-
“Worry is like sand in an oyster. A little produces a pearl, too much kills the animal.”
Too much worry can be destabilizing and paralyzing. Not to mention, detrimental to our health. This is the level of worry that automatically comes to mind when we think about what worry means. We usually think of it at its extreme. However, this quote (author unclear) invites us to think…
-
The “Life Maze”
There’s a big difference between the maze you see drawn on paper and a physical maze one, typically made out of hedges. Sometimes, when we’re not sure which way to go in life, it helps to imagine our life as a physical maze. This depiction reveals three important realities about…
-
Living Life Poetically: You Must Choose a Path
“You Must Choose a Path” is one of my older poems written around 2010-2011. It’s a haiku-style poem about overcoming the fear of going down the wrong path or making a mistake. Too much of that fear can make us paralyzed. As a result, we go nowhere. Sometimes we just…
-
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
Sadness, frustration, hardship, and loss are almost unavoidable in life. Therefore, praying for an easy life would be an unrealistic expectation. There’s no such thing as a life free of these conditions no matter your geographic location, socioeconomic status, age, or piety. The truth is, there are always going to…
-
“In the end, everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not yet the end.”
When reading a book, we eventually come to its definitive end. We turn the final page of a story or series and there’s nothing more to be said. Typically, things end on a good note. There’s a sense of closure. Similarly this quote, by Fernando Sabino, reminds us that if…
-
Living Life Poetically: The Psychology of the Worried Mind
This is part one of a short two-part poem series looking into the psychology of the worried mind. A poem on the psychology of the calm mind will follow. “The Psychology of the Worried Mind” personifies a mind that’s worried. Put on your imagination hat for a second and imagine…
-
“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
When you want to physically get somewhere, you need to choose a form of transportation that’s mobile–something that moves–like a car, bike, plane, or your own two feet. You wouldn’t sit yourself on the floor and expect to go from point A to point B. Now let’s apply that same…
-
“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”
Successful people are fearless, successful people act without hesitation, and successful people have no worries. Each one of these statements is false. However, we tend to subconsciously assume they’re fact. This quote, by T. Harv Eker, reminds us that our idea about successful people are most often wrong. They do…
-
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
It’s easy to assume people who show courage aren’t afraid–that they lack fear. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s fear in all of us, and this quote, by Mark Twain, reminds us that fear is not necessarily absent in the midst of courage. It’s there. However, what…
-
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.”
Many authors start to write a chapter without knowing what it’s going to be called. They decide that later. The same can be said of life. We don’t know what each chapter of our life will become as we’re writing (i.e. living) it. We can only look back at the…