Photo taken in Matamata, New Zealand
Nurturing the Now
At some point during my teenage years, I helped my mom till the soil of our backyard garden. Tool in hand, I plunged the prongs into the deep earth, twisting and loosening the ground to dig up the small weeds that needed to go.
I wasn’t very good at it, especially in the moments in which my impatience and boredom would get the best of me. But growing up understanding the ways of the diligent farmer, the importance of setting up the right foundation comes very naturally to her.
This gets me thinking of the meaning of the word “culture.” While commonly associated with ideas concerning shared customs of behavior, the origin comes from the Latin verb colere, which means “to tend, guard, or cultivate.”
Like the preparation of any land before harvesting crops, the cycle of a culture works in the same manner. In cultivating layer after layer beneath the surface, so too can doing so make room for the next stage to take place; in nurturing the now, something new can finally emerge.
To me, this is what I value about those special voices, both past and present, who have used their work to nourish a vision of what’s possible. Here are 16 uplifting quotes that speak to the importance of finding strength and empowering people.
“There is one irrefutable law of the universe: We are each responsible for our own life. If you’re holding anyone else accountable for your happiness, you’re wasting your time. You must be fearless enough to give yourself the love you didn’t receive.”
― Oprah Winfrey, What I Know For Sure
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now
“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
“Be empty of worrying. / Think of who created thought! / Why do you stay in prison / When the door is so wide open?”
― Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Essential Rumi
“Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it’s your last, or do you save your money on the chance you’ll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in America is so unbelievably delicious? And what about chocolate?”
― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
“It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Come to Life
Change is a constant that happens both at a personal and collective level. If we’re lucky, we might recognize the value of those who cared enough to plant seeds with intention and care, building the new with their personal insight, encouraging words, and lifelong wisdom.
Sometimes the mere act of tending to your own growth is all it takes to see even the slightest difference. Perhaps, before you know it, you might look up in astonishment at the blossoming surrounding you and all that has come to life within your midst.
