It’s important to keep your options open. It’s important to live and not get hung up on the past. The past is called the past for a reason. If you are constantly looking behind you, your eyes aren’t on the road ahead.

—Rachel Van Dyken in The Bet

future past focus

More quotations from Rachel Van Dyken

Life isn't fair, but living? Living is heaven. Living is a gift. Every gift is different—every path is different—for some reason this is ours, and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can stop crying and start living.

—Rachel Van Dyken in Ruin

Love shouldn't be something you jump into because it's the right time in your life or because your friends are all married. It should be something that happens naturally, and in the end it turns into the supernatural because suddenly, you can't imagine waking up every day without that other half.

—Rachel Van Dyken in The Consequence of Loving Colton

I'm falling for you too. I haven't fallen. Falling. As in still falling, still in the air, still trying to get used to the idea that I've just nose dived off a cliff with every intention of making sure the landing doesn't break my fall.

—Rachel Van Dyken in Toxic

Just because we aren't crying on the outside doesn't mean we aren't completely wrecked on the inside.

—Rachel Van Dyken

sadness emotion

The type of love that makes you want to laugh out loud—scream a bit—run in circles—and then repeat? Yeah that's how I felt. Totally. Out. Of. Control. Giddiness.

—Rachel Van Dyken in Fearless

love ecstasy infatuation

More quotations tagged with “focus”

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

—Harry Emerson Fosdick

power focus discipline dedication

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

light moment focus

In this very breath that we take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us.

—Peter Matthiessen

wisdom focus secret breath meditation teachers

“Living it up” has become the leitmotif of modern man—a compulsive hyperactivity without any downtimes, no gap of unscheduled time, lest we end up alone with ourselves. The meaning doesn’t matter, so long as it’s intense. We feel that without constant activity, life would be fatally insipid. Friends of mine who lead cultural tours in Asia have told me how their clients can’t bear the least gap in their itinerary. “Is there really nothing scheduled between five and seven?” they ask anxiously. We are, it seems, afraid to turn our gaze in in upon ourselves. We are fully focused on the exterior world, as experienced through our five senses. It seems naive to believe that such a feverish search for intense experience can lead to a lasting enriched quality of life.

If we do take the time to explore our inner world, it’s in the form of daydreaming and imagination, dwelling on the past of fantasizing endlessly about the future. A genuine sense of fulfillment, associated with inner freedom, can also offer intensity to every living moment, but of an altogether different sort. It is a sparkling experience of inner well-being, in which the beauty of each thing shines through. It is knowing how to enjoy the present moment, the willingness to nurture altruism and serenity and bring the best part of ourselves to mature—transforming oneself to better transform the world.

—Matthieu Ricard in Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

life fear beauty time focus transformation activity aloneness slowing down anxiety serenity

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13 Sep 2013 Added