“Every time I read a great book I felt I was reading a kind of map, a treasure map, and the treasure I was being directed to was in actual fact myself. But each map was incomplete, and I would only locate the treasure if I read all the books, and so the process of finding my best self was an endless quest. And books themselves seemed to reflect this idea. Which is why the plot of every book ever can be boiled down to ‘someone is looking for something.’” —Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
Love to live, live to love
“Love to live, live to love”. – Amy Carmichael
Timekeeping
Author and journalist Mitch Albom on time:
“Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”
Source: The Time Keeper
Life is like a camera
Life is like a camera. Focus on what’s important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negatives and if things don’t work out, take another shot.
Potential
“I really believe humans are mostly magic and that we are all just unfinished magic and we’re more likely to be the fullest extent of our magic if other people see us that way first. And I’ve learned that when I see people for their potential and their possibilities, that they seem to live up to that more quickly than when they interact with others…” – Kat Cole: The Power of Possible
Life advice
Sociologist, historian, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois with some life advice in a letter to his daughter:
“The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.
Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bedroom. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not.
Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.”
The simple things
“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Be free
“Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.“
Explore the world
Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman with some advice for life:
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it!
Continue reading “Explore the world”
Hannes van Eeden 