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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…
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“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…
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“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”
“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
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“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…
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“Forget your past, forgive yourself, and begin again right now.”
“I’m not going to continue knocking that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.”
“The Sun himself is weak when he first rises and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”
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“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…
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“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…
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“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.”
Naturally, we’re sad when something ends–especially something we enjoyed. But as this quote by Jonathan Lockwood Huie reminds us, endings are one of the things that make new beginnings possible. We may not recognize what that new beginning is at first. Sometimes new beginnings are wrapped in disguise. It’s easy…
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“If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry, worry fixes nothing.”
When something goes wrong, the natural reaction is to worry about it. But at the end of the day, that worry does absolutely nothing to make the problem go away. In fact, it can paralyze us and make it harder to do something about it. This quote, by Ernest Hemingway,…
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“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”
This quote is by Mark Twain. It was later adapted by the American actor and humorist Will Rogers, who similarly stated that “Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due”. What both these quotes are saying is that worrying prematurely–when nothing has even happened yet–is a…
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“Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome.”
Sometimes what lies before us seems more frightening than what we’ve already overcome. However, it may not necessarily be more challenging than what we’ve already gone through. The only difference between the battles we’ve won and the battles before us is the unknown. This quote, by N.R. Walker, is about…
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“It’s only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.”
“Always refuse to be like the others. The more you become similar to the others the more you will be useless because there are already plenty of the others.”
“Who will go far must go slow.”
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“We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.”
Without adjusting the sails on a sailboat, the boat would go wherever the wind takes it. So to get where it needs to go, the sails likely need to be adjusted from time to time–not the wind. Similarly, in life, there are some things we just cannot change. Like the…
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“Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history. There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness.”
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.”
