To live fully, outwardly and inwardly, not to ignore the external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse, that's quite a task
Interpretation
True fulfillment comes from balancing outward experiences with inner reflection.
Etty Hillesum's quote emphasizes the importance of living a balanced life, where one does not neglect the external world while pursuing inner growth and vice versa. It suggests that achieving this harmony is a challenging yet essential endeavor for a fulfilling existence.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a personal development workshop focused on mindfulness and living in the moment.
Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Re-establish contact with a slice of eternity.
The more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.
Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.
I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength.
I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.
But it's just because the chances are all against you, just because there is so little hope, that life is sweet over here.
Itβs like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. Itβs still there, but the sharpest edges are .. muffled, sort of. Then, ever now and then, I lift the corner of the blanket just to check, and .. whoa! Like a knife! Iβm not sure that will ever change.
Things come in waves, and I'm always more interested in places like, for instance, Chicago, where people don't follow fashion. They're not galloping past your window on the way to the latest anything. They're living their lives. You do a play, they come and see it and say, 'That's nice', and then they go home.
I turned away from him and went on my way, up the street and about my business. The past was dead. The future was resignation, fatality, and could only end one way now. The present was numbness, that could feel nothing. Like Novocaine needled into your heart. What was there in all the dimensions of time for me? ("Life Is Weird Sometimes" first chapter of unpublished novel THE LOSER)
People spend a lifetime thinking abouthow they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me, it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'
Life is hard. After all, it kills you.
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