why you should keep things to yourself
a positive mind lends itself to a positive life. because it’s so real that what you think becomes your reality.
I’ve read two books this month of March, a welcomed contrast to my month of January that was absent of any reading whatsoever.
The first book took up the beginning of the month, and it was The Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. My mom gave me the book, selected off the old walnut-wood bookcase in the corner of the living room. The towering shelves full of every book she’s owned, sprinkled in with the few that I have owned, and the many that her mom owned. This was one of my mom’s favorite books, she said as she put the book at the edge of my bed, resting atop the beige linen duvet and fur blanket. It was January, and I could feel the cool winter breeze melt through my bedroom windows.
It was a story of personal growth, a true story of a man finding his connection back into his body, his purpose, and his soul’s path that was clouded over years of misaligned direction. It took me two months to finally pick up that book, and I’m so glad I did. I ended up reading his other book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, too.
The second book I found at the bookstore, my eyes caught the familiar title as I scanned through the Barnes and Noble aisles, judging each book by its cover. This one was pretty, I thought as I stared at the minimalist white cover, with big black lettering and a photo of a lone seashell laying on the beach. This one’s perfect for me. I thought of my recent pinterest board titled Mermaids, full of artistic photos by the beach and in the ocean mixed with my favorite childhood show H2O Just Add Water.
I feel so connected to myself when I spend time in the ocean, the mermaid lifestyle has regained its grasp on my life after years of dormancy. I went on a surf trip three months ago and fell in love with it again. The ocean, the beach, the surf, the warmth.
Anyways, living in that TV show is kind of my dream.
I read the book on my latest vacation to the islands of French Polynesia in the South Pacific ocean - the latest side quest. Outline by Rachel Cusk. I had seen the cover before, likely scattered across my Instagram feed, the familiarity prompted my interest.
I found myself hitting a wall throughout this book, pushing myself to slip past each page to finish it. I kept waiting for something to happen that never did, waiting for a plot to thicken that never had the right ingredients in the first place. The book wasn’t about a thick plot that leaves you thinking about it for days. The book is about little vignettes into people’s lives. It’s a scattered scrapbook of all walks of life, how we all have a different story and how it’s all in our own perspective. There’s always two sides to every story, after all.
I didn’t really connect to this book. That’s okay. At least I read it, I told myself as I propped it up on my bedroom bookshelf to get dusty.
The one thing that stuck with me is the last few pages, the culmination of this novel happened to resonate.
“She had sat there, she said, and thought about her own lifelong habit of explaining herself, and she thought about this power of silence, which put people out of one another’s reach. Lately, since the incident - now that things had got harder to explain, and the explanations were harsher and bleaker - even her closest friends had started to tell her to stop talking about it, as though by talking about it she made it continue to exist.
Outline by Rachel Cusk, page 245
I think about this a lot, this chronic dependency to talk about what happens to us. The intention to relieve ourselves from the things that happen, or maybe to fill the empty space of silences between two people. We talk about things to relieve the pain of it living in our own brain, as if speaking kicks the words out of our brain, cleaning up the room for the next guest of thoughts to arrive. Except, speaking of something keeps it alive, keeps it existing. Our mind doesn’t know the difference between our thoughts and reality. If you think of something enough, your brain believes it is real.
I always think this is why a positive mind lends itself to a positive life. Because it’s so real that what you think becomes your reality.
Anyways, I loved this quote from the final pages, I think it’s something to hold close. Or hold far. Maybe you don’t like it, there’s always two sides to a story anyways.
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Good advice
Greatly put, it's awesome to know your insights on the books you've read.