Words I Needed Last Week 3/13

Go and love someone exactly as they are.

Mar 14, 2022

Words I stumbled upon, read, wrote down, and saved last week. From happiness being a daily practice, to the power of loving someone just as they are, to nature’s abundance, and the insidiousness and influence of our inner dialogue.

Feel free to share any words that touched you this week in the comments!

Happy Sunday, my friends.
—Nneka

“Every little action of common day makes or unmakes character.”
—Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis”

“Go and love someone exactly as they are. And then watch how quickly they transform into the greatest, truest version of themselves. When one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence, one is instantly empowered.”
—Wes Angelozzi

“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to.

The rewards of finding and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. They require patience and maintenance. We must be willing to move forward despite being uncertain of what lies ahead. We must have faith that actions today that seem to have no impact in the present moment are in face accumulating in a positive direction, which will be revealed to us only at some unknown time in the future. Heathy practices happen day by day.”
—Anne Lembke, “Dopamine Nation”

“...we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late.”
—Alexander Herzen

“Life is a succession of transient experiences, valuable in themselves, which you’ll miss if you are completely focused on the destination to which they might be leading. “

“As long as you believe that the real meaning of life lies somewhere off in the future—that one day all your efforts will pay off in a golden era of happiness, free of all problems—you get to avoid facing the unpalatable reality that your life isn’t leading toward some moment of truth that hasn’t yet arrived. Our obsession with extracting the greatest future value out of our time blinds us to the reality that, in fact, the moment of truth is always now—that life is nothing but a succession of present moments, culminating in death, and that you’ll probably never get to a point where you feel you have things in perfect working order. And that therefore you had better stop postponing the “real meaning” of your existence into the future, and throw yourself into life now.”
—Oliver Burkeman, “Four Thousand Weeks”

“But it's not the external voice that will break you down. It’s what you tell yourself that matters. The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself. You wake up with them, you walk around with them, you go to bed with them, and eventually, you act on them. Whether they be good or bad.

We are all our own worst haters and doubters because self-doubt is a natural reaction to any bold attempt to change your life for the better. You can’t stop it from blooming in your brain, but you can neutralize it, and all the other external chatter by asking, What if?”
—David Goggins, “Can’t Hurt Me”

Just wrapped on Goggin's book last night, insaneeee, an absolutely insane illustration of the power of the human mind/spirit when we decide not to quit, de-couple our goals from the calendar, callous our minds, realize there is no shot clock or scoreboard in life, and find the fruits in the labor. I can’t even lie, I thoroughly enjoyed spending the last few weeks with David Goggins's story. Unbelievable is an understatement.