Finding HopeQuotes That Helped Me (Hard Work Edition)
Posted on May 22, 2021
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hard work recently, putting in the hours, motivation, effort, and all of those sorts of things. I’ve always been someone who’s constantly working on something and that’s gotten worse during the pandemic, to the point where I feel guilty if I’m not working (I’m aware of how unhealthy that is and I’m working on it in therapy). I think that’s the new toxic positivity (not that that’s gone), the new idea that’s posed as good but when taken too far is actually really damaging: toxic productivity. I mean, I can see where it came from: telling people that working hard will get them further in life than hoping they’ll get lucky or whatever isn’t inherently bad but when you have famous or notable people saying that they never took a day off or are advising people to never let up… it’s well intentioned but it can sink into the brain and become something dangerous and unhealthy. It can create a mindset that sees valuable fun and relaxation and decompression time as a waste when it’s not only necessary for our health but can have beneficial and important results, like helping us to better regulate our emotions or inspire bright and shiny new ideas.
So I’ve tried to put together a collection of quotes that are about working hard but don’t encourage that work-yourself-to-the-edge-of-mental-stability mentality. At least that’s what I hope I’ve done. Hopefully they’re as helpful and inspiring to you as they have been for me.
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” – Barack Obama
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” –
“Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.” –
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
“Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – Saint Francis
“The level path is easy, but it will not bring you to the mountaintop.” – Dr. Idel Dreimer
“Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” –
“Let us remember then that we were made to do hard things, not easy, for if we do nothing but what is easy we will not go forward; then, as there is no standing still in the universe, we will degenerate, so that by doing something a little harder each time we prepare ourselves against something really hard.” – The Agricultural Journal
“Never slow down for the world, one day it will catch up with you.” – Nike
“If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” – Ben Hogan
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Stay positive and happy. Work hard and don’t give up hope. Be open to criticism and keep learning. Surround yourself with happy, warm, and genuine people.” –
“Sometimes in life you have an appointment with destiny, and sometimes you just have to get destiny to squeeze you in.” – Robert Brault
“Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Don’t work for recognition but do work worthy of recognition.” –
“Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.” –
“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.” – Charles F. Kettering
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” – Paulo Coelho
“Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.” –
“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
“It’s not about money or connections – it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.” –
“Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.” –
“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.” – Eva Young
“If you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world.” – Taylor Swift
I’m not gonna lie, I love being productive: I love working through a list, ticking things off, feeling like I’ve accomplished things at the end of every day, but I’m also aware that while this urge to be productive can be helpful, it can border on pretty unhealthy. As I said, I’m working on it. Productivity can be (and should be) beneficial in our lives, not a tightrope we walk where we’re trying not to fall into unhealthy habits. Hopefully these quotes reflect that perspective rather than a toxic one.
What about you guys? What quotes do you use to motivate yourself? Please throw them in the comments!
Quotes 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.
Quotes That Helped Me (Autism Edition)
Posted on March 30, 2021
Given how much I love quotes, I thought this week would be a good opportunity to share a compilation of quotes specifically about Autism and from autistic individuals…
“If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” – Dr. Stephen Shore
“English is my 2nd language. Autism is my first.” – Dani Bowman
“My autism is the reason I’m in college and successful. It’s the reason I’m good in math and science. It’s the reason I care.” – Jacob Barnett, sixteen-year old math and physics prodigy
“Think of it: a disability is usually defined in terms of what is missing… But autism… is as much about what is abundant as what is missing, an over-expression of the very traits that make our species unique.” – Paul Collins, Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism
“I don’t really understand why it’s considered normal to stare at someone’s eyeballs.” – John Elder Robison
“Our experiences are all unique. Regardless, I do believe that it is important to find the beautiful. Recognize that there is bad, there is ugly, there is disrespect, there is ignorance, and there are meltdowns. Those things are inevitable. But there is also good.” – Erin McKinney
“Autism is as much a part of humanity as is the capacity to dream.” – Kathleen Seidel
“By holding the highest vision for your child when they can not see it for themselves, you are lifting them up, elevating them and helping them to soar.” – Megan Koufos
“Autism… offers a chance for us to glimpse an awe-filled vision of the world that might otherwise pass us by.” – Dr. Colin Zimbleman, Ph.D.
