Christine

“I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to. The rewards of finding and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. They require patience and maintenance. We must be willing to move forward despite being uncertain of what lies ahead. We must have faith that actions today that seem to have no impact in the present moment are in fact accumulating in a positive direction, which will be revealed to us only at some unknown time in the future. Healthy practices happen day by day. My patient Maria said to me, “Recovery is like that scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore walks down a darkened alley lighting lampposts along the way. Only when he gets to the end of the alley and stops to look back does he see the whole alley illuminated, the light of his progress.”
― Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

“So, instead of looking for hope, try this:
Don't hope.
Don't despair, either.
In fact, don't deign to believe you know anything. It's that assumption of knowing with such blind, fervent, emotional certainty that gets us into these kinds of pickles in the first place.
Don't hope for better. Just be better.
Be something better. Be more compassionate, more resilient, more humble, more disciplined. [...]
Be a better human.”
― Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope

“Unlearning is challenging. Do not expect neat, tidy resolutions, or assume that we will instantly fix the world’s ills in a single dialogue. We can, however, get closer to those goals if we are willing to be uncomfortable.”
― Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

“The two of us weren’t made for this world, because there’s nothing in it we want to possess.”
― Semezdin Mehmedinović, My Heart