Accepting Life For What It Is Quotes

When I say I want to abolish work, I mean just what I say, but I want to say what I mean by defining my terms in non-idiosyncratic ways. My minimum definition of work is *forced* *labor*, that is, compulsory production. Both elements are essential. Work is production enforced by economic or political means, by the carrot or the stick. (The carrot is just the stick by other means.) But not all creation is work. Work is never done for its own sake, it's done on account of some product or output that the worker (or, more often, somebody else) gets out of it. ~ Bob Black

As we advance in the spiritual life and in the practice of systematic self-examination we are often surprised by the discovery of vast unknown tracts of the inner life of the soul. They seem like great plains stretching out in mystery and wrapt in mists that sometimes for a moment lift, or sweep off and leave one looking for one brief instant upon great reaches of one's own life, unknown, unmeasured, unexplored. Men stand at such moments breathless in wonder and in awe gazing upon these great tracts upon which they have never looked before, with kindling eyes and beating hearts; and while they look the mists steal back till all is lost to sight once more and they are left wondering if what they saw was reality, or the creation of their fancy. Or sometimes they see, not far-stretching plains which fill the soul with an awestruck sense of its expansiveness and of how much has been left absolutely uncultivated, not these plains but mountain peaks climbing and reaching upwards till lost in the heavens, echoing it may be with the voice of many streams whose waters fertilize and enrich those small tracts of the soul's life which have been reclaimed and cultivated and which many a man has thought to be his whole inner self, though he never asked himself whence those rich streams had their source. Now he sees how their source lay in unmeasured heights of his own inner being whose existence he never dreamed of before. In one brief instant they have unveiled themselves. He looks again, ~ Basil W. Maturin

Transcendental Meditation is not a religion, it's not against any religion, it's for human beings, no matter what color, what religion, what walk of life. If you're a human being, it will work for you. And you will be very glad you found this technique and took advantage of it. ~ David Lynch

April 18

Dear Ryan,

I'm considering writing to one of those advice columnists about us. That's how confused I still am.

When we started this, I thought that I just needed some time away from you. I just needed time to breathe. I needed a chance to live on my own and appreciate you again by missing you.

Those first few months were torture. I felt so lonely. I felt exactly what I wanted myself to feel, which was that I couldn't live without you. I felt it all day. I felt it when I slept in an empty bed. I felt it when I came home to an empty house. But somehow, one day, it sort of became OK. I don't know when that happened.

I thought at one point that maybe if I learned who you truly are, then I could love you again. Then I thought maybe if I learn who I really am, what I really want, then I could love you again. I have been grasping at things for months, trying to learn a lesson big enough, important enough, all-encompassing enough that it would bring us back together. But mostly, I'm just learning lessons about how to live my life. I'm learning how to be a better sister. I'm learning just how strong my mother has always been. That I should take my grandmother's advice more often. That sex can be healing. That Charlie isn't such a little kid anymore.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've started focusing on other things. I don't feel all that desperate to figure us out and fix this. I feel sort of OK that it's n ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

But it was quickly recognized in the 1920s that what they called "on-job control" could be extended to "off-job control." That is, controlling every other aspect of life in the same way. So why should people not be robots in their entire life? And to be a robot means to focus your attention on what were called the superficial things of life. Like fashionable consumption, not on care for one another, not on working together to create a decent environment, not on what the world will be like for your children. To turn you into a passive consumer, a person who pushes buttons every couple years and is taught that that is democracy. Follow orders, don't think. Identify your own value as a human being in the amount of useless consumption that you can carry out. That's "off-job control." It runs through all the institutions and it's a huge industry. And, yes, to overcome off-job control you have to make people realize that your value as a human being is not how deeply you can go in debt and how many credit cards you can max out to get commodities you want. That is not your value as a human being. ~ Noam Chomsky

In this great fiat of the little girl Mary, the strength and foundation of our life of contemplation is grounded, for it means absolute trust in God, trust which will not set us free from suffering but will set us free from anxiety, hesitation, and above all from the fear of suffering. Trust which makes us willing to be what God wants us to be, however great or however little that may prove. Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love. ~ Caryll Houselander

Ubuntu [...] speaks of the very essence of being human. [We] say [...] "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons."

