101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

by Brianna Wiest

It is not something that exists outside of you.

If you go on living as though other people are required to give you love, you will never actually experience it.

Your life turns into a series of little love stories, all of which teach you how to love better, how to give more, how to be more of yourself, what you like and what you don’t. How to walk away with grace, and respect yourself genuinely, and listen to your intuition.

When you want to pity yourself over how little love you’re getting, I ask you to stop and consider: How much are you giving?

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

The essential point of a psychological guidance system (religious or not)—rather, the kinds that work—is not to supplant a mindset into you. Rather, it's to give you the tools for introspection, to figure out the answers yourself. To pose questions, to give examples, to have you reflect, and through that recognition connect to your inner guidance system, your intuition, and your essential self.

You have more than just your problems to talk about with friends. More interests you than just gossip—as you’ve learned that those conversations have very little to do with other people, and absolutely everything to do with you.

You don’t blame other people for your problems anymore. You don’t choose to suffer because you assume if you complain loudly enough, the universe will have to fix it.

You don’t relate to a lot of your old friends anymore, but you can still keep in touch and appreciate the role they had in your life.

If you don’t value money by appreciating what it does for you, you’ll never feel as though you have enough.

Assume that all things are for the best. When people care most about how their lives look is when they’re most closed to how their lives feel. When they’re most closed to how their lives feel is when they don’t want to feel pain. Being truly at peace requires realizing that everything is for the best. Everything in your life does one of three things: shows you to yourself, heals a part of yourself, or lets you enjoy a part of yourself. If you adopt that perspective, there’s nothing left to fear.

The universe whispers until it screams, and happy people listen while the call is still quiet.

There are two mindsets people tend to have: explorer or settler. Our society has a “settler” mindset, our end goals are “finalizing” (home, marriage, career, etc.) in a world that was made for evolution, in selves that do nothing but grow and expand and change. People with “explorer” mindsets are able to actually enjoy what they have and experience it fully because they are inherently unattached.

What’s interesting about having real self-esteem is that it eliminates the need to focus on how we’re superior to others. When we don’t feel we’re actually in control of our lives (or aren’t happy with how things are going so far) we often focus on “how much better things are than someone else” to placate the feeling of failure.

Self-assertiveness. You can stand up for yourself without being defensive. Defensiveness is born of fear; assertiveness is born of confidence.

In accepting what was done to you, you realize that nobody has control at the end of the day, but in surrendering the need for something we’ll never have, we can find peace, which is what we were actually seeking in the first place.

They develop compassion and self-awareness. They are more conscious of who they let into their lives. They take a more active role in creating their lives, in being grateful for what they have and in finding reasons for what they don’t.

That’s what happens when we finally get past hurtful experiences and terrible relationships: We realize we are worth more, and so we choose more.

the “good” teaches you well, but the “bad” teaches you better.

The best things will not make sense—not initially, at least.

People who waste their lives search for reasons to love rather than ways to love.

Sometimes the point is to experience not knowing and confusion. What is born of your uncertainty is sometimes more important than not having been certain in the first place.

Clarity comes from doing, not thinking about doing.

A good life comes from choosing to work with what you have, accepting that you don’t always choose what you work with, but knowing you’re always given what you need to use, especially when you don’t realize you need to use it.

screens > people is basically the best way to create an extremely anxious lifestyle for yourself.

(judgment = a need to be superior, which = feeling incredibly inferior).

It’s doing, not thinking about doing, that creates a life well lived.

If you want your life to be different, do differently.

Confidence is built from what you do, a positive mindset is rooted in what you do, loving relationships are sustained from what you do, purposeful work is cultivated by doing it, not thinking about why you should (and believing that’s the same thing).

What defines your life, when it’s all said and done, is how much you influence other people’s lives, oftentimes just through your daily interactions and the courage with which you live your own. That’s what people remember. That’s what you will be known for when you’re no longer around to define yourself.

One more time for the people in the back: You love in others what you love in yourself. You hate in others what you cannot see in yourself.

They know when it’s time to break up with a friend.

Emotionally healthy people know that no physical acquisition can shock them into feeling what they desire—not for more than a moment, anyway. So they forgo the rat race and learn to be grounded in the simplicity of life. They want not and waste not, keep in their space only things that are meaningful or useful. They are mindful and intentional, grateful and wise with what they consume and keep.

They can be alone. What you find in solitude is perspective. When you’re not in the presence of people with whom you must monitor your reactions and choose your sentences wisely, you can let yourself just be. It’s why we find it most profoundly relaxing and why emotionally healthy people practice it often.

Animals don’t actualize what it means to have gotten their prey or not. They don’t consider the psychological implications of a potential mate walking away. They don’t piece together their lives or reach for “more.” Their instinctive existence works because they don’t inherently desire to transcend it.

Animals have no need to evaluate whether or not they’ve had a “good life,” so they don’t strive to be more than they are. But we do.

We were not built to be more than we are. Our desire to be more isn’t a matter of being beyond our humanness, but wanting to be comfortably in it. Sages teach that we’re designed for the messiness and simplicity of everyday life—that desiring an external “more” is a mechanism of the ego. It’s not transcendence, it’s avoidance.

The way to measure a good life is by how much you still want to change it, which is proportionate to how much you inherently know it can be better. You measure a good life by your capacity to feel discomfort. The extent to which you’ve questioned yourself. How many times you’ve changed your mind. The series of dogmas you’ve adopted and left. The family you chose for yourself.

The number of coffee cups over which you’ve had funny and serious and hurtful and beautiful talks. The depth to which your empathy extends. The number of long walks you’ve taken by yourself and journal pages you’ve filled with the incoherent thoughts. The evolution of the way you philosophize your existence. The evolution of the way you perceive other people. The days you’ve soberly worked despite the shards of passion having dissolved. A good life isn’t passionate, i...

A good life is not measured by what you do, it’s about what you are. Not how many people you loved, but how much. It has nothing to do with how well things turn out or how seamlessly the plan is followed. It’s about the bits of magic you stumble upon when you dive off path. It’s not about the things that didn’t work out; it’s about what you learn when they don’t. Those bits and pieces, awakenings and knowledge, are what build and make you able to perceive things greater than you can currently imagine. A good life is not how it adds up in the end, but what you’re counting along the way.

The feeling of absolute peacefulness right before you fall asleep.

The love you know you’re eventually “meant” for.

People who are funny without being mean.

A person or thing that also feels like “home” (a non-house home).

The idea that is “all is as it should be.”

Our feelings are how we communicate with ourselves.

It does not matter whether or not you’re in the absolute worst-case scenario, complaining, worrying or being negative will never help. Anything. At all. Ever.

External acquisition does not yield internal contentment.

Once we are initially convinced that not just money, but an idea of morality, education, and yes, general wealth, parlay into contentment, we become rats on a spinning wheel and we’ll spend the rest of our lives there if we aren’t careful.

I don’t know about you, but I have never seen a god so worshipped and adored as a dollar bill.