“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
“We do not wish to judge anyone nor wish to be judged
in return. Meaning, we must dwell on the neutral side, in order to fully understand ourselves and those who are constantly causing us trouble in our daily lives.”
― Treatise Upon The Misconceptions of Narcissism
in return. Meaning, we must dwell on the neutral side, in order to fully understand ourselves and those who are constantly causing us trouble in our daily lives.”
― Treatise Upon The Misconceptions of Narcissism
“Night is when we are closer to ourselves, closer to essential ideas and feelings that do not register so much during daylight hours.”
― Women Who Run With the Wolves
― Women Who Run With the Wolves
“The only trust required is to know that when there is one ending there will be another beginning.”
― Women Who Run With the Wolves
― Women Who Run With the Wolves
“One of the most important struggles of humanity is to ensure that our ‘fight against hate’ does not become ‘hate’ itself – while knowing that our neutrality in times of oppression is oppression itself.”
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Hilkka’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Hilkka’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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