"I’m coming to believe that there are a handful of passages in our lives that transform us, not unlike conversions, where the old is gone and the new is come."
"I want less of everything. Less stuff. Less rushing. Less proving and pushing. Less hustle. Less snapping at my kids so that they’ll get themselves into the car faster so we can go buy more stuff that we’re going to throw away. Less consumption. Less feeling like my mind is fragmented and my stomach is bloated and my life is out of control."
"Your honesty and freedom is giving them the permission to be honest and free as well."
"To be sure, finding your purpose can take a long time to figure out, and along the way it is tempting to opt instead for the immediate gratification, the immediate fix, of someone’s approval. But the sweet rush of approval, the pat on the head, can often derail us from real love, and real purpose."
"People who don’t care much about what other people think of them don’t generally struggle with disappointing people."
"Along this passage, my life has become decidedly less impressive. It has, though, become so much more joyful, here on the inside, here where it matters only to me and to the people closest to me."
"The stillness feels sort of like walking on the ceiling—utterly foreign. What makes sense to me: pushing. Lists. Responsibility. Action, action, action. What’s changing my life: silence. Rest. Letting myself be fragile. Asking for help."
"But this is what I’ve learned the hard way: what people think about you means nothing in comparison to what you believe about yourself."
"But it’s in the silence that you can finally allow yourself
to be seen, and it’s in the being seen that healing and
groundedness can begin."
"If you believe people can’t change, I’m here to tell you we can."
"What I’m learning is that you have to stop doing a whole
lot of things to learn what it is you really love, who it is you
really are. Many of us go years and years without even
asking these questions, because the lives we’ve fallen into have told us
exactly who to be and what to love and what to give ourselves to."
"Some of us are made to be faster, and some slower, some of us louder, and some quieter. Some of us are made to build things and nurture things. Some of us are made to write songs and grants and novels, all different things. And I’m finding that one of the greatest delights in life is walking away from what someone told you you should be in favor of walking toward what you truly love, in your own heart, in your own secret soul."
"This life you’re building is entirely your creation, fashioned out of your dreams and fears. What do you want? What do you love? What ways of living have you simply acquiesced to, because someone told you to? Because it seemed smart or practical or easy? Are those the best words to describe how you want to live?"
"For the first time in my life, it’s when I’m alone and quiet that I feel my strength. I need more and more of it than I ever have, like a vitamin, like a safe house."
"Sometimes being brave is being quiet. Being brave is getting off the drug of performance. For me, being brave is trusting that what my God is asking of me, what my family and community is asking from me, is totally different than what our culture says I should do."
"What do you need to burn down in your life, to make space for a new way of living? What commitments, expectations, roles, structures seem immovable until you start to move them, and find that when you do, everything changes?"
Quotes of wisdom by Shauna Niequist
Present
Over Perfect
