New Beginnings
I’ve started a new hobby, reading. I know a couple of people who would be shouting immediately how impossible that must be, due to the fact that I don’t know how to read. Jokes on them, I read at a 7th grade level just fine thank you very much. Since the new year I made a sort of resolution to read cover to cover any book that gets recommended to me. We shall see how that works out. So far it’s been an absolute blast. I’ve read three books in the past three months and they have been fantastic. Let me tell you a bit about each of them!
Snow Crash
First, Snow Crash. My colleague handed me a book just before I was going away for Christmas holiday and told me, “read this, it’s apparently where Zuck got the idea for the metaverse”. I could see what he meant. It was a cool, futuristic sci-fi book grounded in some reality. It took place in my home state, but in a future I partially hope doesn’t become a reality. I liked a few things about the book, it had great character reveals and backstories. The details imbued into the environment were incredibly descript, and bleak might I add. Some of the technologies described in the book are already well on their way to fruition, others, I can’t wait to become reality some day (such as the super high-tech skateboards). It was a fun, light-hearted read that got my reading gears turning again. While I was reading in the airport, an older gentleman came up to me asking for my take on the book. He hadn’t heard of it before, but was marveling at the fact that someone from my generation was reading a physical book. I suppose he couldn’t help himself but to connect with another reader 30 years his junior. There is one part in the book I didn’t thoroughly enjoy, similar to that one part in Pulp Fiction, the unneeded part. I mean, what is up with this newfound craze around smut, I don’t get it. I’ll just leave it at that.
Anxious People
Second, Anxious People. Another work colleague recommended me this book. I had just gotten done telling them of my recent divorce and they excitedly pitched me this book. I’m still not sure if that was intentional pain infliction or just happenstance. Either way, this book rocked me to the core. I was absolutely not ready for the depth of story provided within this novel. I can’t count on my fingers just how many times I had to put the book down to cry, somewhere near a dozen. This story recapped a bank robbery gone wrong, and how it touched the lives of a group of people. Many things about this book were beautiful, namely the different interwoven stories and personalities of the people. I could resonate with each of the people for different reasons, and that was a fun introspective look into myself. Not sure if I would call this one a happy story or not. It ended with a note about suicide prevention, and that sent me. Let’s just say I had that number already in my “recently dialed”. Loved the book though, absolute right time and right place in my life for it.
Lighter
Third, Lighter. This book, this book. Helped me a ton. I’m still working on fully understanding the impacts that it has had and will have on me in my current moment. It’s a self help book directed at supporting the reader better understand how to self-love, and take care of themselves and their emotions. TBH it’s a therapy session just reading through it, actually like a month’s worth of therapy sessions. Especially if you take the time to reflect on the teaching throughout. I took many breaks while working through the chapters to internalize the message. Below are a bunch of quotes I took note of, I’ll let them be just on their own. But my hope is that I’ll come back to these quotes in the future whenever I need some direction.
Lighter Quotes:
“I discovered that the appreciation you seek from others will not hold the same rejuvenating power as the appreciation, attention, and kindness you can give yourself.”
“Others understood self-love as putting yourself first at all costs. It makes sense that many would embrace this understanding of self-love because too many of us live our lives for others and fall into cycles of people-pleasing without taking the time to properly take care of ourselves.”
“The best way to be prepared for the long journey is to move through the ups and downs with self-acceptance.”
“Healing begins with the willingness to become an explorer, to enter the vast inner forest that exists within your being, using your awareness as the light that shows you the way.”
“When you are able to see yourself clearly, you awaken your true inner power.”
“The ability to see yourself as you move through the ups and downs of life, without running away or suppressing your feelings, enhances your understanding of yourself.”
“Finding the balance where you can be honest about what you are feeling and not allow a temporary emotion to take total control of your actions can help you better handle the unexpected changes of life.”
“Life is never that simple. The missing piece of that puzzle is that life will continue to be difficult and you will block yourself from enjoying good things if you never deal with the heaviness of your mind and the fear that clutters your heart.”
