Hope is an anchor for my soul

To be honest I don't really like to think about about unhappiness so I'm going to skip that photo and move right into the post about my favorite word. Drum roll please... Hope is most definitely my favorite word. Without hope life is meaningless and my life has hope because of Jesus Christ and he is an anchor for my soul. Peace to you all.

Day 11: Green

"The unexamined life is not worth living"

-Socrates

 Today calls for something green and I found my work journal which is green. This journal was given to me one of my first days here with no specific direction. I decided to start using to record my experiences as an AmeriCorps VISTA. It helps me process and reflect on my emotions in this job. As John Dewey said, "Reflection is the reconstruction and reorganization of experience which adds meaning to that experience." Without this journal recording the highs and lows, I could fall into the trap of just thinking this is an office job; I could forget that the work I am doing has meaning.

“What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose-knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful, that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think, on reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of a censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time.”
-Virginia Woolf

I don't really go back and read my notes and thoughts very often, but I do use tabs to mark pages where I worte something that could be useful in the future. I also don't have a particular purpose for the journal. Some days I throw in my to-do list for the next day. Some days I write a full page while others I write only a sentence or two. Some days are my emotions, and others are full of quotes and research. I try to reflect a little bit each day without feeling the need to record every detail of my day.

So there's my something green. Hopefully this journal helps me grow like a little green plant. (too cheesy?)

-Granny Eyre

Quotes to Live By

Something I really like to do is make list and my writing reflects this in many ways. So for this post I am making a list of quotes because something else that I really like to do is look up quotes. I find that with quotes people are saying what I cannot but wish that I could. Here it goes a list of my top 10 quotes. I hope that they are as encouraging for you as they are for me. 

1.      "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." Thomas Edison

2.      “If your heart is broken, it's okay to say your heart is broken. If you feel stuck, it's okay to say you feel stuck. If you can't let go, it's okay to say you can't let go. You are not alone in these places.”

3.      "Just as a man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future." - Elie Wiesel

4.      “Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.” Charles Dickens 

5.      “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” J K Rowling

6.      “Hope whispers in the kindness of friends. It whispers in those who stand by you and hold your hand as you take the first steps towards recovery. It whispers in those moments of simple joy and those moments where you cannot help but smile and laugh. Hope whispers in the words of health professionals who show you that recovery is possible and give you the tools to get there. It keeps whispering in those long dark nights, and it tells you that your story does not end here. These are golden moments that the darkness can’t steal.”

7.      "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." - Albus Dumbledore

8.      “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” – Mary Anne Radmacher

9.      “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...” Dr Seuss 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis