“You don’t have to explain yourself to someone who has never taken the time to get to know you.”
Sonia Sabnis
This one is particularly useful for anyone who creates content on the internet. People sometimes will come across one post you’ve done, make a snap judgment about you, and then tell you how wrong you are for this, that, or the other thing.
I am a person who always errs on the side of over-explaining, so this quote is a good reminder to me. If someone has not even taken the time to take a cursory look at my story, then I do not owe them some big explanation.
Besides, someone like that is probably not going to listen anyway.
And that reminds me of another relevant quote for us over-explainers:
“Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it.”
I sometimes make the error of thinking that when someone dislikes me, it’s an information problem. I think, “If I just explained myself to them, then they would understand!”
But if I am not someone’s cup of tea, then explaining is a waste of time.
And if someone is kinda determined to misunderstand me, explaining is a waste of time and will just prolong the issue.
That reminds me of something Ma Ingalls (of Little House fame) would sometimes say: “Least said, soonest mended.” In other words, I can make a problem go on longer by doing too much explaining.
A favorite part from “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman, “Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me. The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.”
Not that I’m always lighthearted, but I am healthy and that long brown path before me does lead in the direction I choose. A good reminder that my life is the result of choices I have made, not circumstances. And even when circumstances have led me somewhere I don’t particularly enjoy, I still have the choice of how to move forward.
“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
― Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life For A Life
I didn’t know the source for this, and thusly haven’t read it, but saw this quote years ago when choosing something for a lettering class project and it has stuck with me this whole time.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. ~marianne williamson
I really like this quote. I first heard it in high school and it’s stuck with me the last decade or so. It reminds me that it’s okay to shine, to be my best, and that I have worth and value as a person just for being myself and sharing my talents.
“Nothing gold can stay.” – Robert Frost. As someone who is, by nature, a creature of habit, I really struggle with change. This quote is from my favorite poem and reminds me that change is all around us all the time and is not necessarily a bad thing. When I find myself being resistant to change, I just repeat the quote in my head. This helps more than one would think! I also like my mama’s take on it…”Change is like a train… you can’t stop it so either jump on or get out of it’s way!” (it was a little more “colorful”? when she said it! LOL)
One of my favorite quotes is by George Eliot: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” I find this motivating – you’re never too old the change!
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Victor Frankl. Concentration camp survivor, neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher and author.