greatly affected by how secure and safe we feel in our Church environment during the three-hour block of time on Sundays. If we have to spend our energy dealing with feelings that we are not accepted, being concerned about our appearance, or worrying that what we do or say will be judged harshly, in other words that the fellowship of our ward members is anything but "fixed, immovable, and unchangeable", we certainly won't be able to make the kind of progress we could make otherwise.
I mean that I discovered there's a difference between acceptance and reignation - one is positive, the other is negative. Acceptance opens the door of hope wide, while resignation slams it shut. One says God is good and loves us, and the other says He is harsh and doesn't care. Abraham chose to 'accept' God's will, knowing full well that God loved him and not only wanted the best for him, but knew exactly what that 'best' would be. Neither is easy when it means relinquishing the desires of our heart, but 'acceptance' promises that God will bless our obedience with a greater good. 'Resignation,' however, can sever our relationship with God, which leaves us on our own, resulting in darkness and despair.
This easy acceptance of an opaque limit to our speculative insight; this satisfaction with a Being whose character we simply apprehend without comprehending anything more about him, and with whom after a certain point our dealings can be only of a volitional and emotional sort; above all, this sitting down contended with a blank unmediated dualism - are they not the very picture of unfaithfulness to the rights and duties of our theoretic reasons?
You are here and you can’t escape it. Thoughts about why you came to be here and a poor-me mentality will not help you to resolve the situation. You cannot avoid being here now, in this present moment, in this unfortunate predicament. Your choices, lack of choices, or accidental events, have led you to this moment. That cannot be changed no matter how much you think about it. The only things that can be changed in this present moment are your thoughts and actions right now. Take a deep breath and totally accept this moment.
It seems impossible to wheedle his way out of his impending death. No one has before him. But just as a young person feels invincible, he cannot bring himself to accept the looming train as he stands upon the tracks feeling the deep rumbling of the behemoth barreling straight toward him.
…We had spiritually marked ourselves. This marking began…when the counterculture of political correctness began, and the assault on Christian values and traditions began. At first it seemed so ridiculous that it was harmless, kind of like a disease to which we were all immune. Soon, however, it was recolored to equal compassion, fairness, acceptance, tolerance, and equality. From there it evolved into a power with the ability to take any truth and repaint it as a lie, to take any lie and relabel it as truth.
Her constant phrase, "Go with God", had puzzled me a good deal. Suddenly it became clear. It was a revelation - acceptance. It filled me with joy. Accept life, the world, Spirit, God, call it what you will, and all else will follow.
But looking at you was nothing like looking at those pictures. When I first saw,” he said, looking down at her chest, then up again to meet her eyes, “it hurt, almost a physical pain. Since you finished chemo, you've gotten so strong again. Sometimes I almost forget what you've been through. But seeing your scars, they reminded me of your hurt. How you've been cut apart. What you gave up.”It was important, not keeping herself back from him, putting parts of herself off limits. But it stung when he sank down to brush his lips over the two biggest scars.“But your scars are beautiful. I mean, I look at them, and I want to kiss, I want to touch, I feel this tenderness for them. You know how when you love someone, when you've been with them a long time and you know all the little lines and curves and planes of their body, how you look at little parts of them—the corner of their mouth, the back of their hand, the little crease where their earlobe meets their jaw—and you can feel like you're in love with that little piece of them? Maybe soon, I'll look at your scars like that. But right now, it's this feeling I've never had for a part of someone's body, before, because they promise me you're well. That you get to live. That we get to have a long life together.”Her love for him was swelling up in her chest, the way it did sometimes, an ache she wanted to hold on to.
When it all comes crashing downTry to understand your meaningsNo one said it would be easyThis living, it ain't easy, ohYou were sewn togetherwith a tapestry of moleculesA billion baby galaxiesand wide open spacesAnd everything you need is hereEverything you fear is hereAnd it's holding you upIt just keeps holding you upWhen you came up from the groundFrom a million little piecesYou're a pretty human being
The thing is, when you’re with someone like Poppu - someone who sees straight through your battered facade and loves every bit of you, someone who makes you laugh until you pee your pants, someone who grabs you in a hug exactly when you need it - you don’t crave any kind of approval from strangers. You don’t need to “matter” in the world, because you already matter to the only person who counts.
Let the water flow beneath the bridge; let men be men, that is to say, weak, vain, inconstant, unjust, false, and presumptuous; let the world be the world still; you cannot prevent it. Let every one follow his own inclination and habits; you cannot recast them, and the best course is, to let them be as they are and bear with them. Do not think it strange when you witness unreasonableness and injustice; rest in peace in the bosom of God; He sees it all more clearly than you do, and yet permits it. Be content to do quietly and gently what it becomes you to do, and let everything else be to you as though it were not.
I know inside that there is more to life than this mortal coil. It's a very shallow minded person who thinks that someone is born and dies and that's it. I haven't gone through thirty odd years of suffering, and doing what I do, and looking at other people who are born and die with cancer, with AIDS, with whatever, and think, 'well, what was the point of that?'. There is a point to everything, and we're here to learn, and it's just a learning curve and we'll move on, and this is just a shell. It's just I've got a dodgy shell.
Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people, anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good American because he's a Catholic, or a Jew, a Protestant, or whatever, you can be pretty sure he's a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being. Don't ever forget that.
One of the most difficult things to remember is to remember to remember. We forget that we live in a body with senses and feelings and thoughts and emotions and ideas. We get caught up in rumination and fantasy, isolating us from the world of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations constantly bombarding our input sensors. To stop and pay attention to the moment is one way of snapping out of these mindscapes, and is a definition of meditation. This awareness is a process of deepening self-acceptance. Whatever it observes, it embraces. There is nothing unworthy of acceptance.
Some people confuse acceptance with apathy but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens.
Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities the strength the wisdom the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen as appropriate for your special endowments.
Confronted by an absolutely infuriating review it is sometimes helpful for the victim to do a little personal research on the critic. Is there any truth to the rumor that he had no formal education beyond the age of eleven? In any event is he able to construct a simple English sentence? Do his participles dangle? When moved to lyricism does he write "I had a fun time"? Was he ever arrested for burglary? I don't know that you will prove anything this way but it is perfectly harmless and quite soothing.
If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchant-ments of later years the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial the alienation from the sources of our strength.
Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity. ... Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.