turning 33

Another year around the sun again. I turned 33 today.

It seems like retreating into the outskirts of the city has become a yearly ritual to reflect over the past year.

Becoming the version I want to be feels hard because I feel like I owe my past version for taking care of me. While I’m grateful, that instinct for self protection is getting in the way of some of the things my current self wants to do. That fear keeps trying to bargain for security and comfort, clinging onto the familiar ways it once kept me safe. Waking up early to start the day earlier is scary, why not sleep for a couple of hours more instead? Or, what if people make fun of me for trying, and I'll end up feeling more pushed away from them?

But I’m trying to reassure myself that I’m safe, and I've always been safe. I’ve always figured things out, so I trust myself to always continue to.

Here are 33 quotes I collected over the past year that heavily resonate with me, that serve as great reminders. And I'm sure you might find some the same too.

1. “You need to tear muscles to grow it. Why would it be different for the mind and spirit?”
2. “To fall asleep, you must first pretend to fall asleep. (And that’s how (almost) everything works)”
3. “The person you’re trying to become is more important than the person you used to be.”
   1. Similarly: "Growth can feel like grief when you loved who you were."
   2. And: "Healing means losing the identity built around your pain."
   3. AND: "Fear can feel like dying because something IS dying. Often: An identity, your smallness, a limiting belief, or a false perception."
4. “Stop being a prisoner of your life lesson. It was a life lesson, not a life sentence.”
5. “Improving yourself means going to war with your current self every day.”
6. “The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth they can accept about themselves without running away.” — Leland Val Van De Wall
7. "You only overthink when you go against your own intuition."
8. "The best way to get what you want out of life is to believe you deserve what you want."
   1. Similarly: "The real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life."
   2. AND: "Your self-worth determines what you will let yourself experience."
9. “People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”
   1. Similarly: “Their actions reflect their character and not at all my worth. I can and will continue to focus on myself and no longer entertain what I don’t deserve.”
10. "You can tell how much internal shame someone has by how judgemental they are. And by how cringe and embarrassing they think something is."
11. “The task as a grown up person is to realise what garment you knit for yourself to survive as a child, in the winter of your childhood. But when you're in the summer, so to speak, of your adulthood, you're boiling hot and you can't figure out, "Why am I so fucking hot all the time?" And it's because you can't take off this garment that you knitted for yourself as a child that you no longer need. You can't realise, you don't realise that this way of behaving, this functional way that your brain taught you to behave, to survive, it gets in your way now.” — Sally Field
12. "You are not afraid of being seen by new people. You are scared of being seen by the people who already expect you to act a certain way. You are not scared of becoming somebody new. You're scared of looking fake to the people who think they know who you really are."
    1. Similarly: "A lot of people are playing a character that they don't enjoy, and they think they're stuck that way forever because switching characters would be out of character."
13. "If you can't get out of it, get into it."
14. "Don't ask for directions from people who have never been where you're going."
    1. Similarly: "You cannot use someone's map to find yourself."
15. “There is no way to know for sure that you are currently in the right direction in life, but if you find yourself chasing the exact same things as everybody else, you are likely in the wrong direction.”
16. "You make a choice, and you make it the right decision."
17. "The older I get, the more certain I am that we knew exactly who we were when we were little, but the adults talked us out of it."
    1. Similarly: "If you become more cynical as you get older, it actually means that you've been failing at life."
18. "Just let your family be wrong about you."
19. “People think they need time to heal. But most of the time, what they really need is new experiences that show their nervous system a better reality.”
20. “Honestly once you realise you’re not in trouble all the time and really no one has power over you, the second half of life begins.”
21. "You really cannot get caught up in how you're being perceived." (until you cannot fully enjoy living.)
22. “Well, every day is all there is.” — Joan Didion
23. "Loneliness isn't being alone – it's believing there's something wrong with you. Solitude can be empowering; loneliness is shame saying "there's something wrong with me"."
24. “Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They are different processes.”
25. “You must learn to proceed without certainty."
26. “When I remember when no amount of waiting will make me brave and no amount of fear will keep me safe.”
27. “Hey it looks like you’re waiting for ideal conditions to do that thing you’ve been wanting to do. Need I remind you that ideal conditions do not exist and will not happen?”
28. “Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That's what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we've become incredibly adept technically. We've treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part. I want to rethink surrender as an active verb. It's not just you being escapist; it's an active choice.” — Brian Eno
29. “You must by all means develop a strong opinion of yourself so you don't end up internalising the beliefs others have of you.”
30. “And for my next trick, I will call life beautiful and instantly watch it become so.”
31. There are things I regret doing. But I regret the things I didn’t get to do even more.
32. You can start having fun at ANY TIME you want.
33. My life is full of love because I am full of love.
    1. "The beauty you see in anything is actually just a reflection of the beauty in you."