[...] A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are. ~ Desmond Tutu

Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it - observe the achievements of which you are so proud, this whole field you call living in which there is conflict in every form of relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened also of the unknown - frightened of death, frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there isno hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theo- logical concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I mean, her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was the suffering wife of a man who she could never predict what he would do, where he would be, who he would be. And it's sort of interesting because Eleanor Roosevelt never writes about her mother's agony. She only writes about her father's agony. But her whole life is dedicated to making it better for people in the kind of need and pain and anguish that her mother was in. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

Bang! Clang! Bang! Clangity bang, rat-a-tat! "Reuben, I have been thinking, what a good world this might be, if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea."
"Oh,no!" Willow rose off Rider's lap so fast her forhead bumped his chin.
"What is that racket?" he asked, standing and following her to the window overlooking the street.
One corner of her mouth quirked in mock disgust. "Take a look for yourself."
Clangity bang! Rat-a-tat! The men below beat their pots and pans with wooden spoons and, in a couple cases, gun butts.
"Rachel, I have long been thinking, what a fine world this might be, if we had some more young ladies on the side of the Northern Sea. Too ral loo ral. Too ral lee."
"Looks like your brothers and the whole Niners team!" Rider laughed. "What are they doing?"
"Haven't you ever heard of being shivareed, husband?"
Outside the boisterous, drunken voices broke into another chorus of Reuben and Rachel. "Rachel, I will not trasport you,but will take you for a wife. We will live on milk and honey, better or worse we're in for life."
Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window, threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the man broke into a chorus of Aura Lea.
"They sure have lousy timing," Rider commented wryly. "Just how long does this little serenade last?"
Seei ~ Charlotte McPherren

There is the globe,
The foundation of my bodily existence.
It wears me out with work and duties,
It gives me rest in old age,
It gives me peace in death.
For the on who supplied me with what I needed in life
Will also give me what I need in death. ~ Zhuangzi

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. ~ Banana Yoshimoto

A simple life can make you happy, but taking a few risks along the way can also make it fun. This could all end badly, but for now, I'm going to enjoy it for what it is. ~ Lisa De Jong

There is an optimum rate of discounting the future - mathematically, an optimum interest rate - which depends on how long you expect to live, how likely you will get back what you saved, how long you can stretch out the value of a resource, and how much you would enjoy it at different points in your life (for example, when you're vigorous or frail). "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die" is a completely rational allocation if we are sure we are going to die tomorrow. What is not rational is to eat and drink as if there's no tomorrow when there really is a tomorrow. To be overly self-indulgent, to lack self-control, is to devalue our future selves too much, or equivalently, to demand too high an interest rate before we deprive our current selves for the benefit of our future selves. No plausible interest rate would make the pleasure in smoking for a twenty-year-old self outweigh the pain of cancer for her fifty-year-old self. ~ Steven Pinker

What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. ~ Sylvia Plath

The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. ~ Michelle Alexander

And what is life? God manifested in the material plane. For it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. ~ Edgar Cayce

There are days when you will wonder if it is even possible to make money doing what you do, or whether you are just barking up the wrong tree...

There will be days when you think that if you don't show up for the next few days nobody will miss you and nobody will care...

Don't believe it...it's not true...If your gift and your passion wasn't needed you wouldn't have them... ~ Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

That we can prescribe the terms of our own success, that we can live outside or in ignorance of the Great Economy are the greatest errors. They condemn us to a life without a standard, wavering in inescapable bewilderment from paltry self-satisfaction to paltry self-dissatisfaction. But since we have no place to live but in the Great Economy, whether or not we know that and act accordingly is the critical question, not about economy merely, but about human life itself.

It is possible to make a little economy, such as our present one, that is so short-sighted and in which accounting is of so short a term as to give the impression that vices are necessary and practically justifiable. When we make our economy a little wheel turning in opposition to what we call "nature," then we set up competitiveness as the ruling principle in our explanation of reality and in our understanding of economy; we make of it, willy-nilly, a virtue. But competitiveness, as a ruling principle and a virtue, imposes a logic that is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to control. That logic explains why our cars and our clothes are shoddily made, why our "wastes" are toxic, and why our "defensive" weapons are suicidal; it explains why it is so difficult for us to draw a line between "free enterprise" and crime. If our economic ideal is maximum profit with minimum responsibility, why should we be surprised to find our corporations so frequently in court and robbery on the increase? Why sh ~ Wendell Berry

Whatever period of life we are in is good only to the extent that we make use of it, that we live it to the hilt, that we continue to develop and understand what it has to offer us and what we have to offer it. The rewards for each age are different in kind, but they are not necessarily different in value or in satisfaction. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Writing (and reading) is a sort of exercise in empathy, I think. In life, when you encounter people, you and they have separate trajectories, each person pushing in a different direction. What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the uncommon position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the duration. The characters have the trajectories now, while you just observe. And this stirs compassion that, in real life, is so often obscured by our own motives. What ~ Tom Rachman

That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. I
was weeping for an altogether different reason. When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More
scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a
harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not
remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I've never forgotten. ~ Kazuo Ishiguro

