Love Is Overrated Quotes

You know, when it works, love is pretty amazing. It's not overrated. There's a reason for all those songs.

You picked a lemon, throw it away lemonade is overrated. Freaks should remain at the circus, not in your apartment. You already have one asshole. You don’t need another. Make a space in your life for the glorious things you deserve. Have faith.

Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn't the hard thing. The man that dies escapes. Plain and simple. Game over. End of pain...Try living for someone. Through it all-good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That's the hard thing.

You overrate my capacity of love. I don't posess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me.

You know, when it works, love is amazing. It's not overrated.

If this was love, love had been overrated.

As many overrate the allowable bearing capacity of their love commitment, they may also misjudge the consequences of the steps they take. Measuring is knowing, indeed. (“Measuring space »)

I love you more than I can say, than I can even think and what you give me takes my breath away, but breathing is overrated when I can kiss you.

I've been in love. It's painful, pointless and overrated. - Damon Salvatore

Protection and power are overrated. I think you are very wise to choose happiness and love.

Many girls have been romanced under the moon, and I don’t mean to say moonlight is overrated, but few I think have known the magic of a sunrise kiss.

When it was done and I went to sleep, I lay awake and listened to the clock on your nightstand and the wind outside and understood that I was really home, that in bed with you was home, and something that had been getting close in the dark was suddenly gone. It could not stay. It had been banished. It knew how to come back, I was sure of that, but it could not stay and I could really go to sleep. My heart cracked with gratitude. I think it was the first gratitude I’ve ever really known. I lay there beside you and the tears rolled down the sides of my face and onto the pillow. I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. I don’t care if you understand me. Understanding is vastly overrated, but nobody ever gets enough safety. I’ve never forgotten how safe I felt with that thing gone out of the darkness.

Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of 45 percent fear of not being accepted, 45 percent manic hope that this time the fear will be put to shame and a modest 10 percent frail awareness of the possibility of love. I don't fall in love any more. Just like I don't get the mumps.

The few love affairs which had come my way had been rather silly and sordid. They had not revealed the possibilities of love; in fact I had thought it a somewhat overrated pleasure, a brief and brutal blindness with boredom and disgust hard on its heels.

Anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.

No one could ever truly be free as long as they loved, and life wasn't worth living without love. So freedom? Overrated.

love is nothing but an overrated emotion that brings nothing but pain to those unfortunate enough to suffer from it.

Did I have to be dead to get you to see me? Wake the fuck up, Ms. Lane. Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn't the hard thing. The man that dies escapes. Plan and simple. Game over. End of pain. Alina was the lucky one. Try living for someone. Through it all - good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That's the hard thing.

The most overrated things are fame, the future, marriage, being rich, happiness, being in love, sanity, being alive, sex, and human beings.

It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.

Why do you want me?" I asked, suppressing the trembling of my voice. "I’m strange, definitely not perfect, and fucked up. Actually, a lot of the latter.” “Perfect is boring and overrated.” He smiled that lopsided grin of his that made my lower abdomen twist and curl with delicious desire. “I’m looking for sexy, fun, kind, and honest. And you tick all the right boxes, Brooke.

I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between. I don’t care if you understand me. Understanding is vastly overrated, but nobody ever gets enough safety.

Affection as medicine is highly overrated...a person who is as sick with depression as I most certainly was cannot possibly be rescued through the power of anyone's love.

I love you,” I sighed, unable to keep the smile from my face, leaning back and looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “I really do.” “I know,” he grunted, very pleased with himself. “You can’t live without me. I’m like cheese.” It took a second to process his comment. “I’m sorry, cheese?” “Sure. Air’s overrated. Try living without cheese.” The man was insane, which, it turned out, was just perfect for me.

He grimaced and went after her. “I’m not a trainer. Just spent a lot of time working out.”  “Misspent youth, clearly.” She held the door open, standing just outside.  “My application to princess school was rejected.” Callan exited the building and fell into step alongside her. “Working out was how I coped.” Sunlight peeked out from behind striped clouds and lit the early-morning sky. Autumn weather chilled the perspiration on his skin.  “Such a shame.” Meridian glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye.  “What is?”  “That you didn’t go to princess school. Could have learned some manners.” Her blue-green eyes sparked in the sunlight. And her mouth . . . Her lips set in some smart-looking, lopsided grin, with a small dimple.  I should definitely kiss that look off her face. “Overrated. Inefficient. And I look terrible in a tiara.

