Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.
Interpretation
We should embrace the world around us with awareness and amazement.
Anne Lamott's quote suggests that to truly live is to be fully present in our surroundings, appreciating the wonder and beauty that life offers. In a fast-paced world, taking the time to observe and feel awe in our daily experiences can lead to a deeper connection with life itself.
In practice
This quote can inspire a discussion at a mindfulness workshop.
Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.
Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, "Well, that's pretty much what I thought I'd see," you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. [...] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.
...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.
A liar goes in fine clothes, a liar goes in rags, a liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
"God does not give us more than we can handle," I am told but I wonder if God doesn't overestimate me just a little. Or perhaps, and this is likely, I underestimate God.
I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.
I never look forward, because I have no idea about how any of it happened to getting here. I've no idea how the next five years are going to be.
False notions of liberty are strangely common. People talk of it as if it meant the liberty of doing whatever one likes - whereas the only liberty that a man, worthy of the name of man, ought to ask for, is, to have all restrictions, inward and outward, removed that prevent his doing what he ought.
We two remake our world by naming it / Together, knowing what words mean for us / And for the other for whom current coin / Is cold speech - but we say, the tree, the pool, / And see the fire in the air, the sun, our sun, / Anybody's sun, the world's sun, but here, now / Particularly our sun.
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