“Healing will not only improve your life, but it will open the door for good things to come to you because the quality of your mind determines the quality of your life.”
“Leaving things to the whim of hope or simply waiting for things to come to you is a passive approach to life that does not yield great results. A big part of healing yourself effectively is taking responsibility for your patterns. Even though the trauma or hurt you went through, which fueled these patterns, was not your fault—especially if you were a child when it happened—the healing of these patterns can only be done by you.”
“Our ego likes to place blame outside ourselves, and often that blame falls on those closest to us.”
“Holding on is a survival tactic born out of fear and scarcity. Fear is the craving for safety. A mind that is dominated by fear is a mind that is still in survival mode.”
“Reaction creates the fire of a tumultuous mind and then continuously feeds that fire, making it hotter and all-encompassing.”
““If you can sum up in one word what you are learning in this life, what would it be?” It was something I had been thinking about a lot, so the answer came quickly: impermanence.”
“When you fail to embrace change, a great moment actually loses its vibrancy because too quickly the mind starts to feel anxiety about it ending. Similarly, hard moments feel like endless punishment because change has not brought the mind into balance with the understanding that they, too, will eventually end.”
“This is especially true when it comes to the people we love, as that love is often tangled up with attachments. We crave for our loved ones to live their lives in certain ways and make decisions that align with how we would decide things for ourselves. The love we have for dear ones is often tarnished by an inner push to control them, even when we know that real love is supporting their freedom.”
“There is nothing passive or cold about letting go—it actually helps you live a much more active life, except that now you are living in alignment with the truth of impermanence. Yes, there are things and people you love, but they are always changing. They will be with you for some time, and eventually they, too, will be gone, just like everything else.”
“If you are seeking to reclaim your power, one of the essential steps is realizing how much of your power you have given up to the hurt of the past and your fears of the future.”
“If you want to attain something great, you need to be ready for the long journey and able to adjust your strategy along the way.”
“Everyone has the innate capacity to enter into a transformative process to free themselves of behavior that harms others and stop the patterns that do not serve their personal well-being.”
“If you continuously reject what you feel, the emotions you ignore will actually harden in your mind and make the turbulent feelings you are trying to avoid more prominent.”
“The greatest gift partners can give each other is a continuous commitment to their own personal healing.”
“Heartbreak and endings always point to how valuable self-love really is. When self-love is missing from within us, it will negatively affect our connections. If we empower the love that already exists within us, it can flourish and make us feel much more whole than partnership ever can. True wholeness comes from within us.”
“When we build a home within ourselves, furnished with emotional maturity and constructed on a foundation of self-awareness, we are actually setting ourselves up for future success whenever we decide to open our heart again to another person.”
“Even if you try to forget those struggles, what goes unprocessed will reveal itself in your actions, words, and thoughts. If you let your past rule you, it will be difficult to love others well in the present.”
“To reach deeper levels of love and unity, you have to take the path of honesty with yourself and those around you. If you really want to be with someone, it means there is no more space for running or lying. A synonym for love is truth.”
“When you feel a lot of agitation, you need to be aware that your mind will look for objects (people, ideas, or situations) to focus on so that it can further increase the agitation. Tension needs fuel to burn, and that fuel is normally the attachments that keep the mind from fully accepting the present moment as it is.”
“If you want to live in a way that supports your freedom, you have no other option but to let go.”
“Let go of who you thought you were and embrace the river of change flowing through every moving part that creates the perception of you: Only then will wisdom introduce you to freedom.”
“Good people who uphold great values and want to see positive change in the world are often thwarted by their own unhealed pain and reactive patterns.”
“Even if you think about it in terms of social movements and revolutions, once the oppressed acquire power, they often take revenge on those who once oppressed them in the name of justice. Justice is too easily confused with revenge. Harming those who have once harmed you generates a cycle of violence and simply creates more resentful people who may seek revenge on you at a future time.”
“There is nothing wrong with making it your mission to help others, but do not use it to escape whatever is happening inside of you.”