“Perception means we don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are. Take a burning house. To a fireman, a burning house is a job to do — maybe even his life‘s work or mission. For an arsonist? A burning house is something exciting and good. What if it’s your house? What if it’s your family who is standing outside watching every earthly possession you own burning up? That burning house becomes something else entirely. You don’t see things as they are; you see things through the lens of what you think and feel and believe. Perception is reality, and I’m here to tell you that your reality is colored much more by your past experiences than by what is actually happening to you. If your past tells you that nothing ever works out, that life is against you, and that you’ll never succeed, then how likely are you to keep fighting for something you want? Or, on the flipside, if you quit accepting no as the end of the conversation whenever you run up against opposition, you can shift your perception and fundamentally reshape your entire life. Every single part of your life — your gratitude, the way you manage stress, how kind you are to others, how happy you are — can be changed by a shift in your perception.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have it in you to want something more for your life. Don’t tell me you have to give up because it’s difficult. This is life or death too. This is the difference between living a life you always dreamed of or sitting alongside the death of the person you were meant to become. That’s what it feels like to me when I’ve given up on a dream, even for a little while – as if I’m at a wake. As if I’m sitting in a room and looking at the evidence of what could’ve been. I’m sure many of you know what that’s like, and you either want to change it or keep yourself from getting there in the first place. You have to do something about it. You have to reach down inside yourself and remember the reason you started this. You had better find the will to keep going, because if you don’t, I promise you someone else will. And if that happens, girl, you will watch someone else achieve your dreams and enjoy the spoils of their hard-fought battle. And if that happens, you will understand one of the greatest lessons in this life: the only thing worse than giving up is wishing you hadn’t.”
- Excerpts from Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
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