In a Thousand Different Ways

by Cecelia Ahern

That’s what you want to be around, be a part of. People who make you want to be with them, and be better. But you can’t just observe, stand by idly like a spare part. They have to want you too.

There’s panic over climate change. Earth is in crisis, but it seems to me that no one is paying any attention to the crisis of our souls. No units to measure all the holes that are appearing in each of us.

In all the scenarios I envisioned, all the people I watched like a hawk, never for a second did I think my arch-nemesis could be myself, that I could tear myself down so viciously while I wasn’t paying attention.

You can’t shield yourself from yourself, not without becoming ill. Ironic, that my own actions would be the thing to make me feel worse. I can’t keep trying to handle other people, I need to handle me when I’m with them.

She won’t settle, she always wants the best for herself. She teaches me.

Troublemakers are usually highly sensitive people and highly sensitive people can be very conscientious, cautious, perceptive and empathetic. They can often see what others cannot and they’re like sponges, absorbing all the energy and stimulus around them.’

And I now know that if you don’t feel your own pain, you cannot recognise it in others. Our own suffering can cultivate the ability to help others.

A marriage requires two people doing their part, yes, but not necessarily always at the same time. At all times it needs at least one. Sometimes one on the ledge and the other to talk them down. Someone to stay awake at camp to make sure the fire doesn’t go out.