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Always Believe in Yourself and Your Dreams: A Collection
Always Believe in Yourself and Your A Collection (Self-Help & Recovery) [Jan 01, 1999] Patricia Wayant …
61 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 28, 2018
5 stars for my grandmother giving it to me for high school graduation. 1 star for it not being compelling enough for me to have completed the 30-something page book in 20-something years. That gives us a solid 3.
My real review is that I was pretty saddened early on by all the “you have the power within you” messages and no acknowledgment of the metaphysical forces that guide, interfere, and complicate our destinies and our contemplation, manipulation, or reaction to them.
But other than that, there are a lot of good attempts at turning life’s learned lessons into platitudes for a younger generation. I hope they spoke to a young person in need & helped her. I don’t think I would have benefitted much from their words even if I had actually read them at 18 because you just DON’t know if you are doing the right thing or following the right dream when you are young - it takes either serious meditation and contemplation, good hardwiring from a childhood of well-set examples or fruitful trial and error and divine intervention.
It does not take away from the gesture that my grandmother was making, and I’ll hold onto it for the inscription and so I can flip to the page about following your compass and realize that it’s true, it’s all true - I just don’t think you can know it until you’ve lived it and trusted it.
My real review is that I was pretty saddened early on by all the “you have the power within you” messages and no acknowledgment of the metaphysical forces that guide, interfere, and complicate our destinies and our contemplation, manipulation, or reaction to them.
But other than that, there are a lot of good attempts at turning life’s learned lessons into platitudes for a younger generation. I hope they spoke to a young person in need & helped her. I don’t think I would have benefitted much from their words even if I had actually read them at 18 because you just DON’t know if you are doing the right thing or following the right dream when you are young - it takes either serious meditation and contemplation, good hardwiring from a childhood of well-set examples or fruitful trial and error and divine intervention.
It does not take away from the gesture that my grandmother was making, and I’ll hold onto it for the inscription and so I can flip to the page about following your compass and realize that it’s true, it’s all true - I just don’t think you can know it until you’ve lived it and trusted it.
March 8, 2016
This helped me understand a lot and that it's OKAY not to be PERFECT.
July 10, 2018
Going through my book shelf at home and coming across some oldies but goodies! My mom gave me this book of inspirational poems for my high school graduation! They have been so wonderful to read as they make me believe in myself! Life is hard but it also full of choices and you must not be afraid to try new things in life even if those things are hard! These poems have been such a great reminder to me considering I’ve been through a lot in the last 16 months of my life!
April 1, 2020
Most relevant quote at the moment:
My best advice to you is to give it "the rocking chair test." Imagine that you'r ninety years old, sitting on the porch and rocking in your chair as you reflect back on your life. Will you regret doing this ---- or NOT doing it? Pick the decision you can live with, and have no regrets in your choice. Believe in the choices you make.
Anne Larnella Hood
My best advice to you is to give it "the rocking chair test." Imagine that you'r ninety years old, sitting on the porch and rocking in your chair as you reflect back on your life. Will you regret doing this ---- or NOT doing it? Pick the decision you can live with, and have no regrets in your choice. Believe in the choices you make.
Anne Larnella Hood
July 2, 2026
This book is pretty bad. Its biggest issue is the sheer mountain of cliches that this book spits at you, but really, the biggest issue isn’t really the book itself, the issue IS the cliches themselves.
The essential motive of this book is to give you lazily written quotes to “inspire you to greater things.” But the messaging ends up relying pretty heavily on the tried and true cliche of “believe in yourself, because you’re perfect and amazing and your heart judgement is never wrong.” This is obviously a wildly untrue belief. Taking this message to the degree this book takes it leads you, the reader, into this particularly harmful form of idolatry, and I say particularly harmful because it’s idolatry with YOU as the idol. The reason this is particularly harmful is because, even in conventional idolatry, at least you can recognize your faults and problems within yourself and see that you need to conform to a higher power for the bettering of your self. But putting yourself as this idol means that you are essentially the god of your own heart. That your judgments are infallible, that your glorification is most important, that you are worthy of adoration, worship, praise and faith, which is essentially what Satan believes. I think that this message has permeated the world for generations and has created the entitled, backwards world around us, and the more these cliches permeate, the worse off we’ll all be. This is the foundation of what writers like RH Sin, Amanda Lovelace, and Atticus rely on to produce their slop. It’s horrendous and it should outrage people more than it does.
This book is also just this kind of lazy, poorly written, shallow, watery murk that you sift through only to find… well nothing really.
If you haven’t read this, don’t.
If you read this and hated it, good.
If you read this and loved it and the message it teaches, get off your high horse, and realize that you and I are just not that special.
The essential motive of this book is to give you lazily written quotes to “inspire you to greater things.” But the messaging ends up relying pretty heavily on the tried and true cliche of “believe in yourself, because you’re perfect and amazing and your heart judgement is never wrong.” This is obviously a wildly untrue belief. Taking this message to the degree this book takes it leads you, the reader, into this particularly harmful form of idolatry, and I say particularly harmful because it’s idolatry with YOU as the idol. The reason this is particularly harmful is because, even in conventional idolatry, at least you can recognize your faults and problems within yourself and see that you need to conform to a higher power for the bettering of your self. But putting yourself as this idol means that you are essentially the god of your own heart. That your judgments are infallible, that your glorification is most important, that you are worthy of adoration, worship, praise and faith, which is essentially what Satan believes. I think that this message has permeated the world for generations and has created the entitled, backwards world around us, and the more these cliches permeate, the worse off we’ll all be. This is the foundation of what writers like RH Sin, Amanda Lovelace, and Atticus rely on to produce their slop. It’s horrendous and it should outrage people more than it does.
This book is also just this kind of lazy, poorly written, shallow, watery murk that you sift through only to find… well nothing really.
If you haven’t read this, don’t.
If you read this and hated it, good.
If you read this and loved it and the message it teaches, get off your high horse, and realize that you and I are just not that special.
March 21, 2008
This book fell into my hands quite unexpectedly and I stopped what I was doing to read it, right then and there.It is a lovely collection of so many wonderful,inspiring poems. Each one has its own message for believing in yourself and following your dreams.
I especially loved the advice given by Anne Larnella Hood for people struggling over a difficult decision. She says to give it the 'rocking chair test'.
I recommend this beautifully produced book to anyone who is searching deep within themselves.
The opening quote says it all:
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" - Marie Curie
I especially loved the advice given by Anne Larnella Hood for people struggling over a difficult decision. She says to give it the 'rocking chair test'.
I recommend this beautifully produced book to anyone who is searching deep within themselves.
The opening quote says it all:
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" - Marie Curie
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September 10, 2009J808.81Way
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews