A Stolen Heart (The Miraveld Chronicles, #4)

by Selina R. Gonzalez

“Oh, please. Don’t use a harsher standard on yourself than you do on others. Not only will it make you miserable, but eventually you’ll hate yourself so much you’ll resent everyone else for not suffering under the same burden of impossible expectations. You’ll start using that standard on others even if you don’t mean to. One day you’ll look at yourself and realize you don’t remember when you became cruel.”

“He said that was no way to live, especially when I can’t actually know if the future holds pain or something good or benign. I was doing the Shafers’ job for them, tormenting myself and making myself a prisoner of my own fear and hopelessness. ‘You think expecting the worst protects you,’ he said. ‘It just makes you miserable twice over—in the present with miserable anticipation that can’t change a thing, and again in the future if you end up being right. You aren’t protecting yourself. You’re robbing yourself of any chance of joy or peace.’”

maybe we don’t have to add to the misery the world gives us,

what if your belief that you can’t be happy is the most formidable barrier between you and being happy?

“If you think there’s even a chance you could be happy with Vallyn, I wish you’d take it.”