I studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I’m here to tell you that the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is: getting enough sleep.
Arianna HuffingtonRead
But, in fact, there is nothing that can bring you closer to fearlessness about everything else in the world than being a parent - because everyday fears - like not being approved of - pale by comparison to the fears you have about your children.
Interpretation
Being a parent brings profound fears that overshadow other worries in life.
This quote emphasizes the transformative experience of parenthood and how it alters one's perspective on fear. When you become a parent, the fears associated with caring for your children - such as worrying for their well-being and striving for their approval - substantially outweigh the typical fears one may have about personal acceptance or success, leading to a unique courage in facing the world.
In practice
In a speech about the challenges of modern parenting, you might use this quote to illustrate the extraordinary fears that parents face.
I studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I’m here to tell you that the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is: getting enough sleep.
Don't buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears, it's not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.
Women need to lead the way to change our culture of burnout - both for their sake and also for the sake of successful men who desperately need a new model of success. And the still-very-macho world of STEM is a great place to start.
Don’t just climb the ladder of success - a ladder that leads, after all, to higher and higher levels of stress and burnout - but chart a new path to success, remaking it in a way that includes not just the conventional metrics of money and power, but a third metric that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving, so that the goal is not just to succeed but to thrive.
We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.
Failure is not the opposite of success; it's part of success.
Every family has a story, and I love that those stories are etched in sand rather than granite. That way we can change them. We can bury the lies and embrace the truth. And we can move forward.
Hey, look — Harry’s got a Weasley sweater, too!” Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, the other a G. “Harry’s is better than ours, though,” said Fred, holding up Harry’s sweater. “She obviously makes more of an effort if you’re not family.
There are moments we return to, now and always. Family is like water - it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.
You don't have to get rich to have [fewer] children. It has happened across the world.
My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.
It's the most terrifying day of your life, the day the first one is born. Your life, as you know it, is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk, and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you'll ever meet in your life.
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