Dad's Learning Part 7 (A Continuing Series)
This one is quote heavy and for good reason. An exercise in shaping your life in the color of your thoughts.
Nature is the art of God.
So this week I have been tasked with something.
“Gather five to ten statements, words, quotes etc you can use to counteract negative self talking and thoughts.”
So that is the goal. At the end of it, I am also going to attempt to process through a recent quote from an unknown source. Let’s begin.
Given I am a quote fiend, I have a collection I enjoy and have picked through that to make these finalists. This is likely going to remain my list as well. I am sure I will insert others later on and remove a few as well.
Jordan Peterson Section:
Of course I gravitate towards Dr. Peterson and his quotes considering I learned about the others via his lectures. So he’s essentially the foundation and it’s easier for me to recall what he has said than say, Neitzsche (which is reasonable considering how complex Neitzsche can be). Thankfully I was interested enough to actually read and try and learn from other contributors so I could break away at least a little.
We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world.
My interpretation of this is you have meaning and you matter. So when you make a mistake, when you fall, what you do something stupid, understand that you are human. Not only that, but you still have your role to play. You’re still important. Not just to those immediately adjacent to you, but to humanity. To mankind your existence is vital and your role is not replaceable. And I believe that.
You're more than you think you are.
Your potential is unknowable. Your potential is limitless. Stop thinking you are worthless, stop thinking you are replaceable. You are not, you can, if you so choose, change the trajectory of the world if only you would believe and act accordingly.
Don't compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.
If you ever start looking at others: their accomplishments, their life, their belongings, their family, stop. You have no idea what they are going through. You have no idea what they had to sacrifice or even if they are happy. You have no idea if they are leading a meaningful life. You don’t even know yourself, even if you think you might. How can you know they are doing better than you? Via what metric? Why is that the metric you are comparing yourself to others? There are too many variables, life is too complicated, people are too complicated. The only thing you can do is attempt to keep moving forward. If you do it long enough, you will be astonished what you can accomplish. Stop looking around, start looking forward.
I don't tell people, 'You're okay the way that you are.' That's not the right story. The right story is, 'You're way less than you could be.'
This one seems to jive with “you are more than you think you are”. and I cannot get enough of these. This is what I see in my children, potential. Perhaps if I can see that in them, I can see that in myself.
Carl Jung Section:
We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
In the event of a misstep or mistake, accept it happened and accept you caused it. Only then can you move forward in your journey.
We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
When we look around and see the accomplished, the meritorious, the blessed, we always omit what made them get to where they are. They struggled and continue to struggle as you do, they just learned to stand up tall with that weight.
Various Authors:
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
In times of trouble, remember why you are. Why you still exist. Why life was worth living in the first place. Remember why you made the goals you did. Remember why you bear the sufferings of the past the way you do. Then keep going. Nothing is more difficult than life.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
- Carl Rogers
You cannot change what you cannot see. You cannot modify what is not clearly in your focus. Acceptance is the precursor to understanding. Understanding is the precursor to change.
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
- B. F. Skinner
What’s the phrase? Never stop never stopping? Something silly like that. But it’s true. You are never a failure until you accept your failure. You are never beaten until you stop getting back up. I know he uses mistake and failure differently, but I see that as failure in an attempt, as opposed to failure in life. Meaning, avoid mistakes you have a role to play in determining. If you can instead choose to keep moving forward, and that would result in an action no longer being a mistake, then choose to move. If you do, that mistake is nullified or never existed. If you choose to stagnate, you chose that mistake, which has the potential to be fatal in my eyes. Entropy is real, stagnation is death, forward momentum is the only thing between us and obscurity and dust.
So those are my current selections. The things I need to say when my thoughts turn dark.
And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
That is what I want to avoid. Not gazing into the abyss but never being able to escape it.
So now onto the next portion this week. She gave me a quote from something she saw and now I am going to look at it. This is actually two parts. The first part, then later when the character was speaking to the same person, they expanded on it.
“If you hold onto the past, the future will not come.”
“Until you learn to forgive yourself, until you learn to let the past go, you will not move on”
I may need to break this one apart. I think the overall message is simple. Looking backwards prevents you from moving forward. As she said, “Try looking behind you and walking forward. You will hit a wall.” That makes sense to me.
“If you hold onto the past” screams of an inability to allow yourself to let go, either by regret or guilt, but constantly dwelling on what was. Dwelling on what has been. “The future will not come” is ominous and correct, I believe. Let’s finish the thought here. Constantly dwelling on what was (holding onto the past) prevents you from participating in the present, which ensures you will never have a future (the future will not come). You are your thoughts. You live what you think, what you say, what you believe. If you’re constantly in the past, you live there. There is no present, and therefore no future.
“Until you learn to forgive yourself” is difficult. It’s difficult because you think you know who you are and what you should have done. What you don’t realize is you may know now, but you didn’t know before. You may have, sure, but you cannot know that you did. Also, grace is your out for that guilt. You have grace for others, you have grace for children and strangers, show it to yourself as well. “Until you learn to let the past go” is important as well, obviously. A firm grasp on the past anchors you there. Your thoughts, your existence, your reality is anchored to your grip which is in your past. Let it go or accept a fate worse than death. That is, to exist parted from life. You may be alive, but you cannot live. You may take breath, but cannot be present to share in it with anyone else. Your presence in the now is necessary for your existence in the later. “You will not move on” closes it out and aptly so. You can’t unless you return to the present. You cannot return without letting go of the past.
Let’s sum up. I want to do this on a standalone sentence. If I cannot I am not confident I truly understand it.
Refusing yourself permission to relinquish what was, and refusal of forgiveness, forgoes your ability to secure a future.
And another attempt:
To dwell in failure denies your potential.
I think that sums it up nicely, but I will have to revisit that.
Hopefully I did as I needed and what was expected. Hopefully some value was obtained from all of you as well.
Love,
Dad
P.S. I have an honorable mention from an earlier post:
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
― Carl Gustav Jung