“
Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you've had a bunch of bad days and there's different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music.
”
”
Taylor Swift
“
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
I know there is no straight road
No straight road in this world
Only a giant labyrinth
Of intersecting crossroads
”
”
Federico García Lorca
“
Dignity will only happen when you realize that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Some people can’t be in your life because they don’t have the power to help you improve it. That doesn’t mean you don’t wish them well, it just means that you are on Chapter ten of your life, when they are on Chapter five. Maybe, it is just enough to meet at the crossroads in life and agree to take separate paths, then with a cheshire grin you both look back and shout, “Beat you to the top of the mountain”, followed by the funnest sprint of both of your lives.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
We strive for harmony, but it is not always realized.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
There must be a few times in life when you stand at a precipice of a decision. When you know there will forever be a Before and an After...I knew there would be no turning back if I designated this moment as my own Prime Meridian from which everything else would be measured.
”
”
Justina Chen (North of Beautiful)
“
Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Only you can charter the course of your destiny.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
Every relationship that has hit a crossroads has asked, “What is it that you want from me?
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Time was not on their side, it was the enemy.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
True friends don't come with conditions.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
A crossroad. What a pain in the ass spot to end up in. (Abarai Renji, Bleach)
”
”
Tite Kubo
“
Without struggle, success has no value.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Books are not meant to remain in your mind, but in your heart. Maybe they exist in your mind too, but as something more than memories. At a crossroads in life, a forgotten sentence or a story from years ago can come back to offer an invisible hand and guide you to a decision. Personally, I feel like the books I've read led me to make the choices I've made in life. While I may not remember all the details, the stories continue to exert a quiet influence on me.
”
”
Hwang Bo-Reum (Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop)
“
You may be at a crossroads in your life. You may have issues to deal with; people you need to forgive. You can go one of the two ways. You can ignore what you now know to be true and keep burying that bitterness in your life, pushing it deeper and allowing it to poison and contaminate you and those around you. Or you can make a much better choice by getting it out in the open and asking God to help you to totally forgive and let it all go.
”
”
Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
“
Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (The Passenger (The Passenger #1))
“
You always have free will to choose your path.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
Life is full of crossroads, Alex. Full of choices. There are many paths we can take. It’s up to us to decide which ones lead in the right direction.
”
”
Lynette Noni (Raelia (The Medoran Chronicles, #2))
“
From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”
~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen
“
Sometimes in life, from out of a myriad of prosaic decisions like what to eat and where to sleep and how to dress, a true crossroads is revealed. In these moments, when the fog of relative irrelevancy lifts and fate rolls out a demand for free will, there is only left or right – no option of four-by-fouring into the underbrush between two paths, no negotiating with the choice that has been presented. You must answer the call and pick your way. And there is no reverse.
”
”
J.R. Ward (Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #7))
“
I'm not normally one to take advice from my fictional characters, but there comes a point in every girl's life where she reaches a crossroads: a night alone with her sweatpants and her favorite television show, or a party with real, live, breathing people.
”
”
Francesca Zappia (Eliza and Her Monsters)
“
It is wise to offer your gratitude when you ask and when you receive.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
All living things are sensitive to their surroundings and convey distress and sorrow as well as joy. Trees are no exception as they are most rooted to mother earth and their limbs carry knowledge we can only aspire to obtain.
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
...I see myself at crossroads in my life, mapless, lacking bits of knowledge - then, the Moon breaks through, lights up the path before me...
”
”
John Geddes (A Familiar Rain)
“
It was a kind love, a selfless love. I was a dreamer, and you were a traveler. We met at the crossroads. I saw love in your smile, and I recognized it for the first time in my life. But you had a plane to catch, and I was already home.
”
”
Lang Leav (The Universe of Us (Volume 4) (Lang Leav))
“
I’ve found that life is a series of crossroads, dead-ends and U-turns. There is no real destination. There is no goal to end all goals. As long as we’re living, we’ll always keep driving.
”
”
Krista Ritchie (Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal, #1))
“
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
When you feel life at crossroads,
you need higher perspective view.
”
”
Toba Beta (My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut)
“
I read her nasty, wicked thoughts—and she knows for sure that I am a Druid. She is totally warped and absolutely no doubt about it—evil!
”
”
C. Toni Graham (Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals (Crossroads, #1))
“
Tolerance doesn’t mean to accept, believe, understand, agree or ignore. Tolerance means yielding to beliefs that are not your own without judgement or condemnation.