Sweet pea, what did you expect?"
"Something other than that."
"Well, you shouldn't have. We human girls are a bit feistier than your Syrena females-Rayna being the exception of course."
"But Emma's not human."
Rachel shakes her head at him as if he's a child. "She's been human all her life. It's all she knows. The good news is, she can't date anyone right now."
"Why's that?" Because to him, it sounded like maybe Emma thought she could.
"Because she's supposed to be dating you. And if I were you, I'd mark my territory as soon as I got back to school-if you know what I mean."
He scowls. He hadn't planned on staying in school after Emma learned the truth-the whole purpose for going was to eventually get Emma to the beach. He didn't anticipate having to teach her how to become Syrena. And he didn't anticipate that up until yesterday she actually thought she was human. In fact, there's a list the length of his fin of things he didn't anticipate.
Like how thick the school books are. ~ Anna Banks

No matter what circumstances we might face in life, it is possible for us to overcome in the midst of them by taking hold of God's thoughts. ~ Christine Caine

I have to admit we are locked in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor. To describe it takes many hundreds of thousands of words. Our muck is only a part of a much greater muck
the nation-state
which is itself the creation of that muck of mucks, human consciousness. Of course all these things also have a touch of sublimity
as when Moonbelly sings, for example, or all the lights go out. What a happy time that was, when all the electricity went away! If only we could re-create that paradise! By, for instance, all forgetting to pay our electric bills at the same time. All nine million of us. Then we'd all get those little notices that say unless we remit within five days the lights will go out. We all stand up from our chairs with the notice in ours hands. The same thought drifts across the furrowed surface of nine million minds. We wink at each other, through the walls. ~ Donald Barthelme

I have not planned to become something
and what I do is not a job
I am not collecting money or property
I am not saving my life for the future

I belong to the wind
but I live
and this seems to be the intention of life
today I live
here and now
and if that is too much
I won't be alive tomorrow

That is the way it is and so what ~ Nils Aslak Valkeapaa

What did it clarify for you?" Pinky asked.
Mrs. Brown laughed. "Told me to keep doing and saying what I dam well please, and not be bamboozled by anyone. Life is too short - no mulling things over for a dozen years or so. What about you?"
"I wasn't on the ship ~ Kate Alcott

It is time to recognize a simple fact of life. Contrary to what some of my colleagues seem to believe, tax cuts do not pay for themselves. ~ George Voinovich

Men, discouraged by their failure to accomplish exactly what they desire, often speak of their lives as purposeless, but it is idle talk, for, in fact, no intelligent life which concerns itself vigorously and properly with the things about it can be said to be purposeless. Such a life adheres, automatically, to the law of progression, and therefore moves toward a great destiny of supreme power and accompanying joys. The only purposeless life is the one that does not use its faculties. It matters little what tasks men perform in life, if only they do them well and will all their strength. In the eternal plan they are given progressive value. In an infinite universe, one cannot possibly learn all or do all, at once. A beginning must be made somewhere and corner by corner, department by department, space by space, all will be known and conquered. In the end, all must be explored, and whether one begins in the east or the west cannot matter much. The big concern is the extent to which a man offers himself, mind and body, to his worthwhile work. Upon that will growth depend. ~ John A. Widtsoe

For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark. ~ Stephen King

I have to say what I do is not easy and there are definitely moments where I feel inadequate to the tasks I've set for myself. And that's hard to feel - like you're giving your life to something and you can't really do it as well as you want to do it. ~ Joan Osborne

In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure - nothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above average meant failure if I received an 88 out of 100 percent on an exam, I felt that I failed. The fact is most things in life are not absolutes and have components of both good and bad. I used to think in absolute terms a lot: all, every, or never. I would all of the food (that is, binge), and then I would restrict every meal and to never eat again. This type of thinking extended outside of the food arena as well: I had to get all of the answers right on a test; I had to be in every extracurricular activity […] The 'if it's not perfect, I quit' approach to life is a treacherous way to live. […] I hadn't established a baseline of competence: What gets the job done? What is good enough? Finding good enough takes trial and error. For those of us who are perfectionists, the error part of trial and error can stop us dead in our tracks. We would rather keep chasing perfection than risk possibly making a mistake. I was able to change my behavior only when the pain of perfectionism became greater than the pain of making an error. […] Today good enough means that I'm okay just the way I am. I play my position in the world. I catch the ball when it is thrown my way. I don't always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It's good enough to just catch the ball or even to do my ~ Jenni Schaefer

