Jessica

“I recognized the emphasis on “grit” as a final throwing up of hands. Kids too young to speak would be held responsible for their own problems. It didn’t matter how they were wronged, or how preventable the harm; their job was to contain the damage, making the blast zone smaller by absorbing all the impact. When flagrant affronts drew the ire of society—like migrant children separated from their families and detained in tent cities, oil fields, and a converted Walmart—I found myself numb. Maybe it’s for the better, I thought. Maybe the adversity will make them stronger. The doctrine of “anything bad can be alchemized into something good” had been so drilled into me that it seemed to apply even in this extreme situation. I was horrified by the logic I’d internalized. The whole song and dance of resilience chipped away at my humanity. It required a profound lack of empathy. It erased any pain, no matter how great, as long as it resulted in productivity.”
― Emi Nietfeld, Acceptance

“People delay action once they know truth—and the interim between knowing and doing is the space where suffering thrives. Most of the time, it’s not about not knowing what to do (or not knowing who you are). It’s about the resistance between what’s right and what’s easy, what’s best in the long v. short term. We hear our instincts; we just don’t listen. This is the single most common root of discomfort: the space between knowing and doing. We’re culturally addicted to procrastination, but we’re also just as enamored by deflection. By not acting immediately, we think we’re creating space for the truth to shift, when we’re really only creating discomfort so that we can sense it more completely (though we’re suffering needlessly in the process).”
― Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“The worst happened, and then it passed. You lost the person you thought you couldn’t live without and then you kept living. You lost your job then found another one. You began to realize that “safety” isn’t in certainty—but in faith that you can simply keep going.”
― Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think