Not a step backward

"Going back to a simpler life is not a step backward."

-Yvon Chouinard

Bad decisions can be correct

"Things usually make sense in time, and even bad decisions have their own kind of correctness."

-Miranda July

Mine

"I watched the dinner plates from IKEA break and shatter into a million, tiny pieces on the basement floor. It was like a fireworks show made out of porcelain.

I remember wanting to scream up at God in that moment 'I don't want memories. I just want something that will always, constantly be mine. Give me something, anything, I'll always be able to hold.'

I'm terribly unoriginal in that sense. I am just one in a sea of millions of people who think the word 'mine' is the most terrifying and intoxicating word in the whole English language."

-Hanna Brencher

To all other roads

"No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads."

-Deepak Chopra

Both right now

“both.

i want to stay.
i want to leave.
i am three oceans away from my soul.”

- nayyirah waheed, from “lost” 

Little big

“The little things? The little moments? — They aren’t little.”

- John Zabat-Zinn  

Marks

“No matter

how temporarily
two souls are interwoven,
they always leave a mark.

But not every mark is a bruise.

Loving him was an honor,
never a burden."

- Noor Shirazie (via aestheticintrovert)

Out of words

“Today I wrote you out of my life. It didn’t end with good bye or one final tear, I just sort of ran out of words. I could no longer fill lines with words describing my broken heart. I could not enunciate the ache I felt in my heart that plagued me each night I went to bed without a call from you and each morning I woke up to no text. My prolonged dramatic poems about how much you meant to me no longer flowed from my heart like a beautiful but tragic symphony. And when I made the effort to picture your smile I saw myself happy without you. And when I went to write your name next to mine it didn’t fit. You know how you can repeat a word so many times that it sounds off so you try to spell it but you’re not sure if you’re spelling it correctly and then suddenly it looks like the wrong word all together? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if your middle name had one R or two, but I was sure that in my mouth your name tasted bitter and so I spit it out one last time. Today I wrote you out of my life. It didn’t end with a dramatic goodbye or one final tear, I guess I sort of just ran out of words.”

- teedaawg (via wnq-writers)

Undone Seeds

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”

― Cynthia Occelli

Science of Change

"In order for change to happen, something has to move."

-Albert Einstein

Women

"If there's a place in hell for women who don't support other women, there's a place in heaven for women who do."

-Gloria Steinem

Puff Up

"You can boast about anything if it's all you have. maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast."

-Steinbeck; East of Eden

Whoa-Man, Woman

"A huge part of being a feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself."

-Lena Dunham

But really though

“I am running away but I prefer to call it a strategic retreat.”

- Tennessee Williams, The Selected Letters: 1920-1945 

In better light

"In better light, everything changes."

-Lucious
@ilovelucious

Mind is buttoned up

when my mind gets buttoned up
like an old overcoat
hanging in the back of my closet
i dust off the jacket
and hang it out to dry
hoping for a rainy day
to wash my sense clean

@amssloan

Wishbone

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."

-Elizabeth Gilbert

The violet sheds

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

-Mark Twain

Extension

“This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find … themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. … they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal.

Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? … Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”

Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe … life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.”

- Relevant magazine

Not everything is

“Not everything is supposed to become something beautiful and long-lasting. Sometimes people come into your life to show you what is right and what is wrong, to show you who you can be, to teach you to love yourself, to make you feel better for a little while, or to just be someone to walk with at night and spill your life to. Not everyone is going to stay forever, and we still have to keep on going and thank them for what they’ve given us.”

- Emery Allen 

Digital Pollution

"Too many people are hiding in dark rooms flipping through too many words on big screens.  There's a reason why I avoid boardrooms.  I'd rather spend time 'in the field,' where eye contact, genuine conviction, and trust worthiness are in full evidence."

-Sir Richard Branson

The love you chase

" I have heard the sentiment many times over, I have seen it dissect beautiful moments and sensationalize less than beautiful relationships. Stop the “if onlys” and the “but maybes.” Trust me when I say that those do not exist within the boundaries of the love you want. They only exist within the reality of the love you chase."

-Bianca Sparacino

http://biancasparacino.tumblr.com/post/101866458328/why-you-shouldnt-chase-love

On winter

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of landscape- the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

-Andrew Wyeth

Live inside that hope

"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."

-Barbara Kingsolver

March is a Lion

"It was one of those MARCH DAYS when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold. When it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.

-Charles Dickens

Homesick

"Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick thank for familiar ground."

-Judith Thurman

Buried beneath

“Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs.”

- Kristin Hannah, Distant Shores 

Different Than

“To begin with, take warning—I am surely far different from what you suppose.”

- Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass