Like my mother, I was always saying, 'I'll fix my life one day.' It became clear when I saw her die without fulfilling her dreams that my time was now or maybe never.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the urgency of pursuing one's dreams and the importance of taking action before it's too late.
Liz Murray reflects on the lesson learned from her mother's unfulfilled dreams, realizing the importance of seizing the moment to improve her own life. It serves as a powerful reminder that procrastination can lead to missed opportunities and that one should strive to fulfill their aspirations while time allows.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing life goals.
In the years ahead of me, I learned that the world is actually filled with people ready to tell you how likely something is, and what it means to be realistic. But what I have also learned is that no one, no one truly knows what is possible until they go and do it.
I thought, 'Let's make it a check list. What if I got my education even though I lost my mother, even though my dad is in a shelter?' and looking at these things as hurdles to go over. I could inspire myself.
People are surprised by the poverty and think that I wasn't cared for. But that wasn't the case - I was deeply loved.
I had a calling inside of me. I had a sense that when I was going through experiences like living on the streets, losing my parents to AIDS, just having my whole world turned upside-down, there was this feeling inside of me like I was meant for something greater.
Life holds only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint.
I live in southern Appalachia, so I'm surrounded by people who work very hard for barely a living wage. It's particularly painful that people are working the farms their parents and grandparents worked but aren't living nearly as well.
I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
You can't have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That's what I want my life to be all about - full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.
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