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Self Reflection Quotes

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Self Reflection Quotes

“I could watch him do this until morning — never asking questions and never interrupting his work. I worship quietly — his intense focus and attention to detail and then, out of no where, I realize the inconvenient, inappropriate truth: ‘I love this man… and it has swallowed me.”

“Când am intrat prima dată într-o școală, acum 20 de ani, nu știam că începuturile pot fi atât de zguduitoare. Ani la rând am încercat să mă adaptez unui sistem care nu se adapta niciodată la mine. Am învățat din mers ce înseamnă identitatea unui profesor, cât de mult te expune o clasă și cât de repede se vede adevărul tău interior când stai în fața copiilor. Astăzi sunt psiholog și lucrez cu profesori, adolescenți și adulți care trec prin aceleași întrebări pe care le-am avut și eu. Există un moment în viața fiecărui profesor în care își pune aceeași întrebare: De ce nu mi-a spus nimeni cum e, de fapt? Am creat această resursă pentru ca debutanții să nu meargă singuri. Ca să știe că nu este nimic în neregulă cu ei dacă se simt copleșiți.”

“Burnout doesn’t happen all at once—it builds over time, often so gradually that you don’t even realize how much it’s affecting you.”

“I think about all the things money can and cannot buy. A spot at SCC, but not a moral compass. Health care and rehab, but not immunity from our worst impulses. Fluency in Mandarin, but not the ability to talk honestly. Privilege and large heaping chunks of the world, but not confidence. Or self-reflection. And certainly not courage. No, money doesn’t buy courage. In fact, if I’ve learned anything since the scandal, it’s that the opposite is true. Money makes you weak because it tricks you into thinking you’re strong.”

“What about someone who believes in beautiful things but doesn’t believe in the beautiful itself and isn’t able to follow anyone who could lead him to the knowledge of it? Don’t you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? Isn’t this dreaming: whether asleep or awake, to think that a likeness is not a likeness but rather the thing itself that it is like?”

“At school I was a nuisance, for my father was now Chairman of our Continuation School Board, and I affected airs of near-equality with the teacher that must have galled her; I wanted to argue about everything, expand everything, and generally turn every class into a Socratic powwwow instead of getting on with the curriculum. Probably I made her nervous, as a pupil full of green, fermenting information is so well able to do. I have dealt with many innumerable variations of my younger self in classrooms since then, and have mentally apologized for my tiresomeness.”

“Almost universally, when people look back on their lives while on their deathbed [...] they wish they had spent more time with the people and activities they truly loved and less time worrying about aspects of life that, upon deeper examination, really don't matter at all that much. Imagining yourself at your own funeral allows you to look back at your life while you still have the chance to make some important changes.”

“today i saw myself for the first time when i dusted off the mirror of my mind and the woman looking back took my breath away who was this beautiful beastling this extra-celestial earthling i touched my face and my reflection touched the woman of my dreams all her gorgeous smirking back at me my knees surrendered to the earth as i wept and sighed at how i’d gone my whole life being myself but not seeing myself spent decades living inside my body never left it once yet managed to miss all its miracles isn’t it funny how you can occupy a space without being in touch with it how it took so long for me to open the eyes of my eyes embrace the heart of my heart kiss the soles of my swollen feet and hear them whisper thank you thank you thank you for noticing”

“So, what is my concept of a perfect life? Doing something you love, being in the company of someone you love, while all material needs are satisfied. (Hmmm…sounds almost too simple, yet it does sound like the correct formula for me.) Let’s try to simplify: Enjoyment, Love, Satisfaction. I truly believe that each of these core elements not only apply to our relationship with others and the world around us, but more importantly to our relationship with our self. That is likely one of the keys to personal fulfillment: enjoying the person you are, loving the person you are and being satisfied with the person you are. If you are not, something must change before you start worrying about gaps or missing elements regarding your relationship to the world around you. Too often, people go chasing elusive relationships and opportunities, seeking enjoyment, love and satisfaction without first attending to their relationship with their self. Start with the core, before searching for more.”

“People that hold onto hate for so long do so because they want to avoid dealing with their pain. They falsely believe if they forgive they are letting their enemy believe they are a doormat. What they don’t understand is hatred can’t be isolated or turned off. It manifests in their health, choices and belief systems. Their values and religious beliefs make adjustments to justify their negative emotions. Not unlike malware infesting a hard drive, their spirit slowly becomes corrupted and they make choices that don’t make logical sense to others. Hatred left unaddressed will crash a person’s spirit. The only thing he or she can do is to reboot, by fixing him or herself, not others. This might require installing a firewall of boundaries or parental controls on their emotions. Regardless of the approach, we are all connected on this "network of life" and each of us is responsible for cleaning up our spiritual registry.”

“Time, place, and space for all things, but spending [the] majority of one's time playing in outer places, and far less time exploring inner space, is perhaps the worst form of neglect. Don't play yourself; the real you awaits.”

“Self-transformation commences with a period of self-questioning. Questions lead to more questions, bewilderment leads to new discoveries, and growing personal awareness leads to transformation in how a person lives. Purposeful modification of the self only commences with revising our mind’s internal functions. Revamped internal functions eventually alter how we view our external environment.”

“Intentional self-reflection is a continuous-improvement practice of asking yourself: Am I still thinking? Still aware of myself, knowing myself, discovering myself? Still learning? Still teaching? Still impacting lives? Still adding value to humanity? Still contributing to knowledge and growing? It’s an ongoing process for sustained growth and self-discovery.”

“We are the product of our past. We start each day where we left off the day before. Changing the way we dress, where we work and live, or even changing a name does not alter our basic constitution. Transformation of the self requires a radical alteration in the way that we perceive the world and derive meaning.”

“The ego might resist change until a person’s level of discomfort becomes unbearable. A person can employ logic to overcome the ego’s defense mechanism and intentionally integrate needed revisions in a person’s obsolete or ineffective beliefs and behavior patterns. The subtle sense that something is amiss in a person’s life can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in a person’s conscious thoughts and outlook on life. Resisting change can prolong unhappiness whereas implementing change can establish internal harmony and instate joy in a person’s life.”

“We become the product of our recurrent thoughts. Writing is one method of explicating upon our thoughts, condensing multiple scenes, times, and ideas, and editing our fragmented beliefs.”

“Disturbing encounters in life spur reflective thinking that jars a person from his or her exhausted ideologies and way of living. A person who lives passionately will develop a philosophic outlook because the road of excess leads to knowledge. Enthusiasm will frequently make a person look foolish, and result in intermittent periods of despondency and self-questioning, yet only exuberance and a degree of risk-taking leads us to wisdom.”

“Self-knowledge is the foundation stone of every principled person, and any changes of a person’s mutable character commences with an extensive course of self-evaluation. Personal evolution is a product of the independent choices we make. Progress in the development of oneself depends upon how honestly a person judges oneself, and what corrections a person makes to align their character with an ideal version of a self.”

“Writing a memoir is a holistic method of learning and healing by placing responsibility for personal transformation on the spiritual authority of the self. Writing a person’s life story is useful to gain a comprehensive understanding regarding a person’s maturation, distinctive stages of personal development, and the influences provided by their family and society. The writing processes also serves as a catharsis for painful personal events that a person seeks to integrate into their transmuting being. Writing our personal story, we discover new dimensions of our being.”

“Understanding of oneself is the first act in establishing a transformative philosophy for living a vivid and a reflective existence. Knowing thy self is essential to designing and instigating a meaningful life that is self-directed instead of exclusively controlled by innate traits and external determinates.”