I agree with Miss Erstwhile, you are acting like a scarecrow. I do not know why you put on this act, Nobley, when around the port table or out in the field you're rather a pleasant fellow."
"Really? That is curious," Jane said. "Why, Mr. Nobley, are you generous in your attentions with gentlemen and yet taciturn and withdrawn around the fairer sex?"
Mr. Nobley's eyes were back on the printed page, though they didn't scan the lines. "Perhaps I do not possess the type of conversation that would interest a lady."
"You say 'perhaps' as though you do not believe it yourself. What else might be the reason, sir?" Jane smiled. Needling Mr. Nobley was feeling like a very productive use of the evening.
"Perhaps another reason might be that I myself do not find the conversation of ladies to be very stimulating." His eyes were dark.
"Hm, I just can't imagine why you're still unmarried."
"I might say the same for you."
"Mr. Nobley!" cried Aunt Saffronia.
"No, it's all right, Aunt," Jane said. "I asked for it. And I don't even mind answering." She put a hand on her hip and faced him. "One reason why I am unmarried is because there aren't enough men with guts to put away their little boy fears and commit their love and stick it out."
"And perhaps the men do not stick it out for a reason."
"And what reason might that be?"
"The reason is women." He slammed his book shut. "Women make life impossible until the man has to be the one to end i ~ Shannon Hale

Live for today, enjoy your life as it comes, plan for your future, but remember to love where you are in the present moment! Living for each day is what makes the journey worth it. ~ Arik Hoover

...The happy Warrior... is he... whose powers shed round him in the common strife, or mild concerns of ordinary life, a constant influence, a peculiar grace; but who, if he be called upon to face some awful moment to which Heaven has joined great issues, good or bad for human kind, is happy as a lover; and attired with sudden brightness, like a man inspired; and, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law in calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; or if an unexpected call succeed, come when it will, is equal to the need: he who, though thus endued as with a sense and faculty for storm and turbulence, is yet a soul whose master-bias leans to homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, are at his heart; and such fidelity it is his darling passion to approve; more brave for this, that he hath much to love:- ~ William Wordsworth

Now to life...I grant you the ability to give, to take, to expedite, to wander, to love, to hate, to charge, to expend...
All of life is beautiful for what it makes of us. With only this single shot, let us leap into the unknown with our eyes open and our hearts ready. ~ Rachel La Rae Wilhelm

This preternatural love of rules almost for their own sake punctuates German finance as it does German life. As it happens, a story had just broken that a German reinsurance company called Munich Re, back in June 2007, or just before the crash, had sponsored a party for its best producers that offered not just chicken dinners and nearest-to-the-pin golf competitions but a blowout with prostitutes in a public bath. In finance, high or low, this sort of thing is of course not unusual. What was striking was how organized the German event was. The company tied white and yellow and red ribbons to the prostitutes to indicate which ones were available to which men. After each sexual encounter the prostitute received a stamp on her arm to indicate how often she had been used. The Germans didn't just want hookers: they wanted hookers with rules. ~ Michael Lewis

No matter what you read or hear, no matter what the difference of circumstances you observe in the lives of women about you, it is important for you Latter-day Saint women to understand that the Lord holds motherhood and mothers sacred and in the highest esteem. He has entrusted to his daughters the great responsibility of bearing and nurturing children ... There is divinity in each new life. ~ Spencer W. Kimball

The whole point of love isn't to have fun times without any hard times, to have someone who is fine with who you are and doesn't challenge you to be even better than that. The whole point of live isn't to be the other person's solution or answer or cure. The whole point of love is to help find what they need, in any way you can. What we have--it's definitely not normal. But the whole point of love is to write your own version of normal, and that is exactly what we're going to do. I am never going to be your girlfriend. We are never going to see each other every single day and introduce each other to all our friends. We are not going to the prom. We are not going to worry if we're going to break up after high school. We are not going to worry if we're going to break up after college. We are not going to to worry about getting married or not getting married. What we're going to do is be there for each other. We are going to be honest and we are going to share our lives and we are going to mess up together and help fix it together and we are going to make mistakes, often with each other's feelings. But we are going to be there. Day in, day out. Because I don't want you to be my date, A. I don't want you to be in my life and back out of it. I want you to be my constant. That, to me, is the whole point of love. ~ David Levithan

If you had a script for your life, Leo thinks, you could look ahead to what would come next. You could see what is going to happen to you. You could read all the thousands and millions of words you will say. You will never again have to wonder What should I say or do? because it will all be written there for you. You could know what dumb things you will do. You could find out if you ever will do anything that isn't dumb. But then, what if your script was dull, if you never got to do anything exciting? Or what if something awful was going to happen to you? What if your script was very, very short? ~ Sharon Creech

True, man cannot escape death. But for the present he is alive; and life, not death, takes hold of him ... It is mans innate nature that he seeks to preserve and to strengthen his life, that he is discontented and aims at removing uneasiness, that he is in search of what may be called happiness. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

If we accept time for what it is, how it flows and how we flow with it, I doubt very much that would continue wasting loads of it by constantly checking our watches. ~ Samantha Sotto