“My autism makes things shine. Sometimes I think it is amazing but sometimes it is sad when I want to be the same and talk the same and I fail. Playing the piano makes me very happy. Playing Beethoven is like your feelings – all of them – exploding.” – Mikey Allcock, 16-year-old who was non-verbal until age 10
“Vibrant waves of sequenced patterns emerged in my head whenever I looked at musical notes and scores. Like pieces of a mysterious puzzle solved, it was natural for me to see music and its many facets as pictures in my head. It never occurred to me that others couldn’t see what I saw.” – Dr. Stephen Shore
“We contain the shapes of trees and the movement of rivers and stars within us.” – Patrick Jasper Lee, an autistic synaesthete
“I looked up to the stars and wondered which one I was from.” – James McCue
“I see people with Asperger’s syndrome as a bright thread in the rich tapestry of life.” – Tony Attwood
“My mind doesn’t stop; it spins and shifts in different directions creating webs of patterns, linked by varying hues.” – Michael Bowring
“Stop thinking about normal… You don’t have a big enough imagination for what your child can become.” – Johnny Seitz, autistic performance artist
“Rome was not built on the first day. I need time to build the Eiffel Tower of my life.” – Jeremy Sicile-Kira
“As an autistic, I can readily see environmental phenomena of sun particles interacting with moisture in the air and rising up from the ground. I thought of these things I could see as sun sparkles and world tails.” – Judy Endow, Painted Words: Aspects of Autism Translated
“Low pitched notes really make me feel like love might be truly possible. High pitched notes make me feel like I could go crazy with pain and sadness. Great rhythms can make me feel like life is freedom.” – Jeremy Sicile-Kira
“You are not in the mountains, the mountains are in you.” – John Muir
“Our wounds and hurts and fears are in our eyes. Humans think they build ‘walls’ for internal privacy. They think eye contact is about honesty but they mostly lie because they think they can hide their intent. Eye contact is invasive.” – Carol Ann Edscorn
“My fear is that if I don’t mask, push through and show how capable I am, I won’t be offered opportunities in the future or be valued the same.” – Emily Swiatek
“Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It’s that you’re destroying the peg.” – Paul Collins
“As soon as a child is capable of understanding, they will know they are different. Just as a diabetic needs insulin, an autistic child needs accommodations. The label gave me knowledge and self-awareness.” – Steve Andrews
“No, autism is not a ‘gift.’ For most, it is an endless fight against schools, workplaces and bullies. But, under the right circumstances, given the right adjustments, it CAN be a superpower.” – Greta Thunberg
“To measure the success of our societies, we should examine how well those with different abilities, including persons with autism, are integrated as full and valued members.” – Ban Ki-Moon, Former United Nations Secretary-General
“No matter how hard I try to learn from other people or copy what others are doing, I can’t quite get it right. It’s like living in a foreign country and not knowing the language.” – Rosie King
“Routine is a pivotal part of my daily life and any deviation, however slight, can cause great discomfort to me.” – Nathan Cornfield
“Avoiding eye contact is one of the things I find myself automatically doing to minimize the quantity of incoming sensory information.” – Judy Endow
“Autism doesn’t have to define a person. Artists with autism are like anyone else: they define themselves through hard work and individuality.” – Adrienne Bailon
“Autism is like a rainbow. It has a bright side and a darker side. But every shade is important and beautiful.” – Rosie Tennant Doran
“I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution – to know that my life has meaning.” – Temple Grandin
“I’ve listened enough. It’s time for me to speak, however it may sound. Through an electronic device, my hands, or my mouth. Now it’s your time to listen. Are you ready?” – Neal Katz, Self-advocate
I really enjoyed putting this post together. Or more accurately, putting this blog post together was a very emotional process, with emotions from both ends of the spectrum (no pun intended). It was really positive and also deeply affecting. Some of these quotes hit so close to home that reading them brought tears to my eyes; some of them resonated with me in a way that was deeply inspiring and comforting. Doing this has actually made me feel less alone and more able to understand and express how I feel, something that I already felt like I was pretty good at. So that wasn’t something I expected.
Whether you were as moved by these quotes as I was or not, I hope you found something in this post that spoke to you, that helped you, or that even just made you feel something. Expressing ourselves can be so difficult; sometimes we need a bit of help and sometimes that help can come in the form of the words of others.
Finding Hope 