Logic is overrated and superfluous when it comes to love.

Love teaches you that fitting is overrated; what you need to do is change the shape of your life to make the connection.

Our calling is not simply to change the world, but perhaps as important, our calling is to be changed ourselves.

Holding hands in love is underrated, while sex is overrated. Don't you think so?

Love was overrated and nature used it to kick us in the gut and trick us into reproducing.

The idea of loving someone no matter what they do is overrated, not to mention largely impossible.

Love is overrated, not to mention fickle. It comes and goes. You can’t build a foundation on it. Mutual interests and alliance are a different story.

Love is overrated. All it brings is emptiness.” I twirled the ring again. “Definitely not beauty.

I'm thinking that it will be autumn soon," she said, lifting her gaze to his. "Autumn is my absolute favorite season. Spring is overrated. It's soggy and the trees are still bare from winter. Winter drags on and on, and summer is nice, but it's all the same. Autumn is different. I mean, is there any perfume in the world that can compare with the smell of burning leaves?" she asked with an engaging smile. Matt thought she smelled a hell of a lot better than burning leaves, but he let her continue. "Autumn —is thexincgitsinagre changing. It's like dusk." "Dusk?" "Dusk is my favorite time of day, for the same reason. When I was young, I used to walk down our driveway at dusk in the summer and stand at the fence, watching all the cars going by with their headlights on. Everyone had a place to go, something to do. The night was just beginning ..." She trailed off in embarrassment. "That must sound incredibly silly." "It sounds incredibly lonely.

It's amazing how smart the body is. Though maybe we could do without loving. I think it's overrated, and I think it's too hard. You should only love your children; that is necessary, because otherwise you might kill them. But to love a man? It's overrated, and it's too hard and I will never, ever do it again.

He asked himself whether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not; hoped it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amatory passion itself. If this was love, love had been overrated.

To love, to live, to feel so much that your world keeps spinning, faster and faster, in that wonderful, chaotic mess of humanity that you’d so hastily give up. Immortality is overrated. It is nothing but the ability to live through it all and not experience a single thing, to eat everything without tasting it at all." Isak’s eyes shone with a desperate need. He wanted, more than anything it seemed, to be like me, when all I wanted was to be like him.

Romantic love is over-rated but that's what we want in life, someone who love us in a romantic way.

What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”3

The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30. This is something Lorne [Michaels] has said often about Saturday Night Live, but I think it’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go. You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute. (And I’m from a generation where a lot of people died on waterslides, so this was an important lesson for me to learn.) You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring on live TV. What I learned about ‘bombing’ as an improviser at Second City was that bombing is painful, but it doesn’t kill you. No matter how badly an improv set goes, you will still be physically alive when it’s over. What I learned about bombing as a writer at Saturday Night is that you can’t be too worried about your ‘permanent record.’ Yes, you’re going to write some sketches that you love and are proud of forever—your golden nuggets. But you’re also going to write some real shit nuggets. And unfortunately, sometimes the shit nuggets will make it onto the air. You can’t worry about it. As long as you know the difference, you can go back to panning for gold on Monday.

Here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage might work: Because you wear pink but write poems about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell at your keys when you lose them, and laugh, loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol, gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming. You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents of what you packed were written inside the boxes. Because you think swans are overrated. Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence. Because you underline everything you read, and circle the things you think are important, and put stars next to the things you think I should think are important, and write notes in the margins about all the people you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there. Because you make that pork recipe you found in the Frida Khalo Cookbook. Because when you read that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed over the windows, you still believe someone outside can see you. And one day five summers ago, when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments— there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, which you paid for with your last damn dime because you once overheard me say that I liked it.

Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin are (in their personal intercourse with the man) almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of his excuses or the thickness of his head. A man's friend likes him but leaves him as he is: his wife loves him and is always trying to turn him into somebody else. Women who are utter mystics in their creed are utter cynics in their criticism. Thackeray expressed this well when he made Pendennis' mother, who worshipped her son as a god, yet assume that he would go wrong as a man. She underrated his virtue, though she overrated his value. The devotee is entirely free to criticise; the fanatic can safely be a sceptic. Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Tiger is born into the home of an expert golfer and confessed “golf addict” who loves to teach and is eager to begin teaching his new son as soon as possible.

Being in love is highly overrated. book: stuff i think about

Heroism is overrated, and bravery often accompanies stupidity.

Laurie: Besides marrying for love is vastly over-rated. There will be no guarantees that love will last. But a million dollars lasts a long time if you invest it properly

Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of forty-five per cent fear of not being accepted and forty-five per cent manic hope that this time the fear will be put to shame, and a modest ten per cent frail awareness of the possibility of love. [...] Falling in love is a form of madness. Closely related to hatred, coldness, resentment, intoxication, and suicide.

Be your best self and do not imitate anyone else. Find your strengths. They are your talents. They will make you smile and cause you to real joy on the inside. Don’t listen to those who ridicule the choices you make or the dreams you share. Let no one despise your youth. As Og Mandino explained in The Greatest Salesman in the World, “Experience is overrated, usually by old men who nod wisely and speak stupidly.” Create your own experiences. And know that you are creating memories for a lifetime. Life is not about finding yourself; it is about creating yourself. You have to take chances to make your dreams reality. Face your fears head-on and move rapidly. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Make lots of them! Your odds for success will increase with the number of decisions you make. Have patience with your dreams and the expectations you have for others. Be impatient with yourself daily. Live as if this is your last day. Say “I love you” to all those who matter. Know that everyone matters. You must play full-out right now. Sit up, hold your head high. Breathe deeply. Lift your chest up. Stand up straight and with confidence. Dust yourself off. Stop being a party pooper in your own life. Smile. A bigger noticeable smile. Start acting happy. Yes, you act first. I promise the feeling of happiness will soon follow.

What are we going to do, Ayden?" she whispered, glaring up at me. "I don't know," I confessed. "But how about we burn that bridge when we get there?" "I thought it was 'cross' that bridge?" I lightly poked her in the eye and she laughed. "No. We're burning bridges. Crossing is so overrated." I smiled and touched the corner of her eyes, captivated by the iridescent blues. "I think I like the sound of that," she whispered. "Yeah?" "Yeah.

I’ve recently discovered what I suspected all along – cynicism is overrated and overvalued. It’s the shield people hide behind in the mistake belief that it makes them appear cool, strong and impenetrable. But true bravery isn’t about following the crowd or pretending not to care – it’s about daring to trust in yourself and staying true to your heart in the face of dissent. True courage is going out on a limb for the people you love because it’s the right thing to do.

To “do justice” means to render to each what each is due. Justice involves harmony, flourishing, and fairness, and it is based on the image of God in every person—the Imago Dei—that grants all people inalienable dignity and infinite worth.

She didn’t fit perfectly into my new life, but the beauty of our relationship is that she hadn’t fit perfectly into my old life, either. Love teaches you that fitting is overrated; what you need to do is change the shape of your life to make the connection.

For what it's worth, I think perfect love stories have perfect disasters hidden somewhere. If a genuine relationship comes out of two people screwing before they saw the potential of the 'relationship'? Its perfect, beautiful, a work of art in fact.. Normal is overrated.

A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man’s social conditions.… Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.7

When Thomas said, “Love’s overrated,” I said, “You spoiled fucking brat.” And I reminded him, “Some boys have AIDS, retardation,” etc. Stuff he’d never se-e-e-en up in Beverly Hills. “There are girls who’d dismember their boyfriends for one word from you,” I told him. He knew that, but he didn’t know some of them were crippled. So I drove Thomas down to the hospital where I volunteer, where paraplegics with his posters taped around them like a sky, saw him and gasped like they’d been diagnosed God.

