A Quote by Martha Beck

Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we're not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail and sometimes even when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive, enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.
Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we’re not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail, and sometimes when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.
We should be talking about celebrating our differences, understanding that those differences make us richer and stronger.
But we should be mindful as we argue about our differences that so much more unites than divides us. We should also note that our differences, when compared with those in many, if not most, other countries, are smaller than we sometimes imagine them to be.
Many of us delude ourselves with the thought that if we could stand in the lot of our more fortunate neighbor, we could live better, happier and more useful lives. ... It is my experience that unless we can succeed in our present position, we could not succeed in any other.
Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change,if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in.
Over time, as the thinking mind begins to settle [through the practice of meditation], we’ll start to see our patterns and habits far more clearly. Sometimes this can be a painful experience. I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. By cultivating nonjudgmental openness to ourselves and to whatever arises, to our surprise and delight we will find ourselves genuinely welcoming the never-pin-downable quality of life, experiencing it as a friend, a teacher, and a support, and no longer as an enemy.
And I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don't hide anymore; none of us. That is the essence of our responsibility. And if we're not willing to do it, we're not worthy to be seated right here. We fail our country. If we don't debate this, if we don't debate this, we are not worthy of our country. We fail our country.
Money is meant not for hoarding, but for using; the aim of life should be to use it in the right way - to spend as much as we can lawfully spend, both upon ourselves and others. And sometimes it is better to do this in our lifetime, when we can see that it is well spent, than to leave it to the chance spending of those that come after us.
As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves. Even our willingness to look at ourselves critically is often helpful.But, we can go too far. We can hoard responsibility and overlook the role others play. We can kick ourselves when we're down. How many times have you felt lousy about something, only to get mad at yourself for feeling lousy?
It's just really important that we start celebrating our differences. Let's start tolerating first, but then we need to celebrate our differences.
I do not believe in a God who would set up rules and commandments only to wait for us to fail so He could punish us. I believe in a Heavenly Father who is loving and caring and who rejoices in our every effort to stand tall and walk toward Him. Even when we stumble, He urges us not to be discouraged-never to give up or flee our allotted field of service-but to take courage, find our faith, and keep trying.
Virtually everything we do is dependent on others, from the arts and culture to farmers who grow the food we eat. Quite a lot of the differences that make us rich and poor are matters just of luck. To somehow revel in one?s privilege would be a mistake. An even bigger mistake would be trying to convert that into a theory that the rich are so much more productive than many of us.
I spent the first twenty years of my running career trying to run as many miles as I could as fast as I could. Then I spent the next twenty years trying to figure out how to run the least amount of miles needed to finish a marathon. And I've come to the conclusion the second way is much more enjoyable.
I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences.
Worrying about the past or the future isn't productive. When you start chastising yourself for past mistakes, or seeing disaster around every corner, stop and take a breath and ask yourself what you can do right now to succeed.
We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and nature in the making of ourselves and one another. From this there is no escape. We may collaborate either well or poorly or we may refuse to collaborate, but even to refuse to collaborate is to exert an influence and to affect the quality of the product. This is only a way of saying that by ourselves we have no meaning and no dignity; by ourselves we are outside the human definition, outside our identity.
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