PBP: Week 33- Quotations

I love quotations! I think words are powerful, and sometimes you read (or hear) things that just stick with you. I've been collecting quotations forever. They have their own section in my BOS. I try to write down who said them, but I still have quite a few that don't have sources (I was really bad about sourcing things when I first started, so most of my early notes are unsourced).

But I thought I'd share some of my favorites this week, and talk a bit about why I like them and what they mean for me.

One good thing about being young is that you are too inexperienced to know that you cannot do what you are already doing. This is one that I don't know who said it, but I love the sentiment. I think that the mind is both very powerful and very limiting. I was raised being told that I could be anything I wanted to be, and for that I consider myself very lucky. But when you get right down to it, there are a ton of things that we don't even consider because reality or society tells us they aren't possible. And then someone comes along who either manages to disbelieve the things they have seen in the world around them or are just too young to realize that they aren't supposed to be able to do something. And like many things in nature, once it has been done once, it is easier for it to be done a second time. It's something you see a lot of time with both scientific discovery and world records. The old record will stand for years, but as soon as someone breaks it, several other people either beat the new record or come very close to (and they are way over the old record). This one reminds me too look at things, not just through the eyes of a child (to capture that sense of wonder) but through the mind of a child as well...in that place where all things are truly possible because you haven't learned otherwise.

Whether you think you can, or you can't, you're right. (Henry Ford) Again with the power of the mind and it's self-imposed limits. Belief is such a huge thing, and I think we underestimate it too often. True inner belief is a subtle thing. We can think we believe something and yet deep down still harbor doubts or fears that cripple that belief. This is why I think that things like affirmations, spellwork and visualization are so important. All of them work on reinforcing the things we believe. No matter your level of belief, if you work on building it up, it will help you to succeed at the things you want to do.

Follow success with success, follow failure with change. (Geoffrey Lorenz) There is a fine line between “if at first you don't succeed,” and flogging a dead horse. Anytime I pick up a new discipline, I acknowledge that there will not be brilliant successes straight from the start. The key is learning to recognize when you are banging your head against a wall. They say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I use that as a kind of guideline for learning. If I work with something for a month or so and still am not having any form of improvement, then it is time to analyze myself and see what I can change to make it work for me. We are all different and what works for someone else (or a ton of someone elses) might not work for you.

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. (Reggie Leach) Have you noticed I have a thing for success quotes? I have found there are a lot of correlations between magical work and theory and success theory. There are a ton of books out there on how to get ahead in business. Many of them are quite in depth on self-improvement. And a lot that I have read utilize many of the same tools that I use in my magical practice. So much so, in fact, that I often use terms or techniques from these type of business self-improvement books to talk about what I do and believe to people who aren't Pagan. But back to the quote! Sometimes it seems like success is some kind of magical thing that either requires an obscure alignment of the stars or some kind of divine intervention. No matter what you are trying to succeed at in life, the more passionate you are about it, the more you stack the deck in your favor. Of course, it is possible to succeed at something you don't really care about. People do it all the time. But, in most of those cases, the person would have succeeded no matter what they did. It is the other times that concern me: the times where I know it is going to take work and dedication to move forward. And I definitely know that the more passionate I am towards a goal (or process), the more likely I am to not only do the hard work, but to keep at it.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) I think that in a lot of ways we Pagans have an edge in this one. While there are some paths being forged that are well marked enough now that we can follow along if we wish to, we are still in exploration mode. We are all still sort of making our own way, and it is expected that we do so. This is one of those quotes that I don't think is all inclusive. It's not for everyone. If no one took any path's, we'd spend most of our lives redoing mistakes that could easily be avoided. If we had no followers, a lot of the menial things in life wouldn't get done (or we would all be doing our own menial work so nothing besides menial work would get done). I think some people find happiness in following and others in leading. But I think we can all benefit from doing a bit of both. In the vast bulk of my day, I do things that involve following paths. But in the things that I really am drawn into, I forge my own. Often I follow a path for a while (to get the basics, or just to get an idea of what thought is out there). In fact, I think that even when I am pretty much building from the ground up, I like to see what other people are building. I don't always look for methods to use, but rather inspiration to help me create.

