This week, I want to let my favorites quotes speak for me.

To segue from last week’s post about how to talk to kids about tragic events, I found great advice from Mr. Rogers’s mom. “Always look for the helpers,” she’d tell him. “There’s always someone who is trying to help.”

Her advice reminds me of something by Regina Brett from God is Always Hiring— “If you can help someone, do; if you can hurt someone, don’t.”  I think this applies to the words we use in addition to our actions.

Another kernel of wisdom comes from Regina Brett’s friend, Sister Eleanor, a former teacher.  One day, Sister Eleanor asked her class “What do you say when someone isn’t nice to you?”  A boy answered as he had been taught, “You’re not my friend, but I see God in you.”

In the same vein, the collection Quotes That Will Change Your Life includes the following gems.  From Ralph Waldo Emerson, “People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”

From Anaïs Nin,

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”  Good to remember when we are trying to understand what happened between our kids.

And when I am piecing together a narrative or about to read a story, I remember the words from Ben Okri.

“Beware of the stories you read or tell:  subtly, at night, beneath we the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.”

When my kids amaze me with their insight,

“You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.”

Maimonides

On the subject of openness and acceptance,

“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”

Leonard Cohen

I have to pair that with a quote about initiative.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

In times of doubt and fear, I remember that

“Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

And part of enabling a bright future is doing things that we may not want to do.  In moments of wanting to run in the other direction, I say with Robert Frost that the

“The best way out is always through.”

Because, and this is good to remember in the middle of our never-ending chores,

“Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe.”

Saint Therese de Lisieux

And when you are folding laundry and thinking about life:

“About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”

Ernest Hemingway

So, no edible cookie dough at 10pm tonight?  Or maybe no pity party at all.  Just being kind to ourselves, remembering,

“There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.”

Marcel Proust

When we wanted something so badly and it didn’t pan out–

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

14th Dalai Lama

In praise of simply being alive,

“I’m glad to be here.  I am glad to be anywhere.”

Keith Richards

Letting go and opening our hearts,

“For all that has been–thanks.

For all that will be–yes.”

Dag Hammarskjold

When we don’t feel like Mother Mary,

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”

Saint Francis de Sales

And my favorite quote, a Japanese proverb,

“Fall down seven times.  Stand up eight.”

 

Press on, mom!

For all the dads out there, thank you!