How did the Oscar change my life? What it did was that it gave me a new reality. And it let me know that an award wasn't going to change my life - that I had to be in control of changing my life.
People always ask me, when I had the idea for TOMS, did it change my life? As romantic and noble as it is, no it did not change my life. But when I went to Argentina on that first shoe-drop, it did change my life.
When you ask, did writing change my life? It totally changed my life. It gave me my life.
When most people set out to change their lives, they often focus on all the external stuff, like a new job or a new location or new friends or a new romantic prospects and on and on. The reality is that changing your life starts with changing the way you see everything in your life.
I think a lot of the questions - questioning reality and the self and the desire to change, to me are always at the heart of life. No matter how old you are, to me life is always about changing and growing and discovering and that's not always easy.
The first part of my life was to be an actor and maybe have some success at that. Then [it was time] to find somebody to be in a relationship with and have a life that way. Because of Parkinson's, I had to change: How can I be of service here? Is there something unique to my situation that I can use to help people? I did not have the wherewithal to invent that. It just happened in front of me and had me join in.
The accident did not change my life, change the way I think, the way I work. For sure, it gave me even more experience. The biggest problem was my sight, I couldn't see with my left eye.
You know what Oprah taught me? Unless you count as changing your life having a neighborhood dad say to you every morning at the school bus stop, 'You sure don't look as good as you did on 'Oprah!', being on 'Oprah' doesn't change your life.
The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful. But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life.
Life is movement. Movement is change. Every time a sub molecular particle swings through time and space, something is changing. Change, therefore, is inevitable. It is the nature of life itself. The trick in life is not to try to avoid change, but to create change. Then it is the kind of change you choose.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality," says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life.
I change my life when I change my thinking.
I am Light. I am Spirit.
I am a wonderful, capable being.
And it is time for me to acknowledge
that I create my own reality with my thoughts.
If I want to change my reality,
then it is time for me to change my mind.
Everyone had legs. Even my younger sisters both had legs. It was hard to comprehend what I did wrong: Why me? Then I found out about the Paralympics. It really did completely change my life.
People say, 'You have inspired me, you've given me courage...' They've gone so far as to say, 'You've changed my life!' And I would come back and say to my husband, 'I can't understand it - what kind of poor little life did she have if I had to come and change it?'
Life as such has to be taken as a cosmic joke - and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. And in that very relaxation something starts changing in you - a radical change, a transformation - and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life.
If there's something in your life that you know needs changing, make sure you change it before God's got to change it. Because if God's got to change it, you ain't going to like it.
I've been a Colt for almost all of my adult life, but I guess in life, and in sports, we all know nothing lasts forever. Times change, circumstances change, and that's the reality of playing in the NFL.