My friend Mike posts Mirror Mantras on his bathroom mirror each Monday to help get him through the week [go say happy birthday to him by the way!].
I posted my first Mirror Mantra in my March 12 of 12 last Monday, but why let the goodness stop there considering my mom didn’t make me take the post-it off the mirror, instead just moved it over to the edge of the mirror.
Here’s this week’s:
change your thoughts and you change your world
–norman vincent peale
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, even before this quote came into my life.
We define our own variables, our own thoughts, our own worlds.
We have the power to choose how we think about things in our lives, whether those things are positive or negative. We have the chose to determine whether we are going to be broken down by these things, these circumstances, or if we are going to use them to build ourselves up, and perhaps in turn, use the change in ourselves to build the people around us up.
We can choose to reach farther and climb over the obstacles, or we can choose to freeze in a wave of self-doubt and be stopped by them. There is no limit to how long we could stay frozen, but any length of time is keeping us from truly experiencing what we were created to do, and wasting precious moments of which we will never have enough. How we see our world is nobody’s choice but our own, and because of this we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Every single decision we make and every goal we strive to reach, whether it seems small or seems big, affects us in a huge way.
the ripple effect is too good not to mention / if you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention / it’s too good not to have an effect
–rogues, incubus
We have the choice to change our thoughts to change our worlds.
Don’t compromise. Go get it.
I love good quotes. I’m sure in some sort of way this stems from my fifth-grade self and my obsession with the Amazing Days of Abby Hayes books (related: I basically wanted to be her with her awesome purple pens and purple journal notebook and quotes and writing all the time. Okay aside from being a fictional character with a purple pen and notebook, I was totally all over the rest of that statement). Basically, even when my writing all the time phase died out (I go through phases; getting back into that), the whole massive love for epic snippets other people’s writing stayed with me, making my Tumblr full of quotes and my Facebook Philosophy quotes section rather long!
I love Mike‘s Mirror Mantras, but could never remember to change my quote weekly when I tried. So in a sort of similar fashion, I load my whiteboard up with these, and update as needed:
Got some unknowns, some Foo Fighters (I’m obsessed with song lyrics and totally have been since I was like nine), some Jay, some Dr. Alan R. Zimmerman and some stuff from my own brain pulling me through!
I’m currently in the midst of juggling school, writing a paper, falling further behind in readings, navigating some other stuff, work and picking up where I left off after an intense weekend away at the youth retreat — sometimes picking up after just a couple days away feels like picking up after so much longer.
in an e-mail I got from Jay [my prof] today about some of the above, he added these quotes to the end:
“Learning is how children use experience to modify behaviour. Play is how children use behaviour to modify experience”
–Marshall
“Even in the midst of our own struggles, we can offer encouragement. Even during our personal low periods, we can continue to try and be a mentor to those around us. If we are honest about what we are facing, we can offer hope to others that they are not alone.”
–John Wooden
Total resonation.