20 Life Changing Quotes
Timeless pearls of wisdom for the ages..
As a writer, I enjoy anonymity. Beyond this cyber space world, as a real-live individual though, most would tell you that my greatest attribute as a listener is that I have been to hell and back. I am so unashamed of my own adversities, for they have made me stronger, that I will willingly open up to pretty much anyone about my life. In order to fully convey my emphatic belief in the words and messages within the quote content of this article, I may as well share with you some of my unashamed truths.
"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
I am twenty-five years old. I pride myself on being a successful, pleasant and community contributing individual. I enjoy making other people happy; it gratifies me to make others feel recognized and appreciated. As a boss, I make a habitual point to say hello (with-out fail) and good-bye (when possible) to each employee that walks through the doors of my restaurant. I'm the over the top, all smiles boss that believes leading a team includes cheering them on at every turn, and sometimes treating them to munchkins on a Sunday morning! As a fellow human being and/or friend, I can say with confidence, that I do everything in my power each day to make sure that someone else had a better one than they might have otherwise. Though it has taken some effort to maintain, I'm just a bottom line happy human being. Of course I will be sad or feel depressed when something sad happens, but the sadness or grey never does stick though. In my short lifetime, I have also dealt a significant amount of adversity at home, quite honestly, more than I pray any other good person to ever know in their entire lifetimes.
Life Lessons
The date was June 6th, 2010 and I was twenty-two years old, my Mom walked out the door as she would on any other Sunday afternoon, except she didn't make it home that night, she actually didn't make it home until September 6th, 2010. You see, my Mom was forty-six years old and had been walking around with a brain aneurysm since the moment she was born; we just never knew about it until it ruptured that afternoon at my eight year old sisters ice-skating show.
I credit the power of prayer and the most amazing doctors in the world at Mass General Hospital for my Moms life, I am truly blessed and thankful everyday for who she is. My Mother is an amazing and functioning woman of her own right, and just a little different than people who don't have some short term memory glitches here and there. If you are at all familiar with the effects of traumatic brain injuries, you might already have guessed that the woman I grew up with... the mom I said 'good-bye and I love you to' that Sunday morning... she never did come home. As a result, my journey into everyday life tasks of adulthood as well as figuring out who I am in this world as an adult, was largely shaped by that experience. My acceptance of what I cannot change, and the healing process of allowing myself to mourn the loss of the woman I knew, while appreciating and loving the woman I now know, has defined who I will surely become. I have touched on the beginning of my experiences battling this truly chaos-inducing concept of adversity. Quite literally, it was the end my life as I knew it and the beginning of one smack in the face, after another smack in the face, of seemingly senseless low blows life started dealing me. There is plenty more I could mention, but this is not a sob story or meant to be about me.
Simply Stated:
As such an answer seeking and intellectual individual, I learned a life-defining and difficult to swallow lesson at such an unconventionally young age. I learned that life is way too short, moments are ever-fleeting, and this whole life could be gone tomorrow. I understand that I must act accordingly and live that way, every single day. I remember to see the beauty in the simplicity of enjoying the moment and acting now because later may never arrive, and I am better off than most middle-aged adults are because I now know this forever, and someday they may realize life had passed them by without their permission.
I have put together a collection of some of my favorite quotes to turn to when a dose of humility, perspective, appreciation and self-empowerment is just what the doctor ordered! Remember, happiness is a state of being, and success is a way of life. Regardless of what is happening around you, don't forget that you and only you have the tools to manifest your happiness and success and and only you can choose to live that way!
Life-Empowering Quotes
“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
― Guillaume Apollinaire
“Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
― Plato
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
― Frank Zappa
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
― Aristotle
“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
“Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
“No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.”
― Pythagoras
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”
― J.M. Barrie
“All the world is my school and all humanity is my teacher.”
― George Whitman
“Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.”
― Doris Mortman
“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”
― Lao Tzu
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
― Dolly Parton
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”