Find the attitude that gives you the maximum strength and the maximum dignity, no matter what else is going on. (The Witching Hour- Anne Rice) I have a bit of chaos inclination. I draw inspiration from many sources, including fictional. Especially when it comes to things like quotes, I have no problem pulling from a novel I loved. I believe that attitude is very important. We are faced with so many things in our day, that we really need to have a strong core to act from. The attitude we take on shapes how we respond to the world. What I love about attitude is that it can be pulled on (or off) like a piece of clothing. I don't always take the same attitude when I walk out my door (or when sitting in my house). Some days call for different approaches. By paying attention to the attitude I am adopting, I become more aware of how I am handling myself. The proper attitude lets me deal with things that might otherwise send me over the edge.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important that fear. (Ambrose Redmoon) I think a lot of stuff is said about both fear and courage. I think that fear is healthy, so I have never been one to avoid my fears. I am much more likely to poke them and stick myself right in the middle. Have I mentioned I am stubborn? I don't like the idea that something can control me, and fear is definitely something that controls. For me, often the thing that is more important than the fear is the knowledge that I can handle the fear. I have to prove (to myself) that I can do the things I am afraid to do. Some of my fears are rational, some aren't. Most recently I have found that I am fearful of flying. I have flown pretty much every year for my entire life. When I was little, I loved flying. As I grew, I still enjoyed it (even the mostly horrible airplane food). But within the past decade, I have found myself becoming nervous and paranoid about flying. I haven't had any traumatic episodes involving planes, and there is nothing specific I can point to. I am not even really afraid of crashing or anything particular, I just get really anxious when gearing up for a trip that involves a plane ride. Facing that fear, for me, doesn't just involve getting myself on the plane. Evern since he was born, my son has been with me when I fly. He enjoys flying (other than finding the longer flights boring), and I don't want to influence him in any way with my own fears, so part of me facing my fear is doing it in such a way as to not let on that I am bothered at all. And I think that the act of trying to behave normally helps me to deal with the anxiety, because it focuses my mind on what is important (not building the fear in my son) rather than the fear itself.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away (Philip K. Dick) I think a lot about the nature of reality. I have kind of a liberal view on what is real. Actually I don't care much for reality, for me things can be 'not real' and still have power. But I love this quote because it is a very practical reminder about the nature of reality and belief.

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. (Freyja Stark) There is a truth to this that can be hard to capture. I think that sometimes I feel like there is a rift between who I am on the inside and the life I find myself in on the outside. Parts of it I don't want to change. Trying to reconcile the parts of myself into a cohesive whole is a lot of work! I am a mother and wife to two people who are not on the same path as me. I don't want them to be who they aren't, and so house life is often a compromise. Of course it helps that they can both be quite unobservant, and so don't always notice what I am up to! Sometimes I dream of a world (not within my house so much as on a global scale) where everyone is actually free to practice their beliefs without fear. I think about how different it would be if religious freedom was a real thing. I think we are making huge steps in that direction, but I don't feel we are there yet. And I think that working towards that kind of global acceptance (not just in terms of religion, but in terms of all the differences we still struggle with) can build happiness because it is acting on the beliefs we hold.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. (Kurt Vonnegut) I have written about masks, and about the parts of self that we can step into, which very much fits with this quote. Kind of like, “fake it until you make it,” I think we can step into being someone who we aren't. And we do have to take care that we aren't taking up a persona that doesn't mesh with who we truly are. I don't mean that if you are typically a timid person you shouldn't build a strong and forward persona to call upon when needed, but rather that the further a personality trait is from our innate state of being, the easier it is to get out of control. Strong becomes mean or cold, assertive becomes aggressive, compromising becomes overly passive. We should never step out of a persona regretting our actions. If we do, we should take the time to work through it and adjust so that we are not creating problems for ourselves.

Better to do a good deed at home than to go far away to burn incense. (Chinese proverb) I find it somewhat amusing that this is a Chinese proverb, because in many ways I see the inverse in my family (the Chinese half). Sometimes it feels like my family puts on a face to the world and goes out of their way to be polite and helpful to others, and yet within the family it is more along the lines of nagging and high expectations. Intellectually I know that it is a depth of caring (you expect more from the people you care about because you want more for them), but still. And sometimes there is this concept of taking out the nice dishes for company. Which is all fine and good, I mean I like being a good host and I definitely don't want guests to feel unwelcome in my house. But if you only break out the good stuff for other people, what does that say about the value you place on your own family (or your own self). I think this quote also reminds us that what we do in the privacy of our own home can be more profound than the flashy stuff we do in public. To take an extreme example, if you watch shows about serial killers (which I do), you often see people saying that they never would have guessed that the person was doing these horrible things because they were always polite and nice, or they helped out at the local shelter or what not. It is not always the things we do in public that we should be judged by, but the things we do when no one is watching.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing exquisitely. I'll end with a quote that I swear is from one of the fanfiction stories I have read (and apologies to the author, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it). I remember my dad always telling me that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing well. And he always meant it in terms of doing things that you have do do but don't enjoy (like chores). And that is definitely a good lesson to learn. Even things that I dislike (I really dislike cleaning the house), I strive to do well for a couple of reasons. Firstly, pride of self: if I am going to do something I feel like I should do it to the best of my ability. Secondly, if I do it right the first time, I might not have to do it again (or at least not as often). In the case of stuff like cleaning, I might not like the process, but I definitely like the results. Thirdly, if I am going to commit my time to something, I'd rather not feel it was a waste of time because I did a shoddy job of it. But I rather like the other version better: “If it's worth doing, it's worth doing exquisitely!” I like flair. I enjoy personality (and not just my own). I think that most things in life are made better because someone really owned it. Sure, you might just be washing the floor, but when you take it that extra step it becomes something more. And if it isn't just a chore, if it is something that you enjoy or want to do, taking that extra step just makes it that much more fabulous! And why not live exquisitely!