101 Essays that Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest

 14- "Accomplishing goals is not success.  How much you expand in the process is." 

15- " Not wanting to do something would make you feel indifferent.  Fear = interest."

16- "So many people get caught up in allowing the past to define them or haunt them simply because they have not evolved to the place of seeing how the past did not prevent them achieving the life they want, it facilitated it.  This doesn't mean to disregard or gloss over painful or traumatic events, but simply to be able to recall them with acceptance and to be able to place them in the storyline of your personal evolution."

16- "The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself.  The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself."

22-Emotionally intelligent people don't assume to know what it is that will make them truly happy.  Being that our only frame of reference at any given time is what's happened in the past, we actually have no means to determine what would make us truly happy, as opposed to just feeling "saved" from whatever we disliked about our past experiences.  In understanding this, they open themselves up to any experience that their life evolves toward, knowing there are equal parts good and bad in anything."

22- " The presence of indifference is a sign you're on the wrong path. Fear means you're trying to move towards something you love, but your old beliefs, or unhealed experiences, are getting in the way."

30-"Socially intelligent people listen to criticism before they respond to it- an immediate emotional response without thoughtful consideration is just defensiveness."

31-"When you accuse someone of being wrong, you close them off to considering another perspective by heightening their defenses.   If you first validate their stance ("that's interesting, I never thought of it that way...") and then present your own opinion ("Something I recently learned is this...") and then let them know that they still hold their own power in the conversation by asking their opinion ("What do you thing about that?"), you open them up to engaging in a conversation where both of you can learn rather than just defend.

33-"Usually, it is people who are most inflicted with an issue that are able to speak out on the importance of it (even if it seems hypocritical on the surface.)"

41- "You need not change your feelings.  You just have to learn to lean into them and see what they are trying to tell you."

49- "Most people don't want to be happy, which is why they aren't.  They just don't realize this is the case.  
People are programmed to chase their foremost desire at almost any cost...Often, it's comfort.  Or familiarity."

51- "People hold themselves back from real happiness [because they] delay action once they know trust- and the interim between knowing and doing is the space where suffering thrives."  "the resistance between what's right and what's easy."

57- "Happiness of excellence...that comes from the pursuit of something great.  Not the moment you arrive at the top...but the process of falling in love with the hike."

94- "Feelings other than happiness are not marks of failure.  Health is having a spectrum of emotion.  Negative emotions are good for you.  In fact, maintaining a consistent experience of only 'happiness" - or any emotion, really- would be a sign of mental illness.  It's simply not how our minds and bodies are structured.  In other words, you're not supposed to be happy all the time.  Listen to what your body is telling you.  Negative emotions are a signal that something isn't right.  The emotion doesn't have to be fixed; the thing that is signaling your attention to does."

102- 'Each day write down one thing your body allowed you to do.  Whether it was watching your favorite show or listening to the sounds...[etc] focus on what your body does more than what it looks like doing."

"Finding fulfillment in work is never about pursuing your idea of what your "purpose" is.  It is always about infusing purpose into whatever it is you already do."

103- "aspire to be someone who gives things meaning, not who seeks things to give them meaning.

125- "The single most powerful, liberating thing any one of us can do is choose to believe that everything is here to help us...You either see yourself as a victim of what happens to you, or as someone given opportunity to change grow, see differently, and expand.  You either see uncomfortable feelings as suffering you have to deal with or signals you have to learn from.  You either see the world as something makes you feel, or you see your interpretation of the world as a projection of your feelings."

125- "When we think there is a purpose for our pain, the discomfort of it dissolves.  It turns from annoyance to opportunity...The difference between this mindset...and the opposite...is whether or not we believe that we create our experience, or that our experiences are created for us...by an external force...If we want meaning we have to create it.  If we want to find peace, we need to know there's a purpose for suffering.
You will either sit in discomfort for the rest of your life, or you will grow and be better for the thing that are most difficult."

139- "Questions that will show you who you are.
-Based on your daily routines, where will you be in five years? Ten? Twenty?
-What are a few things you thought you would never get over while you were going through them?  -Why did they seem so insurmountable? How did you [get through them]?
-Who from your past are you still trying to earn acceptance from?
-If you were to walk through your home and put your hand on every single thing you own, how many of them would make you sincerely feel happy or at peace?  Why do you keep the rest?
-What bothers you most about other people?  What do you love most in other people? What bothers you most about yourself?  What do you love most about yourself? (dig until you see the correlation.)

147- "You generally spend more time thinking about your life than you do actually living it."

148- "If you don't value money by appreciating what it does for you, you'll never feel as though you have enough."

