You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
Embrace the glorious mess that you are
Interpretation
Accepting oneβs flaws and imperfections is essential to self-acceptance and authenticity.
This quote by Elizabeth Gilbert encourages individuals to fully embrace their true selves, including their messiness, flaws, and complexities. It emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and suggests that rather than striving for perfection, we should celebrate our unique qualities and imperfections, which make us who we are.
In practice
In a speech about self-love at a women's conference.
You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.
If a man achieves victory over this body, who in the world can exercise power over him? He who rules himself rules over the whole world.
It was only as I wrote about it that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.
We don't want anything from the government but that furtive little fellow called the truth - which, by the way, they'll never give you - which you have to go out and find by talking to people.
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
None but the well-bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in an error.
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