Chasing Slow Quotes

“I used to think the opposite of control was chaos. But it's not. The opposite of control is surrender.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“We are doing ourselves no favors when we look to the crowd to tell us where we are.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like. —Emile”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever. —Lev Grossman, The Magicians S”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” Buddhist nun Pema Chodron”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“I do not know that everything happens for a reason. I simply know that everything happens.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“The heart of a woman is the best mirror you can find.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Here is the secret to subtraction. It doesn’t matter what you remove. What matters is that you stop adding it back.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Grace is giving yourself a free pass and realizing that it isn't free at all.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“A girlfriend once shared with me the theory about the three buckets we hold in our lives. One bucket contains our connection, another our vitality, and a third our contribution. The theory goes like this: when one bucket is empty, the others need to be filled. When you’re feeling lonely, alienated, and low on connection, boost your vitality and contribution. Take a walk, cook a nutritious meal, volunteer to bake cookies for the blood drive. When you’re feeling spent and low on energy, on stamina, perhaps you’ve been neglecting connections and contributions. Invite a few friends over for takeout and brainstorm creative projects. When you’re feeling as if you have nothing to give, nothing to contribute, fill your connection and vitality buckets.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“We know better than to compare ourselves with others online. We know a Facebook feed, for most, is a glorified highlights reel, a round-up of our best moments, our funniest selves, our greatest champions. We know not to compare our worst with someone else’s best. But”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. —Epicurus I”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“I begin to learn to allow things to happen as they are, rather than how I want them to be. I begin to learn, quite simply, the art of peace.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“WITHOUT GRACE, MINIMALISM IS ANOTHER METRIC FOR PERFECTION. Chasing”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Use what you have. Shop for what you’ll use. Take stock of what you have and wear it. Use it. This is the best way to honor those who have made your clothing. An”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“He said the first kind thing in the middle of unkind things, and that's all it takes.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Even if I’m setting myself up for failure, I think it’s worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obsessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn’t fret over failings and slights, who realizes her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgement of a too busy mind. A mother who doesn’t worry so much about being bad or good but just recognizes that she’s both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad. —Ayelet Waldman, Bad Mother”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Sometimes it’s hard to see the difference between change and compromise, between sacrificing something you want for something you want a little bit more. “I”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Sometime when we're not looking for what we want, we find what we need.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“In a society that places a disproportionate emphasis on productivity, there is a true and real fear of slowing down. Will we be replaced? Left behind? Disrespected by the masses, whispered about in cubicles? Will we be cast aside for not pulling our weight, for not keeping up with the pace, for not playing by the rules? For exiting too slow on the 405? Perhaps. Perhaps we will be chastised, misunderstood. We might appear incompetent or lazy. We might be labeled meek. Poor, lowly, plain. But perhaps we will not. Perhaps the meek are the blessed. Perhaps cubicles are the true sanctuary, crouched down right there between the power cords and pencil cups. Not the corner office or the mahogany desk, not the pulpit or the stage. With or without the tie clip. Not the front and center but the sidelines and the back rooms—the unseen, the unheard, the quiet hands that have already learned what the rest of us seek to know. That there are blessings—peace, abundance, humility—in racing toward a different finish line. That there is a difference between being left behind and placing others first. That meek is not spiritless.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“A girlfriend once shared with me the theory about the three buckets we hold in our lives. One bucket contains our connection, another our vitality, and a third our contribution. The theory goes like this: when one bucket is empty, the others need to be filled. When you’re feeling lonely, alienated, and low on connection, boost your vitality and contribution. Take a walk, cook a nutritious meal, volunteer to bake cookies for the blood drive.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Some of us use social media to believe half-truths about others. Others use social media to believe half-truths about ourselves.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“A bit of self-governing, then. It is Tuesday, and I have just spent twenty-seven minutes on my phone. I timed myself, yes, because sometimes time is the only measure we’ve got. Time means priority. Time means love. Time means time.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“I DO NOT KNOW THAT EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. I KNOW SIMPLY THAT EVERYTHING HAPPENS.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. —Tom Bodett”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“Pinterest has contributed to a society of hopeful expectation. There is always a better idea, a quicker solution, an available tutorial, and there is always more to be done. There is always a newer product to discover. There is always a snack upon which your lion can feed. But sometimes we’re meant to close our eyes, to inhale and exhale, to breathe in and breathe out. Sometimes the best we can do is to shut our eyes to the pink Smeg on Pinterest and open our eyes to our dated white fridge, the smudgy one with our dentist appointment reminder, the report cards, our grandmother’s pickle recipe.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“The new way of thinking was, rather, not this or that. It was, simply, must we? Is this essential? Is this imperative? Will this bend us? Will we break? If forward was wholeness and backward was brokenness, would this decision move us forward?”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“The thread that holds together a lifetime of commitment is made up largely of morning breath and lost keys and fingernail clippings and snooze buttons.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“...In my endless search for meaning, I bought the lie that work—a title, a calling card, a byline, a corner office—offered usefulness. Purpose. A way to make a difference. But of course, what we do is not who we are, and although we know this, we still, continually, over red-pepper bisque at a dinner party, ask each other what we do for a living.”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path

“I went vegan for a week, a glorious transition until it occurred to me that bacon, no matter how it is positioned on the plate, cannot qualify as vegan. And”
― Erin Loechner, Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey Off the Beaten Path