While waiting for direction, we do not have to put our life on hold. Let go of anxiety and enjoy life. Relax. Do something fun. Enjoy the love and beauty in your life. Accomplish small tasks. They may have nothing to do with solving the problem, or finding direction, but this is what we can do in the interim.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 355
It’s up to us to determine our happiness. No one else is in charge. No one else is to blame. No one else gets the credit. Our happiness is tied to our willingness to be responsible for our own moods. That’s a certainty — one of few in this life. It’s also a certainty that any happiness we feel in the company of others is not the result of their attention, their happiness or good fortune, or their commitment to us. It’s the result of our commitment to ourselves. Let’s be grateful for that! Accepting this, accepting that we are responsible for ourselves and ourselves alone, is the key to allowing the rest of our lives to unfold as they were meant to do.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 51
Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing. The secret is finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your way. What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow. There’s a time in our lives when we all crave the answers. It seems terrifying not to know what’s coming next. But there is another time, a better time, when we see our lives as a series of choices, and What now represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life. It’s up to you to choose a life that will keep expanding. It takes discipline to remain curious; it takes work to be open to the world — but oh my friends, what noble and glorious work it is.
— Ann Patchett, What Now? p. 76-78
There is no revenge as sweet as living a joyful life.
— Dr. Shirley P. Glass, PhD, NOT “Just Friends”
If you meet with selfishness, joyfully call it a chance to be unselfish yourself. Practice the unselfish attitude which is so obviously lacking in some particular person or situation, and lovely, unselfish things will begin springing up all around you. Instead of saying in thought, “what irritating, thoughtless neighbors,” begin calling them to yourself “delightful, potential friends and companions.” Just as though you wave a magic wand over them, they will certainly become that if you persist long enough, or else they will move away and be replaced by delightful companions. For you are waving a magic wand over yourself, remember, changing yourself into the nature of the name you give, so that people of the same nature will gravitate to you.
That, of course, is the whole secret and key. What you think, you yourself become in spirit. Spirits are continually attracted to, and gravitating towards, other spirits that think, desire, and feel the same kind of things as themselves. To think only of good things continually attracts other good and loving spirits to you in the real world of spirit or thought as you strengthen and bless one another. The reverse happens if you think and feel unkind or unloving things.
— Hannah Hurnard, Eagles Wings to the Higher Places, p. 66-67
Loving others will definitely improve your life right now. Take that passion that is God’s gift to you and lavish it on others. Think of yourself as being loved, because you are. God loves you, and probably many others do as well. Once you move from focusing on an absence of love to recognizing the abundance of love already within, you will stop postponing happiness. A life of loving is available now.
— Mary Manin Morrissey, No Less Than Greatness, p. 72
Some healthy selfishness now can rekindle the excitement and joy in your life — feelings that are nearer to the surface than you might imagine. Best of all it can help you realize some of your most private and most precious dreams — now, while there’s still time.
— Dr. Rachael Heller and Dr. Richard Heller, Healthy Selfishness: Getting the Life You Deserve Without the Guilt, p. 53
Joy is of our making, and it is most easily made when we acknowledge God. I am inclined to say that acknowledging God is a necessary exercise. At least I have found it so. As I have said already, our minds can hold but a single thought. If God is in that thought, every experience has the capacity to instill joy in us. . . .
Joy is always available to us moment by moment. But we must keep our minds open and pay attention. A closed mind or a mind filled with fear or judgment will never know joy. A red rose beginning to open, a willow tree swaying in the breeze, the rainbow after a shower, the dew glistening on each blade of grass in the early morning, a baby taking her first steps — all of these moments hold the potential for joy. Every moment of every day we can see evidence of God everywhere. And we can feel overjoyed by this evidence if we want to. The decision is ours.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 30-31
Stinginess sits at one end of the continuum. At the other end is the experience of being lavish. For many of us, that word produces an instant response: Oh, I couldn’t, I shouldn’t! But if you don’t give to yourself, how will your life become abundant? Lavish means stepping wholeheartedly into the big middle of life, rather than just tiptoeing partway in. Lavish means letting the flow of life move freely through you. Lavish isn’t busy trying to control everything (that’s stingy). Lavish is juicy, and yes, it’s messy. It’s alive.
— Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity, p. 43
Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord.” It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.
— C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time” (The Weight of Glory), quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis, p. 323