Four hundred years ago, another well-known English guy had an opinion about being alone.

John Donne. He thought we were never alone.

Of course, it was fancier when he said it.

“No man is an island entire unto himself.”

 

Boil down that island talk, and he just meant that

all anyone needs is someone to step in and let us know we’re not alone.

And who’s to say that someone can’t have four legs,

someone to play with or run around with, or just hang out.

[ Meredith Grey ; Grey’s Anatomy ]

You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales,

that fantasy of what your life would be, white dress,

prince charming who would carry you away to a castle on a hill.

You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes

and you had complete and utter faith.

Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming,

they were so close you could taste them,

but eventually you grow up,

one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears.

 

Most people turn to the things and people they can trust.

But the thing is it is hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely

cause almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith,

that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.

[ Meredith Grey ; Grey's Anatomy ]

The people who influence you are people who believe in you.

[ Henry Drummond ]

Have I told you about the tension of opposites?

Life is a series of pulls back and forth.

You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else.

Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t.

You take certain things for granted,

even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band.

And most of us live somewhere in the middle.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness.

Pride. Vanity.

Why do we do the things we do?

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it.

They will look down at you anyhow.

And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it.

They will only envy you.

Status will get you nowhere.

Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

Do the kinds of things that come from the heart.

When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied,

you won’t be envious,

you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things.

On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

As you grow old, you learn more.

If you stayed at twenty-two,

you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two.

Aging is not just decay, you know.

It’s growth.

It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die,

it is also the positive that you understand you’re going to die,

and that you live a better life because of it.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love,

and to let it come in.

We think we don’t deserve love,

we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft.

Love is the only rational act.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]

It’s not just other people we need to forgive.

We also need to forgive ourselves.

For all the things we didn’t do.

All the things we should have done.

You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.

That doesn’t help you.

[ Tuesdays With Morrie ; Mitch Albom ]