I read this book over my spring break. It was given to me by one of my friends/colleagues.
She gave it to me because I just loved Cheryl Strayed’s memoir called Wild
I got so many lessons out of her novel so my fellow teaching friend gave me this one called Tiny Beautiful Things.
I thought, “oh geez, a self help book!” Well, it’s not. But it kinda is. The best kind. It’s a “self help” book full of real human experiences, empathy, compassion and love. It’s an incredible compilation of Cheryl Strayed’s advice column called “Dear Sugar“. Awesome.
Here are a few of the most meaningful quotes I took from the book. Enjoy! I read them daily and I am filled or reminded to be filled with compassion, kindness, empathy and love on a daily basis with my precious students, colleagues and other fellow human beings I encounter each day.
“Within the chaos of our shame and disappointment and rage there is meaning, and within that meaning is the possibility of rescue. ”
“Attention is the first and final act of love, and the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, is it MERCY.”
“It’s what most of us have to give a few times over the course of our lives: to love with a mindfully clear sense of purpose, even when it feels outrageous to do so. Even when you’d rather put on your steel-toed boots and scream-love.
Give it. You won’t regret it. It will come out in the reckoning. ”
L. O. V. E.
“But compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got. So give it. Have the guts to feel lame. Have the guts to not have the right words to console someone.”
“Or just close your eyes and remember everything you already know. Let whatever mysterious starlight that guided you this far guide you onward into whatever crazy beauty awaits.”
“The future has an ancient heart.” I love it because it expresses with such grace and economy what is certainly true-that who we become is born of who we most primitively are; that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to manifest in our lives.”
OH MY GOODNESS. THERE ARE SO MANY. I’LL POST THESE FOR NOW AND MORE ANOTHER DAY.
What a great read. These help me every day as I focus on the little growing humans I interact with and even the “grown-ups” that I see daily.
Last one…
“And in the meanwhile, cultivate an understanding of a bunch of the other things that the best, sanest people on the planet know: that life is long, that people both change and remain the same, that every last one of us will need to %*#! up and be forgiven, that we’re all just walking and walking and walking and trying to find our way, that all roads will eventually lead to the mountaintop.”
Be the change... 