Quoteworthy: Going for it

The last month has been a reality-bomb of changes across life's spectrum. I lost my most favorite person ever, my Papa, to cancer, relatively suddenly; I got a new job; I began the process of finding an apartment and renting out my house; I bought a new car; and one of my nearest and dearest friends had a baby. In the same week. Oh, and I graduated from physical therapy after three off-and-on years, which means that after three years of checking in with someone else about my body 2-3 times per week, I'm on my own. Eeeek.

I struggle to process change. It's part of the roots and wings thing. It's been hard to digest all these different changes at once, especially while I am preparing to leave my job, and move my whole existence (and rambunctious dog) across state lines. 

Losing my grandpa, while incredibly difficult, served as a great reminder of how to live a good life. His family and friends remember him as always having time to pay a compliment, always with a smile on his face, always working hard and reminding people he loved them. While it's hard to leave my family right after losing our beloved patriarch, I know that Papa would want me to go kick some ass and take some names. Life is to be lived, after all.

Source

The good news is that I've got it through my thick skull that writing can help me process all of it, and it has. I'll be ready to share it some day, but for now, I've gathered some quotes about courage and, to be corny, shooting for the stars.

"The trouble is, you think you have time." --Buddha

"If you are lucky enough to find a way of life that you love, you have to find the courage to live it." --John Irving

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all. For now you are traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be." --Meg Cabot

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." --Howard Thurman

"Sometimes you just have to leap, and build your wings on the way down." --Kobi Yamada


Courage (n): the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to live without fear; to act in accordance with one's beliefs

Spirit (n): the principle of conscious life