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    “Social media is a playground for our insecurities and self-pity.  It not only makes us feel like we’re not enough, but it chips away at our confidence, encouraging us to lash out in uninspiring ways.  I don’t want to feel insignificant in comparison to others, and I don’t want to belittle others to make myself feel better, so I took responsibility to reduce how often I expose myself to those triggers, which are highly addictive.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 225)

    Humble the Poet Quote on Reducing Social Media Usage

      “Reducing my social media usage has made me more aware of how addicted I was to the micro-gratification it gave me, and it has reduced the number of times I beat up on myself.  I was no longer falling into the rabbit hole of other people’s carefully curated presentations of their lives and then comparing those presentations to the whole of myself—at least not as much as I was doing that before.  And I instantly started feeling better.”

      Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 225)

      Beyond the Quote (86/365)

      One tip that has helped me reduce my social media consumption was making it a rule that before I could consume, I had to produce.  In other words, before I allowed myself to look at any of my social media timelines or feeds, I had to produce content for those feeds, first.  This idea has forced me to engage and actively participate in the ongoing conversations rather than just passively and mindlessly consume them.  Furthermore, by not scrolling as frequently on never-ending timelines, I have been able to focus more on myself and the tasks of my day rather than others and the undertakings of their days.

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        “Power and blame go hand in hand, so if we want to find the power to improve our situation, we’re going to have to take responsibility, no matter how much others did us dirty.  Taking the time to see how we contribute to our unfortunate circumstances is the first step to turning things around.  Comparing ourselves to others and spending excessive time on social media only fuels our self-pity, and the more aware we are of those triggers, the better off we’ll be.  Pointing fingers and taking offense are also the language of self-victimization, and we need to recognize when theirs becomes a habit we can’t kick.  The secret to dealing with much of the bullshit life throws us is self-sufficiency, which means finding ways to own the bullshit, even when there are plenty of other people who should be sharing the blame.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 220)

          “When things got difficult for me, I naturally painted myself as the victim, hoping to receive some attention and compassion from others, and it worked.  What I didn’t realize is that other people could take only so much before my energy became draining.  We all have friends who act like Eeyore, constantly moping and complaining about how the universe has conspired against them, and over time, we find ourselves not wanting to be around them as much.  This only reinforces their belief that they’re on their own, making them double down on their self-victimization.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 219)

            “We’re all going to make horrible choices, but that doesn’t make us horrible people.  When we zoom in and look at a horrible choice in isolation, it may simply be an outlier, a lapse of judgment, because of many things.  We weren’t born out of the box with the right tools to handle life’s challenges; we need to learn them, and we can’t demonize those who were never taught better ways of handling things.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 210)

            Osho Quote on Meaning and How It Arises

              “When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises – because the poet is not alone; he has created something. When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut off from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning.”

              Osho, The Book of Understanding

              Beyond the Quote (85/365)

              Isolated might feel like the physical reality, but it doesn’t have to be the emotional state.  Isolated might make the feeling of meaninglessness arise, but meaning extends beyond just physical connection.  Think about the power of creation.  Creation is the act of giving birth to something that otherwise would not have never existed.  Before creation there is just you.  And for as long as you continue to remain in isolation physically, mentally, and emotionally—no meaning will arise.  How could it?

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                “We don’t need to be so dramatic and hyperbolic about everything.  Worrying rarely helps anything, and freaking out usually does more damage than good.  We need to acknowledge that trauma is an individual experience for everyone, but let’s also be mindful of how often we oversimplify the degree of our traumas while underestimating our resilience.  Nothing is the end of the world until it’s the end of the world, and then nothing will matter anyway.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 204)

                  “Overreacting isn’t going to solve the problem—overreacting usually becomes the problem.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 203)

                    “There is no absolute good and bad; everything is what we make of it.  As we strive to understand more than we evaluate, we open up more possibilities and opportunities for things to improve and unfold the way we want them to.  This requires paying attention, and allowing a situation to be complicated, and sorting through the details—zooming in—to find where all the magic is hiding.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 199)

                      “As adults, we don’t need to empathize just with those people we harm; we also need to empathize with those who harm us.  That means we have to suspend judgment and focus more on understanding as much as we can.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 185)

                      Eckhart Tolle Quote on Taking Responsibility and Making the Present Moment Your Ally

                        “Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant.  Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference.  The fact is that you are resisting what is.  You are making the present moment into an enemy.  You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer.  Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part.  The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.”

                        Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 77)

                        Beyond the Quote (82/365)

                        It’s easy to point fingers, to yell at a screen, to identify all of the faults in other people’s decisions and actions—it’s hard to take responsibility and make positive decisions yourself.  What’s makes this harder is that you might even be right.  The mess of the world might very well be the fault of another—or the fault of many others.  But as Tolle points out, whether your thoughts and emotions about a given situation are justified or not makes no difference.

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                          “You don’t get to call yourself an expert until you’ve put in the work – and the market decides, not you.” ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, Crushing It