Finding HopeQuotes That Helped Me (Growth Edition)
Posted on April 17, 2021
I’ve been thinking a lot about growth recently. I’ve been thinking about my own personal, emotional, and creative growth but also about growth in general, how we’re growing and changing all the time, due to both external and internal influences. And as I often do whenever turning over thoughts like these ones, I went looking for quotes. They help me make sense of my thoughts and prompt new avenues of thought. So I thought I’d share some of the quotes I found during some of my musings…
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” – Abraham Maslow
“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou
“Be patient with yourself. You are growing stronger every day. The weight of the world will become lighter… and you will begin to shine brighter. Don’t give up.” – Robert Tew
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard
“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” – Rick Warren
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” – Stephen Covey
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” –
“Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle.” –
“I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.” –
“Catch on fire if you must, sometimes everything needs to burn to the ground so that we may grow.” – A.J. Lawless
“Transitions are almost always signs of growth but they can bring feelings of loss. To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind.” – Fred Rogers
“Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.” – George Shinn
“Life is all about growth and change. It’s not static. It’s not about some destination.” – Bill Burnett
“Always realize that you can get better. Your best work has not been done yet.” – Les Brown
“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Learn all you can from the mistakes of others. You won’t have time to make them all yourself.” – Alfred Sheinwold
“If a mistake is not a stepping stone, it is a mistake.” – Eli Siegel
“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.” – Thomas Szasz
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda
“Never mind searching for who you are. Search for the person you aspire to be.” – Robert Brault
“If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” – Author Unknown
“Learning how to operate a soul figures to take time.” – Timothy Leary
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” – Anna Quindlen
“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.” – Hugh Prather
“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.” – Josephine Hart
“Living is being born slowly. It would be a little too easy if we could borrow ready-made souls.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Real birthdays are not annual affairs. Real birthdays are the days when we have a new birth.” – Ralph Parlette
“Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.” – Arthur Christopher Benson
“Growth is the only evidence of life.” – John Henry Newman
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” – Douglas Adams
Hopefully this selection of quotes has been inspiring. Inspiring rather than pressuring. Yes, growth is important but that doesn’t mean we have to strive for at it all times. Rest and the ability to be still are important too. As the quote goes, “There is literally nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so do not expect yourself to do so.” (I can’t find a reliable source for this quote so let me know if you see it attributed to someone.) We want and need different things at different times. But, if you’re ever in need of a little inspiration, this post will be here.
Stepping Back in Time
Posted on February 3, 2018
Sometimes I wonder about what it would be like if I could go back to secondary school and to sixth form but with everything I know now. Obviously it would help with the lessons and exams but what I’ve learned about myself would’ve completely changed my experience of school. I’m such a different person at twenty-three than I was at sixteen or eighteen (as I would hope we all are). Throw in the ups and downs of my mental health and I’d say I’ve learned a lot in those years. I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a while now so I thought I’d write down some of these thoughts and compile them here:
On Choosing Subjects To Study – I am fascinated by what my life would look like if I’d known I was Autistic, if I’d known about my mental health challenges, and this is a good example of that. Because of the identity issues that often come with BPD, choosing the subjects to study at sixth form was distressing. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to study when I didn’t know who I wanted to be, who I was even? I want to write about identity a lot more but it’s such a big subject that I haven’t managed to tackle it yet. I promise I will. In this case, I knew I liked Psychology and I knew I liked Maths but I wasn’t sure what to pick for the final two options so I did what I always do when faced with a question about myself that I don’t know how to answer: I filled the empty space with real people and fictional characters that I liked and admired, people that embodied the things I wanted to be. That was how I ended up choosing History and Physics. I don’t regret those choices but now that I know that that happens, I approach things differently.
On Standing Up For Myself – I was fortunate not to go through any extended periods of bullying during my school years. There were a couple of incidents but they never went on for very long; they either got bored of me ignoring them or I pushed back which made them stop. But I had several teachers who didn’t behave particularly well: shouting at the class, humiliating us, telling us we were stupid, etc. Back then, I just kept my head down; I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. I was terrified of getting in trouble and standing up to an authority figure was something I just didn’t know how to do. I was just trying to get through it; I didn’t know that I didn’t deserve to be treated like that, that I could push back against it. Were I in that situation now, I wouldn’t let someone treat me that way, let alone anyone else. If it wasn’t abusive, it was a downright unacceptable way to treat the children they were responsible for.
On Trying To Fit In – When I was younger, especially in my early teenage years, I would look at the girls in my classes and in my year group and wish that I could be one of them. They were all so pretty and seemed to have everything and had been friends all their lives. I’d missed a lot of school due to illness and there was some hard stuff going on at home and my one good friend had just moved to the US. I felt very alone. I wanted to belong somewhere. I went on to find some amazing friends – many of whom I’m still friends with now – but the feeling of belonging is a hard one and one that I guess I’m still learning how to handle. But if I was going to secondary school all over again, that isn’t something I’d worry about. I think that the need to belong isn’t so urgent when you feel like you belong to yourself. I’m not all the way there yet, but further down that road than I was at sixteen.
On Blending In – It wasn’t until I looked back that I realised I was trying to be invisible. I didn’t put my hand up when I knew the answer, I hated any activity that required me to be at the front of the class, and I did everything I could to avoid drawing attention to myself. Even the way I sat – hunched over, trying to make myself smaller – reflected that. And yet I was desperate not to be forgotten. Apparently teenage me was an oxymoron. But no, I get it: I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t want people to know me, or remember me, as something I wasn’t. And worse case scenario, I embarrass myself and that be what people associate with me forever. But as I started to know myself, this behaviour started to change. Finding something that I loved and something that made me feel like I was where I was supposed to be, i.e. songwriting, really helped with that too. In a way, finding that gave me permission to exist, to take up space, and that gave me confidence. These days, I can look at myself and feel so unsure about everything but all I have to do is look back to know how far I’ve come.
The last couple of weeks have been hard, mental health and medication wise, but I’m hopeful that that will start to ease and then I can spend more time and energy on here. Thank you, as always, for reading.
Finding Hope 