You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way. Set fire to your old self. It’s not needed here. It’s too busy shopping, gossiping about others, and watching days go by and asking why you haven’t gotten as far as you’d like. This old self will die and be forgotten by all but family, and replaced by someone who makes a difference. Your new self is not like that. Your new self is the Great Chicago Fire–overwhelming, overpowering, and destroying everything that isn’t necessary. Julien Smith
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
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Unknown
Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.
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Nicholas Sparks
The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.
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Chuck Palahniuk
Where there is love there is life.
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Mahatma Gandhi
It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted....
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Henry Rollins
More Quotes By Julien Smith
You will never be entirely comfortable. This is the truth behind the champion - he is always fighting something. To do otherwise is to settle.
The truth is that judgment and fear will never stop, but they don't actually do anything.
The ability to withstand the flinch comes with the knowledge that the future will be better than the past.
Success works as a cycle - growth and contraction, balancing and unbalancing - all while you're encountering hurdles that get higher and higher over time.
Getting lost is not fatal. Almost every time, it will make your world.
