“Sometimes life seems like a poorly designed cage within which man has been sentenced to be free. Condemned to this freedom, it is difficult for a man to face the fact that he feels like a misfit in this life, difficult until he discovers the secret that ‘all men, finally, are misfits.’ There seems to be no way out of it.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 196)
“The more one faces the unconscious and makes a synthesis between its contents and what is in the conscious mind, the more one derives a sense of one’s unique individuality.”
Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work (Page 11)
“There was so much in my life I cared about—and of course I really loved being a therapist. But on another level there wasn’t anything in it I wanted just for me. It was as if my life had turned into a motel room and the truth was I could walk out of it without any sense that I was leaving anything of my own behind. A stranger could easily move into my life, and nothing would be different. I was happy as long as I didn’t think about who I was and what I really wanted for myself.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 44)
“We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make.” ~ don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements
“No one else has had the same sequence of actions and reactions that have created your life and your realm of understanding. No one right now is thinking exactly like you do. You may, to the naked observer, appear to fit into a category, but that category most certainly does not define you. The only quality you share with every other human in the world is your personal understanding that you are just unique enough to operate independently, and just similar enough to others to, in turn, recognize this uniqueness in them.” ~ Unknown, The Daily Zen
“Two identical things do not exist at all, so there is no need to be ‘somebody.’ You just be yourself, and suddenly you are unique, incomparable. That’s why I say that this is a paradox: those who search fail, and those who don’t bother, suddenly attain.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 171)
“You don’t feel empty because you don’t have much money. You feel empty because you have not yet encountered your real self, you have not come to your authentic individuality. Individuality makes you a light unto yourself.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 159) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)
“There are as many kinds of people as there are people. Do not fight your own individuality, your own boundless alienation within a world of other aliens. Bond with your fellow people. We’re all here alone and might as well help one another out. Help yourself understand people, and, in doing so, you will help them understand you. Most importantly, you will come to understand yourself as you evolve and mature.” ~ Unknown, The Daily Zen