Words of Wisdom

[Ken]

I often times gain some powerful insight and inspiration from various media, but quite often from movies.
One that I relate to is from the movie "Joe Versus the Volcano". It goes something like this:
Almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. Only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement". I finally understand and relate to this. I estimate that most of my life is spent asleep. While asleep, there is little meaning to life. A very depressing state. Then for a moment, I awake. In those moments, I am in a state of constant total amazement. Now, If I could just figure out how to stay awake!

Another one is from the movie "House with a Clock in it's Walls" where it was stated that "Life is like riding a bicycle. To stay balanced, you must keep moving forward."
I find that very helpful when my life starts getting wobbly and out of control. I must try to reorient to find which way is forward and then proceed that way.

These have been very helpful to me.

Can you share any that you have found to be helpful to you?

 

[Cryptid]

Philosophy is nothing more than common sense with bigger words.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I like these ones:

"Keep your side of the street clean", which means to me that I need to just worry about my own behavior and not anyone else's behavior.

"Example sets a genial ray,
Which men are apt to borrow.
So first improve yourself today
And then your friends tomorrow." - Author unknown

"There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us.
To talk about the rest of us." - Edward Wallis Hoch

"Not my pig. Not my farm." or "Not my circus. Not my monkeys." - I say this to help myself let go of things that aren't my problem.

"If you don't ask, then the answer is no." - Useful in so many situations. Someone says, "Do you think they'll let us do [something]?" and I answer, "If you don't ask, then the answer is no."

"Yet" - the best modifier to any problem. My son was freaking out about a math assignment and said, "I don't understand it!" and I said, "You don't understand it .... yet.", and then we worked on it. Teaching him to say "Yet" when faced with a problem has been a big help.

 

[Ken]

I like these ones:

"Keep your side of the street clean", which means to me that I need to just worry about my own behavior and not anyone else's behavior.

"Example sets a genial ray,
Which men are apt to borrow.
So first improve yourself today
And then your friends tomorrow." - Author unknown

"There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us.
To talk about the rest of us." - Edward Wallis Hoch

"Not my pig. Not my farm." or "Not my circus. Not my monkeys." - I say this to help myself let go of things that aren't my problem.

"If you don't ask, then the answer is no." - Useful in so many situations. Someone says, "Do you think they'll let us do [something]?" and I answer, "If you don't ask, then the answer is no."

"Yet" - the best modifier to any problem. My son was freaking out about a math assignment and said, "I don't understand it!" and I said, "You don't understand it .... yet.", and then we worked on it. Teaching him to say "Yet" when faced with a problem has been a big help.

Thanks! Those are all really good ones.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

"Good"

One of my modern favorites that I have learned to deal with in life. Problems becoming opportunities. Probably one of my better coping mechanisms when dealing with my autism, in general.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Another, somewhat related: "You will fail, and you will fail, and you will fail, and then you will win." Agree. This has been a good part of my life. In most cases, our egos are good at making excuses, but it's really our fault. Self-discipline.

 

[Rodafina]

Frodo:
“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf:
“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work, Frodo, than the will of evil.”

 

[Cutesie]

."If you don't ask, then the answer is no." - Useful in so many situations. Someone says, "Do you think they'll let us do [something]?" and I answer, "If you don't ask, then the answer is no."

This is a major issue for my autistic brother Ikey. He's often really scared to ask for permission, because the answer might be "no". I also have it but not as severely.

A connected issue is that he does the opposite - asking for things that aren't appropriate. He asks strangers for money and to buy him things. He asks for invitations to social events made by people that he barely knows, and also shows up uninvited.

Many of our relatives can't understand that Ikey doesn't understand things. They view everything as malicious and intentional, when there's so much nuance at play.

"Yet" - the best modifier to any problem. My son was freaking out about a math assignment and said, "I don't understand it!" and I said, "You don't understand it .... yet.", and then we worked on it. Teaching him to say "Yet" when faced with a problem has been a big help.

That's wise advice which I'll be marking down. Thank you.

 

[Ken]

From the movie "The Holdovers":
So before you dismiss something as
boring or irrelevant, remember that
if you truly want to understand the
present, or yourself, you must
begin in the past. History is not
merely the past, Mr. Tully. It’s
an explanation of the present.