Excerpt: Chaos is a constant reality in life. Order—rules—is the antidote. These quotes from 12 Rules For Life are deep and will give you the insight you need to start battling the chaos in your life.
“Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.”
Osho
We don’t go through life, we grow through life. We don’t move along a timeline from birth to death in a unilateral direction. We move bilaterally through life—both upward and downward—like a tree. A tree doesn’t just grow a trunk and branches and leaves in a singular direction towards the sun. It grows roots, too—it grows downward. And without a proportional amount of roots the tree cannot stand. And neither can we.
Read More »Osho Quote on Balance and How Both Happiness and Sadness Are Needed In Life
Excerpt: These quotes from The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck are practical and sugar-coating free. Read for a powerful kick-in-the-ass.
Excerpt: Stillness is the antidote to the overwhelmed, modern mind. These quotes from Stillness is the Key will help you reclaim your full power.
Book Overview: #1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“We forget that life isn’t as bad as we’re making it out to be. We also forget that when we’re blowing things out of proportion, we are the ones doing the blowing.”
Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
The powerful thing about perspective is that it has the ability to change how we see. And if how we see changes, well, everything in the world will look different. In life, many of us disproportionately view our world as larger than it is—we blow it out of proportion. Why? Because from our perspective, our world is the world. The size of our perception of life is the size of our understanding of the world. And when we hyper focus on the trivialities of our life in comparison to all that’s happening in life throughout the world? Those trivialities can start to look much bigger than they really are.
Read More »Richard Carlson Quote on Blowing Things Out of Proportion“You’re so hard on yourself. Take a moment. Sit back. Marvel at your life: at the grief that softened you, at the heartache that wisened you, at the suffering that strengthened you. Despite everything, you still grow. Be proud of this.”
Unknown
Why are you so hard on yourself? Is it because you think being hard on yourself will make you hard? Is it because that’s the way others have treated you? Is it because you have high expectations of yourself and want to do bigger and better things? Well, what if, by making yourself “hard” you lose your soft touch? What if you lose your malleability and more easily crack and break down? What if you become more “hard headed” and stiff and rigid to the world and in how you think? Maybe we should take a moment and reconsider what it means to be “hard.”
Read More »Quote about Growth and Not Being So Hard On Yourself“Life is trial and error, and culture is a collection of some of our best practices handed down from generation to generation, but even they aren’t one-size-fits-all. We have to make our own mistakes to figure everything out. When we were kids, we had to bump into something before we stopped running in the house; we had to burn our hands before we stopped playing with the stove. And now, we gotta get our assess kicked a few dozen times before we get the hang of whatever the rest of this life is.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 267)
“We aren’t victims of life—we are life. We have power over our efforts, which gives us power to adjust our sails depending on which way things are blowing. Self-pity serves as a barrier to those sails and sets us on a one-way path downward. Our problems may not be our fault, but they are definitely our responsibility, so ask yourself how well excessive self-pity and seeking pity help with that responsibility. The more we exercise our power to turn our days around, the more the tools to help us will find us.” ~ Humble the Poet, Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 261)
“Work is finding yourself alone at the track when the weather kept everyone else indoors. Work is pushing through the pain and crappy first drafts and prototypes. It is ignoring whatever plaudits others are getting, and more importantly, ignoring whatever plaudits you may be getting. Because there is work to be done. Work doesn’t want to be good. It is made so, despite the headwind.”
Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy
Why do all of this work at all? Why show up when it’s raining and cold? Why push through writing tasks when Netflix is one click away? Why keep working when you’re getting praised and approved of for what you’ve already done? Why not stay indoors, become complacent, relax, and soak in the compliments you’ve already received? …Well, because that’s not how your best work comes to life—that’s why. And that task of bringing to life your best work, may be your most important calling on this earth.
Read More »Ryan Holiday Quote on Producing Good Work—Despite The Challenges“Maybe life isn’t about avoiding the bruises. Maybe it’s about collecting the scars to prove we showed up for it.”
Unknown
Good judgement comes from bad judgement remembered. Bad judgement happens when we interact with the world in a way that doesn’t align with the nature of reality. The only way we can ever know if our judgement is “good” or “bad” is by interacting with the world. Reality is the judge and the jury. By avoiding reality, we avoid finding out. By not finding out, we avoid getting bruised, yes, but we also avoid the deeply felt lessons that only those bruises can ever deliver—the lessons that only reality can teach us.
Read More »Quote About Showing Up For Life—On Collecting Scars Not Avoiding Bruises“Life is full of unforeseen detours. Circumstances happen which seem to completely cut across our plans. Learn to turn your detours into delights. Treat them as special excursions and learning tours. Don’t fight them or you will never learn their purpose. Enjoy the moments and pretty soon you will be back on track again, probably wiser and stronger because of your little detour.”
Steve Penny
In his book, Essential Zen Habits, Leo Babauta shares a mental analogy that can help you stay on track towards accomplishing your goals—or better yet, not stay on “track” at all yet continue heading in the direction of your goals in a more flexible, effective manner. You see, for many people, the idea of a plan gets equated to mental “train tracks” that get laid out so that you, the train, can power forward in a smooth, straight line down the track towards your destination.
Read More »Steve Penny Quote on Embracing Unforeseen Detours Rather Than Fighting Them“There is nothing wrong with striving to improve your life situation. You can improve your life situation, but you cannot improve your life. Life is primary. Life is your deepest inner Being. It is already whole, complete, perfect. Your life situation consists of your circumstances and your experiences. There is nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve things. The mistake lies in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, for Being. The only point of access for that is the Now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 86)
“The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” ~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 49)
“It takes seventy or eighty or ninety years to learn the value of another sunrise or a visit from a surly grandchild—to appreciate how amazing, really amazing, life is. They only seem paltry because we haven’t lived long enough to see their value, or survived enough losses to know how surmountable most losses are. Simple gifts can be as rewarding as more elaborate ones, and there’s no rule that a life of daily mah-jongg in a fluorescent-lit community room is less fulfilling than one of high-stakes baccarat in Monte Carlo.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 215)
“If you believe you are in control of your life, steering it in a course of your choosing, then old age is an affront, because it is a destination you didn’t choose. But if you think of life instead as an improvisation in response to the stream of events coming at you—that is, a response to the world as it is—then old age is more another chapter in a long-running story. The events are different, but they’re always different, and always some seem too much to bear.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 114)
