101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

by Brianna Wiest

Accomplishing goals is not success. How much you expand in the process is.

Fear = interest.

You think your past defines you, and worse, you think that it is an unchangeable reality, when really, your perception of it changes as you do.

This doesn’t mean to disregard or gloss over painful or traumatic events, but simply to be able to recall them with acceptance and to be able to place them in the storyline of your personal evolution.

The things you love about others are the things you love about yourself. The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself.

Your routine could be traveling to a different country every month. It could be being routinely un-routine.

“I feel” as

If you genuinely disliked something, you would simply disengage with it.

Their primary relationship is to themselves, and they work on it tirelessly.

Feeling “lost” or directionless. Feeling lost is actually a sign you’re becoming more present in your life—you’re living less within the narratives and ideas that you premeditated and more in the moment at hand. Until you’re used to this, it will feel as though you’re off-track (you aren’t).

Having random influxes of irrational anger or sadness that intensify until you can’t ignore them anymore. When emotions erupt it’s usually because they’re “coming up” to be recognized, and our job is to learn to stop grappling with them or resisting them and to simply become fully conscious of them (after that, we control them, not the opposite way around).

Feeling like the dreams you had for your life are collapsing. What you do not realize at this moment is that it is making way for a reality better than you could have thought of, one that’s more aligned with who you are, not who you thought you would be.

that you’re off-track and feeling stuck and lost, is you realizing that you need not change your feelings. You just have to learn to lean into them and see what they are trying to tell you.

Sadness will not kill you. Depression won’t, either. But fighting it will. Ignoring it will. Trying to escape it rather than confront it will. Denying it will. Suffocating it will. Allowing it no place to go other than your deep subconscious to embed and control

You either let yourself feel everything or numb yourself into feeling nothing. You cannot select emotions. You are either in accord with their flow or in resistance to their nature. In the end, the choice is yours.

Needed this

We’re more comforted by ideas of what things are as opposed to what they really are.

Most people don’t want to be happy, which is why they aren’t. They just don’t realize this is the case.

Nobody wants to believe happiness is a choice, because that puts responsibility in their hands.

The real stuff is the product of an intentional, mindful, daily practice, and it begins with choosing to commit to it.

as soon as our circumstances extend beyond the amount of happiness we’re accustomed to and comfortable feeling, we unconsciously begin to self-sabotage. We are programmed to seek what we’ve known.

To drink in excess,

the happiness of pleasure—is common when the happiness of excellence isn’t being pursued.

But it is not, and will never be, ...

“Lots and lots of red will neve...

Likewise, those who have never acquainted themselves with the power and pleasure of working toward something fueled not by the sparks of passion but with the embers of sober, consistent resolve, do not know that on the other side of exerted effort, there is profound reward.

realize that thing is what you are not giving yourself.

You blame others because you don’t realize that every relationship you have is with yourself.

People do not suck. You suck. Relationships are the ultimate teaching tools, the most intense healing opportunities, the most explosively beautiful chances for us to really see what is unresolved within us.

For the tenth time, say it with me now: The love you really want is your own.

We believe that “happiness” is the sustained state of feeling “good.” It is because of this belief that we are not happy. Happy people are not people who “feel good” all the time; they are the people who are able to be guided by their negative emotions rather than paralyzed by them.

In the absolute simplest terms possible, we call this peace: when neither the desire for a high or the suppression of the low is present. When you’ve shifted your baseline from “survive” to “thrive” and have detached from outcomes, you can enjoy what each day brings.

Once you step out from the endless race of chasing elusive happiness, you realize that you were never running toward something

better, you were just trying to outrun yourself. You will also realize that it was only because of pain that you were able to understand this. Your pain lined the pathway; it ...