“You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like.
If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way. Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference.
Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire—overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary.”
“What a generous thought. That you are already what you’ve always wanted to be, and all you have to do is let go of the parts that are keeping you from that. But letting go is so terribly hard. I admit I have tried everyday. All the time. I want to let go. It’s not that I’m still holding on– it’s holding on to me.”
“The hardest kind of resistance, is when you’re resisting yourself. When your heart want something, and your brain prevents it. When you want to cry, but you smile instead to protect your pride. When you feel like blowing up,
but prefer to explode in your deepest depths,
so no one around you can feel it.”
A relationship should not be measured in months or years. It’s the calibre of the memories that matter. Their impact, their permanence, and the degree to which they change you. I’ve had relationships lasting years I can now scarcely recollect, and hours with others that feel like infinities.
1. Your expectations are just that. Your expectations. People are not obligated to live up to them or abide by them. Even if they are in certain cases obligated to do so, there is no guarantee that they will. So don’t base your plans on that. And don’t base your life on that.
2. You can walk away. But so can they.
You can be hurt and you can be mad. But they will still walk away. They have that option. They can exercise that choice. People can get toxic for you. Believe it or not, so can you.
3. People have bullied you. And teased you. And judged you. But the person judging you constantly and the most harshly is you yourself.
4. They don’t respect you because you don’t respect yourself.
5. Not letting go is only keeping you sad and frustrated and stuck. They are unaffected. They are living their life wonderfully. They are free.
6. Taking care of yourself takes effort. It’s not just good feel quotes and pretty aesthetics. It’s work. A lot of work. It’s doing things that take time and sometimes it’s doing things you don’t want to do.
7. It’s gone. The past. You can regret as much as you like. But you’re only wasting more time.
8. Sometimes you are going to use the word love even though you don’t 100% want to. It’s because like is too little and there is no word in between. It’s because we use the same word for fries and for people. It’s because love means so many different things to every individual. It’s because you do love them. In one of those several meanings.
9. Sometimes you have to suck it up. It’s okay. Not every situation is meant for you to show your ‘true courage’ or real feelings.