In contradistinction to the underestimation in the field of rocket science and the aerospace industry, Parsons' accomplishments in the arcane sciences have been highly overrated and grossly exaggerated. As a magician he was essentially a failure. As a Thelemite he learned the hard way what was required. He loved Crowley's 'Law' but couldn't adhere to it—though he tried harder than most. He violated the rules, undertook unauthorized and unorthodox magical operations, and claimed the grade of Magister Templi without first completing all the grades below it. He couldn't handle working under authority—his ego was too big. His record of failure is valuable in that regard. He was a great promulgator of thelemic ideals in his essays, but as an idealist his elitism ruined his work. Indeed, some would say he was guilt of hubris, which the gods always punish.

Willie said fathers were overrated, that my father could be one of thousands, most likely some rotten crotch creep that loved clip-on ties. She said I should forget about it. But I didn’t forget about it. I couldn’t. So the game continued, and for years I added names to the list, imagining that 50 percent of me was somehow respectable instead of rotten. And creepy was certainly relative. After all, what was creepier, a man who loved clip-on ties or a girl who kept a log of fantasy fathers hidden in her desk drawer?

Rest is highly overrated," she said as she rained tiny kisses all over his throat and chest.

Some say Twitter is overrated. Some love it, others hate it. I guess it depends on what you've got, If you have guts to write a funny plot!

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. —African proverb

Just like I said in the beginning, forgiveness is overrated. Death is final. Revenge, however, dances between the fine lines of mortality and eternity. Love always finds a way.

The results didn’t matter at all. Amanda was his daughter and he was her father. He loved her with all his heart. Biology was overrated.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Love me for my affection, love me even for my weakness; I am satisfied myself. I prefer my feelings to all the fine sentiments of Seneca or Epictetus.

What brings credibility to the gospel is not more hour-long sermons. What brings credibility, passion, and, ultimately, belief is seeing the gospel at work … the incarnate gospel. What will move skeptics, cynics, and critics are Christians who love God and love their neighbors—including neighbors who don’t look like them—by willingly and humbly serving their needs.

The truth was overrated, she realized. Knowing that certain parts were fiction, this was what filled her body with an unexpected warmth. it was love, to recognize the inventions and inconsistencies that make a person whole.

Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.7

Multitasking is a highly overrated thing if you ask me. Today, we do everything in twos and threes. There is no longer time to stand and gaze, to look and ponder and to let your mind harmlessly wander. Everything goes around at such a breakneck pace. I almost envy my grandparents. Their lives were mostly devoid of Televisions and completely Computer free! I cannot imagine what my life would be today without the internet – forget even the computer – but I’d love to know how it would feel.

If you truly believe in the gospel, then you have to believe that it matters not just for your personal salvation and blessings but also for God’s pursuit of restoration, redemption, and reconciliation for the entire world. I believe in this gospel. I live for this gospel.

When I was younger I used to think that band-aids did all the work. I mean after all, it binds your wound together and makes everything better back to the way it was. But then I became an adult and started to fall in love,fvi and I realize that band-aids are so overrated lol.

I have a gift for you.” “Is it the firebird?” “Was that what you wanted? Should have told me sooner.” He reached into his pocket and placed something atop the wall. Light glinted off an emerald ring. The lush green stone at its center was bigger than my thumbnail and surrounded by stars of tiny diamonds. “Understatement is overrated,” I said on a shaky breath. “I love it when you quote me.” Nikolai tapped the ring. “Console yourself knowing that, should you ever punch me while wearing it, you’ll probably take my eye out. And I’d very much like you to. Wear it, that is. Not punch me.” “Where did you get this thing?” “My mother gave it to me before she left. It’s the Lantsov emerald. She was wearing it at my birthday dinner the night we were attacked. Curiously enough, that was not the worst birthday I’ve had.” “No?” “When I was ten, my parents hired a clown.

He’d stared at the test results, expecting to feel cheated or devastated or any of the other ways he’d guessed he was supposed to feel, but instead he’d felt completely nonplussed. The results didn’t matter at all. Amanda was his daughter and he was her father. He loved her with all his heart. Biology was overrated.

