Measuring Up Quotes

“Speaking of - why the heck am I looking at his figure? My eyes snap up. Sure enough, he's looking, cocky little grin in place like he's God's gift to the female eye and he caught me praising the Lord.”
― Nyrae Dawn

“But self-mastery triumphs in this Modern Life of ours. So if we haven’t found happiness or calm or balance amidst it all - if we don’t cope - it’s because we’ve not tried hard enough. Because Modern Life dictates there’s an answer out there . . .you just have to try harder to find it and master it. Of course it doesn’t exist. So we are set up to fail.
I feel for younger people. I think they’re hit particularly hard by this doomed imperative. Many sociologists peg increased anxiety among teens and young adults to this phenomenon.
The standard solution is to consume - food, possessions, partners, gurus. If our self-worth is suffering, we’re told to buy a new moisturizer. Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, writes, “We have so much fucking stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t even know what to give a fuck about anymore.”
Shia once again: “Today we’re told to do more stuff that has no purpose, which makes
anxious.”
Again, I think young people feel this acutely.
And here’s the dirty clincher: All of it drives us outward, away from our true selves and fro our yearning to know ourselves better. Plus, it drives us away from each other. Lack of community and belonging is cited by Dr. Jean Twenge, a social psychologist at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - And More Miserable Than Ever Before, as the primary driver of anxiety today. I’d include extensive quotes from Dr. Twenge, but I think the book title says it all.
Then (big sigh), when we do find it all too much, Modern Life slaps us with a “disorder” or disease diagnosis.”
― Sarah Wilson, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

“Self-love has to include a disregard for how other people might perceive me, and living as though life is in the present, rather than something that will start in earnest once certain thresholds have been passed. I sometimes have to say aloud to myself: you do not agree that life's worth should be measured in this way. Don't give the idea the authority to direct your self-criticism for not measuring up. It feels like a life's work. Repeat it until you mean it. Say it like a friend would.”
― Amy Key, Arrangements in Blue