”
”
C. Toni Graham
“
Smile if you want to. Grimace if you’re told to.
”
”
C. Toni Graham
“
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
What if you were wrong? What if everything you ever believed was a lie? What if you missed your opportunity because you didn't know your worth? What if you settled on familiar, but God was trying to give you something better? What if you decided not to go backwards, but forward? What if doing what you have never done before was the answer to everything that didn't make sense? What if the answer wasn't to be found in words, but in action? What if you found the courage to do what you really wanted to do and doing it changed your whole life?
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Dear Child,
Sometimes on your travel through hell, you meet people that think they are in heaven because of their cleverness and ability to get away with things. Travel past them because they don't understand who they have become and never will. These type of people feel justified in revenge and will never learn mercy or forgiveness because they live by comparison. They are the people that don't care about anyone, other than who is making them feel confident. They don’t understand that their deity is not rejoicing with them because of their actions, rather he is trying to free them from their insecurities, by softening their heart. They rather put out your light than find their own. They don't have the ability to see beyond the false sense of happiness they get from destroying others. You know what happiness is and it isn’t this. Don’t see their success as their deliverance. It is a mask of vindication which has no audience, other than their own kind. They have joined countless others that call themselves “survivors”. They believe that they are entitled to win because life didn’t go as planned for them. You are not like them. You were not meant to stay in hell and follow their belief system. You were bound for greatness. You were born to help them by leading. Rise up and be the light home. You were given the gift to see the truth. They will have an army of people that are like them and you are going to feel alone. However, your family in heaven stands beside you now. They are your strength and as countless as the stars. It is time to let go!
Love,
Your Guardian Angel
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen
“
If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Life is full of crossroads Alex, full of choices.
”
”
Lynette Noni (Akarnae (The Medoran Chronicles, #1))
“
I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee’s life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross–roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to–night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her. For my belief is that if we live another century or so—I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals—and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting–room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky. too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton’s bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would he impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own)
“
And having once chosen, never to seek to return to the crossroads of that decision-for even if one chooses wrongly, the choice cannot be unmade.
”
”
Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Chosen (Phèdre's Trilogy, #2))
“
I think you will agree that life's plans are not always tied up in neat little packages. Occasionally we find ourselves at unexpected crossroads with more than one opportunity from which to choose. Time itself is often the best indicator of which decision to make, for it can tell so many thing that are now hazy.
”
”
Linda Lee Chaikin (Tomorrow's Treasure (East of the Sun #1))
“
More often than not, people who are obsessed with their desires and feelings are generally unhappier in life vs. people that refocus their attention on service to others or a righteous cause. Have you ever heard someone say their life sucked because they fed the homeless? Made their children laugh? Or, bought a toy for a needy child at Christmas time?
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Every journey taken always includes the path not taken, the detour through hell, the crossroads of indecision and the long way home.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
At any rate, that’s how I started running. Thirty three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running)
“
Each day is a new beginning. You can start fresh, anticipating what today will bring. Or you can just settle for yesterday's doubts, fears, or worries. Which road will you take? Do you take the path to the clear present or the the shadows of the past?
”
”
Eve Evangelista (Create and Move Forward in Life)
“
The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
I saw love in your smile and I recognized it for the first time in my life. But you had a plane to catch and I was already home.
”
”
Lang Leav (Memories)
“
When you are standing at a crossroads in your life, realize
that the greatest block that you can put in front of your Self is the idea
that there is a ‘right’ choice.
”
”
Story Waters (The Messiah Seed Volume I)
“
There were moments in which a person reached a crossroads, when something happened, out of the blue, to change the course of life's events.
”
”
Kate Morton (The Secret Keeper)
“
In the moment of decision, may you hear the voice of the Creator saying, ‘This is right road, travel on it.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
Life lessons are not journeys traveled in straight lines but are crossroads
formed years and miles apart.
”
”
Gina Greenlee (Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road)
“
Marco enters a city; he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his; he could now be in that man's place, if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to be in the place of that man in the square. By now, from that real or hypothetical past of his, he is excluded; he cannot stop; he must go on to another city, where another of his pasts awaits him, or something perhaps that had been a possible future of his and is now someone else's present. Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.
