You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.
Cheryl StrayedRead
I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the strength found in self-reliance and the discovery of inner resilience.
Cheryl Strayed's quote highlights the profound realization that the essential qualities and resources needed to navigate lifeβs challenges often reside within ourselves. It emphasizes the strength and courage to carry one's burdens, both physical and emotional, suggesting that survival is not just about enduring hardships, but also about discovering the power we hold to overcome them.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.
The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.
I walked all those miles, I learned all those lessons. It's as if my new life was the gift I got at the end of a long struggle.
There is a path toward the light. The one that goes blink, blink, blink inside your chest when you know what you're doing is right. Listen to it. Trust it. Let it make you stronger than you are.
Each evening, I ached for the shelter of my tent, for the smallest sense that something was shielding me from the entire rest of the world, keeping me safe not from danger, but from vastness itself. I loved the dim, clammy dark of my tent, the cozy familiarity of the way I arranged my few belongings all around me each night.
Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.
No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.
May the pain you have known and the conflict you have experienced give you the strength to walk through life facing each new situation with courage and optimism.
When you are thinking about going away for a long duration mission, it has to be part of your mindset that you're leaving your family, but it's for the right reasons, for good reasons, and hopefully helping humanity.
These are the times that try men's souls.
Around us there is the presence of evil. The devil is at work. But in a loud voice I say: GOD IS STRONGER.
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
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