158- "difference between capturing the moments (taking photographs) that matter to you and creating moments that matter for other people."

158- "identify the "people" you always think are judging you...Most of the time, those "people" are a faceless crowd that only exist in your mind.  In other words, they're you, projected outward.  It's what you are judging yourself for."

158- "think about what makes us the most jealous.  [they] are usually the things that we feel we're not living up to within ourselves.  We are jealous of the beautiful girl not because we want to be beautiful like her, but because we're lacking something so much more important, which is love for ourselves."

165- "Self-esteem is...inherent sense that everything's going to be all right, because we are capable of making it all right."

174- "People who waste their lives search for reasons to love rather than ways to love."

198- "Figure out what you most need to heal within yourself by seeing what you most want to change in others."

204- "The point of anything is not what you get from having done it; its who you become from having gone through it. It's all about growth at the end of the day...It's not about how much you get right, it's how much you get better."

206- "we're designed for the messiness and simplicity of everyday life...A good life isn't passionate, it's purposeful...A good life is not measured by what you do, it's about what you are. Not how many people you loved, but how much...It's not about the things that didn't work out; it's about what you learn when they don't."  

219- "If we could see souls instead of bodies, what would be beautiful?...Would you spend more time in gyms and stores or in libraries and temples?...Whom would we idolize, and what?... Whom would we make famous?...What would we do with all that money if we weren't spending it on decorating and changing and convincing everybody else that we are a way we really aren't?"

What would happen if we could see people not as "bad," but as...blocked?

222- "I am saddened by how many young girls (and boys) are instructed to present themselves a certain way, because that's just "what's attractive."  It is silly to think generalizing what "every" person likes is helpful, because more insidiously, it keeps you trapped in avoidance of your true self...and then we sit around crying...over why we can't find somebody who loves us for who we really are..."

223- "You blame others because you don't realize that every relationship you have is with yourself.
Love doesn't suck,  People do not suck.  You suck.  Relationships are the ultimate teaching tools, the most intense healing opportunities, the most explosively beautiful chances for us to really see what is unresolved within us.  You run into the same problems, you find the same faults, the same relationships, the same pain, because it is all in you."

225- "I don't think there are people crueler to one another more than people who really, really love each other.  They see so much of themselves in one another that they simply cannot stand it, and retaliate in all the same ways they are rejecting themselves! the foundation of a happy relationship (and life, really) is unconditional kindness.  It's synonymous with love, and maybe even more effective, because it shows you the action as opposed to the feeling or expectation."

225- " the love you really want is your own. What you're seeking in someone else is what you aren't giving to yourself. "

228- "Whenever there is a problem in your life, there is a problem with how you are thinking, reacting, or responding.  Whatever you feel you are not receiving is a direct reflection of what you are not giving.  Whatever you are angered by is what you aren't willing to see in yourself....Give exactly what you want to get."  "Everything you do, see, and feel is a reflection of not who you are, but how you are."

231- "Acquiring another 0 at the end of the balance on your bank statement...only changes how much you have surrounding you, not how deeply or sincerely you can appreciate them, feel them, enjoy them, want them, be happy because of them."

244- "What if the series of rote tasks we want our lives to be better than aren't better than us at all?  What if they're what we're scheduled to do?  What if there is no greater meaning than just simply doing them?...We're not supposed to be better than our humanness."

249- ""In the resting state, neural networks can process experiences, consolidate memories, reinforce learning, regula[te] attention and emotions, and in turn keep us more productive and effective in our day-to-day work."

 289- "If the love of your life would reflect all of your unhealed issues, mirror your flaws, and bring your deepest insecurities to light, would you be ready to be in a relationship with them?"

326- "Planning your life (or having a cohesive idea of "what you're doing") isn't necessarily ambition; it's more just a soothing notion.  Focus instead on what you want to do with each and every day of your existence.  That's noble.  That's worthwhile.  that will get you somewhere."

327- ""You don't need to accomplish anything to be a worthwhile human being."

327- "your life is only ever as good as your perception of it is."

327- "Stop asking "What am I doing with my life?" and start asking: "What am I doing with today?"

343- "You are a book of stories, not a novel."

343- "Who you were doesn't have to bleed into who you will be.
We often stunt ourselves by tying who we were into who we think we need to become.  

439- "You don't need to be made about your limiting, old beliefs: change is in building what's next, not in dismantling what was.  You don't need to ruminate in disappointment for how long you spent not realizing there was more to life than you assumed.  The point is that you figured it out eventually."

441- " Your struggles will be what make you what you are."