”
”
Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities)
“
A key element in everyone’s hero’s journey is the “decision point,” the moment when, often following a crisis, the hero is confronted by a major choice, a crossroad, a life redirection, a safe or a risky option. Choose one path and your life changes in a certain way, choose another and you veer off into an alternate reality.
”
”
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski ("Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird": Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace's Faithful Companion)
“
At the crossroad in my life, I didn't know which way to go. I just mindlessly choose a random direction... then, after regretting my decision I tried to retrace my steps. However, without even realizing it the sun had already set.
”
”
Nobuyuki Fukumoto
“
Books are not meant to remain in your mind, but in your heart. Maybe they exist in your mind too, but as something more than memories. At a crossroads in life, a forgotten sentence or a story from years ago can come back to offer an invisible hand and guide you to a decision.
”
”
Hwang Bo-Reum (Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop)
“
I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (A Room of One’s Own)
“
Life is a dream, and everyone wakes eventually.
”
”
Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight (The Wheel of Time, #10))
“
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
Because life is like that, isn't it? One cannot stop its ebb and flow. You step into the current and whatever's in your path will cross you and touch you and sometimes stay.
”
”
Janice Pariat (The Nine-Chambered Heart)
“
For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.
”
”
Ann Patchett (What Now?)
“
You will only know the road, until you have travel on it.
”
”
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
“
We have to get used to the idea that at the most important crossroads in our life there are no signs.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway
“
Not everyone is meant to be in your life for the long run. Some are just passing through to lead us to those that should be.
”
”
April Mae Monterrosa
“
Our bodies, minds, and spirits stand in ancient communion with the soil.
”
”
Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit)
“
Rooted ways embolden us to remember that with our complex minds we can feel—and live—more than one thing simultaneously. Anxiety, difficulty, fear, despair. Yes. Beauty, connectedness, possibility, love. Yes.
”
”
Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit)
“
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.
”
”
Henry Beston (The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod)
“
We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.
Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.
Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.
And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin (the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living)
“
Everyone feels depressed, angry or frustrated at times; it’s a crossroads not a dead end.
”
”
Sam Owen (500 Relationships And Life Quotes: Bite-Sized Advice For Busy People)
“
Life presents us with moments of decision—crossroads where we either choose a new direction and move on, or cling to what we already have and be miserable.
”
”
Mary Buchan (Over iT: How to Live Above Your Circumstances and Beyond Yourself)
“
Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.
”
”
Aaron Lauritsen (100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip)
“
We met at a cross-roads in life,
But we were going different directions.
We were part of each other's lives,
But only for a moment.
The first person that you meet in life
Won't necessarily be the one who's forever.
Just look at you and me,
And it's not hard to see that
This is the moment before life goes on.
We are still friends;
We are still really good friends.
Please tell me that you agree.
But I'm not the one for you,
And you just can't see yourself with me.
”
”
Margo T. Rose (The Words)
“
At one time or another, we all stand at the crossroads and at the fork in the road.We can go back where it’s comfortable, predictable and easy. Or we can go forward. If you go back, my friend, you will miss the ride of your life!
”
”
Donna Schultz (Lessons From Ruth:Discovering Your Destiny)
“
Such is life, imaginary or otherwise: a continuous parting of ways, a constant flux of approximation and distanciation, lines of fate intersecting at a point which is no-time, a theoretical crossroads fictitiously 'present,' an unstable ice floe forever drifting between was and will be.
”
”
Sol Luckman (Beginner's Luke (Beginner's Luke, #1))
“
Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world. —Francis of Assisi
”
”
Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit)
“
A decision unmade is still a decision. It won't go away. Neither will problems or more options.
”
”
Emily Grabatin (Dare to Decide: Discovering Peace, Clarity and Courage at Life's Crossroads)
“
So often there are crossroads in your life, when things can go right or horribly wrong. We never know when something we say or do will turn a person's life around.
”
”
Lesley Crewe (Amazing Grace)
“
Because the one who wishes it – isn’t the one who, still untouched by the future, stands at the crossroads. Instead, it is the one marked by the future become past who wants to go back to the past, to revoke the irrevocable. And would he want to revoke it if he hadn’t suffered it?
”
”
Pascal Mercier (Night Train to Lisbon)
“
Even if we have ourselves so fully convinced that we are on the right track because we desperately want to believe that the specific direction we have chosen is the "correct one", if the universe disagrees with our choices, it will not be shy in telling us so.
”
”
Miya Yamanouchi
“
...in life, a man only comes to a few crossroads that can shape his future for good or bad. Sometimes one recognized these crossroads, and could stop and think about the right decision. But other times, the choice could only be seen with the clarity that came afterward.
”
”
Morgan Rhodes (Frozen Tides (Falling Kingdoms, #4))
“
While we have more scientific knowledge of the universe than any people ever had, it is not the type of knowledge that leads to an intimate presence within a meaningful universe.… The difficulty is that with the rise of the modern sciences we began to think of the universe as a collection of objects rather than as a communion of subjects.
”
”
Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit)
“
Guess life is really a road marked by crossroads. It's not the long and winding stretches that will hurt you the most. It's the crossroads. You make a bad choice and it's a tumble and a rumble before you get back on your feet again. But you'll get back on your feet. You'll find yourself. And then you'll be off to your next adventure (crossroads, I mean). In my case, I always had a safety net—my faith in God. But then, I'm more like the millions of simple folk who travel this world.
”
”
Psyche Roxas-Mendoza
“
I’ve been insulted by fools before. I survived.” Even in the dim light he saw her eyes change.
“Just because he was using words instead of a knife, you can’t dismiss it, Saetan. He hurt you.”
“Of course he hurt me,” Saetan snapped. “Being accused of—” He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand. “I don’t tolerate fools, Jaenelle, but I also don’t kill them for being fools. I simply keep them out of my life.” He sat up and took her other hand. “I am your sword and your shield, Lady. You don’t have to kill.”
Witch studied him with her ancient, haunted sapphire eyes. “You’ll take the scars on your soul so that mine remains unmarked?”
“Everything has a price,” he said gently. “Those kinds of scars are part of being a Warlord Prince. You’re at a crossroads, witch-child. You can use your power to heal or to harm. It’s your choice.
”
”
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
“
History repeats itself only in that, from afar, we all seem to lead exactly the same life. We are all born; we all spend time here on earth; we all die. But up close, we have each walked down our own separate paths. We have stood at our own lonely crossroads. We have touched the lives of others at crucial points, for better or for worse. In the end, each of us has lived a unique life story, astounding and complicated, a story that could never be repeated.
”
”
Edward Bloor (London Calling)
“
What crossroads are you at?” At any moment, most of us are in the middle of some transition. The question helps people focus on theirs. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Most people know that fear plays some role in their life, but they haven’t clearly defined how fear is holding them back. “If you died tonight, what would you regret not doing?” “If we meet a year from now, what will we be celebrating?” “If the next five years is a chapter in your life, what is that chapter about?” “Can you be yourself where you are and still fit in?
”
”
David Brooks (How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen)
“
Every temptation proves a crossroad where we must choose between the high road and the low road. On some occasions it is a trial of agonizing frustration. On other occasions, it is a mere annoyance, a nuisance of minor proportions. but in each case there is some element tot uneasiness, anxiety, and spiritual tugging--ultimately a choosing that forces us to take sides. Neutrality is a nonexistent condition in this life. We are always choosing, always taking sides. That is part of the human experience--facing temptations on a daily, almost moment-by-moment basis--facing them not only on the good days but on the days we are down, the days we are tired, rejected, discouraged, or sick. Every day of our lives we battle temptation--and so did the Savior. It is an integral part of the human experience, faced not only by us but also by him. He drank from the same cup.
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Tad R. Callister (The Infinite Atonement)
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One of God’s greatest gifts to man is freedom of choice. At an early period in the journey through life, man finds himself at a crossroad where he must choose one of two great highways—the right, leading to progress and happiness; and the wrong, leading to retardation and sorrow. There exists this eternal law that each human soul, through the choices he makes, will shape his own destiny. Our success or failure, peace or discontent, happiness or misery, depend on the choices we make each day.
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N. Eldon Tanner
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History proves beyond any possibility of doubt that no religion has ever given a stimulus to scientific progress comparable to that of Islam. The encouragement which learning and scientific research received from Islamic theology resulted in the splendid cultural achievements in the days of the Umayyads and Abbasids and the Arab rule in Sicily and Spain. I do not mention this in order that we might boast of those glorious memories at a time when the Islamic world has forsaken its own traditions and reverted to spiritual blindness and intellectual poverty. We have no right, in our present misery, to boast of past glories. But we must realize that it was the negligence of the Muslims and not any deficiency in the teachings of Islam that caused our present decay.
