“Self-pity is a tricky thing—an addiction like any other, often birthed from our need to connect and bond with something or somebody. When we feel sorry for ourselves, we decide that no one understands us, and that lets us create a temporary connection to… drumroll… ourselves. It’s one of the most convenient ways to feel a connection—by find a reason to feel sorry for ourselves.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 230)
“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)
“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)
“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)
“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
“Patience is for the long term; speed is for the short term. The pressure that build between the two produces the diamond.” ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, Crushing It
“Not knowing what’s going to happen next doesn’t frighten me; rather, it excites me. I’ve learned from my family’s stories and have developed my resilience, so now I can handle whatever comes my way with open eyes, open ears, an open heart, and an open mind. No matter how the events of our lives appear to be at first, let’s take a step back, reserve judgment, and carefully pay attention as things play out. Making this simple shift in perspective will help us find opportunities to improve how we feel about things along the way.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 176)
“Our common stories of oppression should unite us much more than our fears of each other can ever separate us. My high school classmates and I feared something because we were told to. Fears download themselves through generations, not always in explicit ways. Our parents may not always be directly telling us who we can and can’t love, or who we can and can’t accept in our lives. More often, such messages are unspoken, and never updated.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 163)
“We judge people because it’s easier than what we should be doing: trying to understand them. When we understand, we’re less reactive and more compassionate. Trying to understand someone or something requires much more effort than judging, but it’s so much more enriching in the long run.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 163)
“Through my own process of stepping back, I embraced the reality that my current spiritual lens may change, but I’m not threatened by that. Time brought me here—to a place of self-awareness and patience. I still feel magic and beauty and inspiration. I still respect that people hold their own personal truths, and I win nothing by debating and trying to be right all the time. I’m not atheist, agnostic, or theist. I am a part of life, and as science dictates, my matter cannot be created or destroyed, only redistributed.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 157)
“I envy anyone with enthusiasm and obsession, even if they are enthused about and obsessed with things that I’m not interested in. It’s beautiful to see someone’s eyes light up with love, no matter the object of their affection.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 156)
“Zooming out helps us to think more in the long term and recognize patterns so we don’t overreact in the short term. Life isn’t what happens to us; it’s how we deal with it, and how we deal with it always depends on the perspectives we can find. Zooming out helps us realize that the story is still playing out, and we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 140)
“The uncomfortable truth is that the humps don’t end, even if we win the lottery, shed twenty pounds, or get hired as a Nutella taste tester. Our lives, and all the things worth enjoying in them, don’t come after the humps—they are the humps. The ups and downs, problems and solutions, challenges and triumphs are what pave this journey. They don’t always make it look pretty, but no one ever promised they would.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 133)
“In my past, I had hesitated dozens of times when presented with opportunities because I didn’t know whether they would pay off in the end. I began to realize over time that the opportunities themselves were the payoff, regardless of whether they turned out the way I wanted them to.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 129)
We’re all on journeys, and sometimes we spend so much time on and invest so much energy in heading in one direction that the idea of any other direction is both foreign and frightening. Our journeys themselves become comfort zones, and sometimes hopping off one rainbow and onto the next is exactly what we need. Other times we may realize that the path we were on helped reveal the path we should be on, and that adventure of twists and turns will last our lifetime, and that’s okay. No one needs to have everything figured out, and honestly, nobody really does, even if their social media posts present a different picture.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 115)