101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

by Brianna Wiest

The feeling of sun on your skin.

The fact that the way to change your life is to change the way you think, and the way to change the way you think is to change what you read.

What qualities you admire most in other people. (This is what you most like about yourself.)

What qualities you most dislike in other people. (This is what you cannot see, or are resisting, in yourself.)

How to fight better. How to eloquently communicate your thoughts and feelings without putting people on the defensive, and starting an argument where there should just be a deepening of connection.

The people who depend on you, and how absolutely devastated they would be if you were no longer in their lives.

Who and where you will be in five years if you carry on as you are right now.

The most important things you’ve learned about life so far.

How many people go to bed at night crying, wishing they had what you have—the job, the love, the apartment, the education, the friends, and so on.

What your most fully realized self is like. How your best self thinks. What they are grateful for, who they love. The first, and most important step, to being the person you were intended to be is to conceive of them. Once you’ve accomplished that, everything else falls in line.

You cannot be whatever you want, but if you work hard and don’t give up and happen to be born to circumstances that facilitate it, you can maybe do something that crosses your abilities with your interests.

People are going to judge, criticize, condemn, love, admire, envy, and lust based on their own subjective perceptions regardless.

The point of hard work is to recognize the person it makes you, not what it "gets" you (the former you can control; the latter, you can’t).

Your mind creates; it is not created.

If you wait on the feeling of “readiness,” you’ll be waiting forever, and worse, you’ll miss the best of what’s in front of you.

You cannot save up your happiness; you can either feel it in the moment, or you miss it.

Do you know why you don’t have the things you once thought you wanted?

Because you don’t want those things anymore. Not badly enough. If you did, you’d have and be them.

Emotional abuse is similar to physical abuse in that it systematically wears away at a person’s self-confidence, worth, and concept.

Pick up where you left off.

Find meaning and joy in the work you do, not the work you wish you did.

infusing purpose into whatever it is you already do.

Change your objective. The goal is not to feel “good” all the time, it’s to be able to express a healthy range of emotion without suppressing or suffering.

Realize that there are three layers of you: your identity, your shame, and your true self. Your identity is your outermost layer, it’s the idea that you think other people have of you. Your shame is what’s shielding you from expressing your true self, which is at your core. It is from your shame circle that irrational thoughts breed and thrive. Work on closing the gap between who the world thinks you are and who you know you are. Your mental health will change significantly.

Spend time on your own, especially when you feel like you don’t want to. You are your first and last friend—you are with you until the end. If you don’t want to be with you, how can you expect anyone else to, either?

Make plans to build the life you want, not because you hate the one you have, but because you’re in love with the person you know you want to become.

work with kids after school. Make your life about more than just your own wants.

Read books that interest you, and read them often. Hearing a new voice in your mind will teach you how to think differently.

“The obstacle is the way.”

Nobody is thinking about you the way you are thinking about you. They’re all thinking about themselves.

“This too shall pass.”

Trust that things get better as time goes on. Not because time heals, but because you grow. You discover that you’re capable.

You have something in your life that you would have previously considered impossible, or at least, a dream come true.

You began to realize that “safety” isn’t in certainty—but in faith that you can simply keep going.

You stop and enjoy life more often, rather than just sprinting from goal to goal.

Anxiety serves us, pain serves us, depression does, too. These things are signals, communications, feedbacks, and precautions that literally keep us alive.

You’re giving up on the things you need to give up on.

You are giving up on what’s not right for you.

You’ve decided you’re not going to be the victim of your own mind anymore.

you do not need to be perfect to be good enough.

Ask yourself what you’d do if money were no object and you could do anything.

Live near the sea in a remote place with good wifi lots to read craft and play with a hot tub with my best friends and family close by. I would have a craft workshop a lbrary and an office. A gym with a Jacuzzi a pool a home cinema a walkin wardrobe and dressing room.

it’s about the essence of what you’d do and how you can incorporate that into your everyday life.

Make a special album on your phone just for “happy moments.” When you feel good or are enjoying yourself or have some kind of revelation, just take a photo of whatever’s in front of you (however unworthy of Instagram it is).

Rethink how you celebrate the most important days of the year.

Get rid of things that aren’t purposeful or meaningful.

Decide that to be worthy of something is just to be grateful to have it.

accepting the transitory nature of life.

Living consciously.

Self-acceptance.

Self-responsibility.