Islam has never been a barrier to progress and science. It appreciates the intellectual activities of man to such a degree as to place him above the angels. No other religion ever went so far in asserting the dominance of reason and, consequently, of learning, above all other manifestations of human life.
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Muhammad Asad (Islam at the Crossroads)
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The modern science of nature is significant for many other reasons, beyond the obvious setting of conservation priorities and actions. Foremost in my mind being the fact that it is beautiful. Its wondrous mathematical synchronicities, the specifics of its chemical analyses, the complexity of its physics are beyond both the practical and intuitive knowledge of most lay naturalists (or mystics), no matter how seasoned. When mingled with the wildness of the natural world and the creativity of the human mind, good science reveals its center, its story, its deeper teaching. The science has its own poetic force.
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Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit)
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So often," Jackaby said. "people think that when we arrive at a crossroads, we can choose only one path, but- as I have often and articulately postulated- people are stupid. We're not walking the path. We are the path. We are all of the roads and all of the intersections. Of course you can choose both."
I blinked.
"Also, if I hear any more nonsense about your allowing other people to decide where you're going in your own life, I will seriously reconsider your employment. You were hired for your mind, Miss Rook. I won't have an assistant incapable of thinking for herself."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Thank you, sir.
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William Ritter (Beastly Bones (Jackaby, #2))
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Spiritual assistance isn't there to make things easy and have everything go your way, but to help you grow into the fuller version of who you are. Rather than revealing that you're on the wrong track, shake-up and breakup often indicate that you're really starting to get somewhere. Of course, it's hard to feel this way while getting battered around by the severe crosswinds of our time, but that's when you most need to know it.
In the Western world we lack a clear set of guidelines for times like these. We lack meaningful rites of passage. We fail to equip people for knowing what to expect at key crossroads of the soul. We lack substantial guides for teaching individuals how to stay with their deep inner truth when all hell breaks loose. We get thrown into extreme life-changing passages like birth, first blood, first sex, marriage, pregnancy, child-bearing, divorce and death with only superficial guidance, and no deep cultural support for grasping the full significance of what we're coming out of and going into. So disruptions along the way don't usually appear as well-designed hurdles of initiation in a spiritual journey. Usually they appear as impossible dilemmas that bust your ass and belie evidence of any greater design.
Major rites of passage in the Western world rarely come in the form of sacred rituals but are embedded within mundane circumstance. It takes special perception to recognize the initiatory path through the chaos. It takes a shamanic perspective to realize that, like a winepress of the gods, rigorous challenges are there to squeeze out your impurities and release your essence. ...
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Mark Borax
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More importantly, I didn’t know then that one day I would genuinely be free. That freedom came out of a thousand small steps of obedience, most of which I took during the waiting or limbo time. The more I learned to lean into Him on a daily basis and simply live out my faith in the everyday elements, the more I was prepared for the bigger steps when they arrived. Not only that, I was given the gift of living my life fully in the present, rather than being fixated and frustrated over some distant time or hope. In the crossroads called limbo, you do arrive at mile markers. You become more mature. More healed. Less surprised by or resistant to or unprepared for the good things God is giving you in the ordinary. Your challenge is to begin to embrace the waiting times as part of the overall journey. Limbo is a key part of the healing process! As you are faithful daily, He is working in you powerfully, and it all counts. Every single moment!
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Suzanne Eller (The Mended Heart: God's Healing for Your Broken Places)
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Life is a series of problems to be analyzed and addressed. How do we fix our failing schools? How do we reduce violence? These problem-centered questions are usually the wrong ones to ask. They focus on deficits, not gifts. A problem conversation tends to focus on one moment in time—the moment when a student didn’t graduate from high school, the moment when a young person commits a crime, the moment when a person is homeless. But actual lives are lived cumulatively. It takes a whole series of shocks before a person becomes homeless—loss of a job, breakdown in family relationship, maybe car problems or some transportation issue. It takes a whole series of shocks before a kid drops out of school. If you abstract away from the cumulative nature of life and define the problem as one episode, you are abstracting away from how life is lived. All conversations are either humanizing or dehumanizing, and problem-centered conversations tend to be impersonal and dehumanizing. The better community-building conversations focus on possibilities, not problems. They are questions such as, What crossroads do we stand at right now? What can we build together? How can we improve our lives together? What talents do we have here that haven’t been fully expressed?
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David Brooks (The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life)
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Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.
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Katherine May (Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times)