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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Barbara Sher
Action will raise your self-esteem better than affirmations.
An unlived life is a kind of hell.
I believe in planning, but the truth is that planning is mostly science fiction.
When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life
Old people know a lot about time and will tell you freely that their greatest regrets were the things they didn’t do. You don’t have to be very old to know what they’re talking about. Look back at your adolescence and ask yourself, what do you regret most? Do you regret the things you did, or the ones you didn’t have the courage to do? Do you regret the dances you went to, even when you were awkward and uncertain and felt like a fool? Or do you regret the ones you avoided so you wouldn’t feel like a fool?
What a powerful, exciting, terrifying experience it is to take our first steps, to go to a new city, to drive a car for the first time! Our love of excitement and intensity is always in a struggle with our need for what is familiar. We’d never survive without being able to absorb new experiences and make them habitual. So our habit machinery is our friend.
That’s why you’ll never hear me saying it’s your own fault that you don’t have what you want. I hope you won’t let anyone—not even you—talk you into the fact that you’re not trying hard enough or you don’t really want to change, because that’s like telling a car with no gas that it isn’t doing its best to run. Believe me, you’re not cautious because you want to be that way.
