“The truth is that most people regret what they did not do more than they ever regret what they did. This isn’t a coincidence. Regret isn’t actually trying to just make us feel bad that we didn’t live up to our own expectations. It is trying to motivate us to live up to them going forward. It is trying to show us what it is absolutely imperative to change in the future and what we really care about experiencing before we die.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 78)
“When we are faced with resentment, what we instead must do is reinvent our image of those around us or those we have perceived as having wronged us. Other people are not here to love us perfectly; they are here to teach us lessons to show us how to love them—and ourselves—better.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 77)
“Never build, but always plant: in the case of the first, nature will interfere and destroy the creation of your work, but in the case of the second, nature will help you, causing growth in everything you planted. The same thing happens in your spiritual life: those things which are in harmony with the eternal laws of human nature will grow, but those things which correspond to the temporal wishes of people will not.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 339)
“The more busy you are with the improvement of your inner life, the more active you become in social life, helping other people.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 339)
“If you want to know what you truly want out of life, look at the people who you are jealous of. No, you may not want exactly what they have, but the feeling that you are experiencing is anger that they are allowing themselves to pursue it while you are not.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 76)
“It is healthy to be angry, and anger can also show us important aspects of who we are and what we care about. For example, anger shows us where our boundaries are. Anger also helps us identify what we find to be unjust.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 73)
“You may feel as though you cannot take action, when you most certainly can. You simply do not feel willing, because you are not used to it.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 69)
“We are not held back in life because we are incapable of making change. We are held back because we don’t feel like making change, and so we don’t.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 68)
“If you are doing ‘everything you are supposed to be doing’ and yet you feel empty and depressed at the end of the day, the issue is probably that you’re not really doing what you want to be doing; you’ve just adopted someone else’s script for happiness.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 60)
“Being busy communicates importance; it often makes you seem a little untouchable to others. It also overwhelms the body so that it can only focus on the tasks at hand. Being busy is the ultimate way to distract ourselves from what’s really wrong.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 54)
“People who are constantly ‘busy’ are running from themselves.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 53)
“The true self of each person is the mind. Know therefore that you are a god. For a god is someone who moves, who feels, who remembers, who looks to the future, who rules over and guides and directs the body he is master of, just as that Supreme God directs the universe. And just as this eternal God controls the universe, which is partly mortal, so too your eternal spirit directs your fragile body.”
Cicero, via The Daily Laws (Page 403)
“Every man becomes what he teaches others to be. Those who gain victory over themselves will gain victory over others. It is most difficult to achieve victory over oneself. Every man has power only over himself.”
Dhammapada, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 336)
“If we feel bad about not being as successful as another person, we might try to find something negative about them to make ourselves feel better. If we do that every time we come across a person who is more successful than we are, we begin to associate that level of success with being disliked. When it comes time for us to take action to move our lives forward, we’re going to resist doing it, because becoming more successful will create a breach in our self-concept.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 45)
“It is very hard to show up as the person you want to be when you are surrounded by an environment that makes you feel like a person you aren’t.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 42)
“Without cleanliness, we create fewer opportunities for ourselves. Nothing positive, nor beautiful, flows from chaos. Deep down, we know this. Often, when we are self-sabotaging through disorganization, it is because when we are very clean or organized, we get an uneasy feeling. That uneasy feeling is what we are trying to avoid, because it is the recognition that now that everything is in order, we must get to work on doing what we need to do or who we want to become.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 41)
“Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.”
Zeno, via The Daily Stoic Blog
“When we have a goal, dream, or plan, there is no measure of intent. It is only whether you did it or did not. Any other reason you offer for not showing up and doing the work is simply you stating that you prioritize that reason over your ultimate ambition, which means that it will always take precedence in your life.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 40)
“If you stay too long in the imagination phase, what you create will tend to be grandiose and detached from reality. If you only listen to feedback and try to make the work a complete reflection of what others tell you or want, the work will be conventional and flat. By maintaining a continual dialogue between reality (feedback) and your imagination, you will create something practical and powerful.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 401)