When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice.2

But what slayed Robert was that for all these years, all his adult life, he'd never believed in relationships and commitment. They were highly overrated as far as he was concerned. Some people's entire lives revolved around love...finding it, keeping it. People had written poetry about it, had sacrificed for it, had even died for it. And he'd never been able to understand why. Why would anyone want to invest themselves in such a fickle emotion that sounded too good to be true because it was too good to be true. When the going got tough, even when someone claimed to love and be committed to the people in their lives, they really only honored that commitment when things were good.

That’s not wise, Lin. I think wisdom is very over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness, with all the guts kicked out of it. I’d rather be clever than wise, any day. Most of the wise people I know give me a headache, but I never met a clever man or woman I didn’t like. If I was giving wise advice—which I’m not—I’d say don’t get drunk, don’t spend all your money, and don’t fall in love with a pretty village girl. That would be wise. That’s the difference between clever and wise. I prefer to be clever, and that’s why I told you to surrender, when you get to the village, no matter what you find when you get there. Okay. I’m going. Come and see me when you get back. I look forward to it. I really do.

But empathy today is becoming what love was in the 1960s—a sentimental ideal, extolled in catchphrases (what makes the world go round, what the world needs now, all you need) but overrated as a reducer of violence. When the Americans and Soviets stopped rattling nuclear sabers and stoking proxy wars, I don’t think love had much to do with it, or empathy either.

Life owes us nothing just because we are granted it. But, we do owe our own lives everything. Our life is a gift. When you see that for yourself, you see that the lives of others is also a gift. There's no such thing as "gone too soon" or "before their time." Our end date is not guaranteed. We are given just one life. And, that life- no matter how young or how old it is when it leaves us in the physical form - is put here for us to learn, grow and love in some capacity. Your legacy doesn't have to wait until you're dead and gone to be seen. Live it with each breath you take. Live it through your actions toward others. Live it with the time you have now. I want to see my life's impact during my time here on earth. Posthumous appreciation is overrated.

I have come to a conclusion.” Lydia tried to stifle a yawn. “Have you, indeed?” “Yes. I have decided that I do not like adventures or surprises. Highly overrated.” Robert’s soft chuckle drifted through the dark. “More of a misadventure, my dear Lydia, and certainly not a surprise, which are generally thought of as pleasant things. No, best label today a shocking misadventure and not rule out surprises altogether.” “My father thought them overrated, too.” “What? Surprises? No, no. Surprises are unexpected guests, a beautiful flower among the rocks, or a woodland trail that opens up to an astonishing vista.” “Lovely when you put it that way, but there are some surprises that are not pleasant in the least.” Lydia’s thoughts remained fixed on her father. “Hence my lack of appreciation.

All you girls get married, you have no strength of mind at all. I really do feel that all this sex is overrated, don’t you?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Martha humorously, ‘I haven’t tried yet.’ But he would not accept the humour. He pressed her arm urgently, and looked down into her face and insisted, ‘Well, don’t you think so? All you girls want to be made love to, and really…’ His face faded in disgust.

The life of Martin Luther King Jr. was one that typified the pursuit of justice, both spiritually and socially. He said these words: A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man’s social conditions.… Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.7

It doesn't matter if you are a pastor, professor, lawyer, president, prophet, etc, if you are married your first responsibility (calling) is to your family - wife to the husband and husband to wife. Until you come to that realization and submit accordingly, society won't have a healthy family life and your overall calling will suffer. The world has overrated public display of success neglecting private victories from the home and smaller units of our community.

If only Facebook had always been around, our broken world would have been fixed long ago. All you have to do to make the world a better place is to change your profile picture or status update. Just think, Dr. King wouldn’t have needed to march. Gandhi wouldn’t have gone on a hunger strike. And Mother Teresa would have never needed to actually touch a sick or poor person. They could have just let everyone know their opinion on FB and everything would have changed for the better.

Justice is the act of restoring something to fullness after it has been harmed. Justice is making things right. But that definition for me is still a little incomplete. Even more fundamental than a definition of justice is the place from which our understanding of justice emanates. It is hard to restore what has been wronged if you don’t have a point of reference. We need to know what this fullness looks like in its pure form. We need to know where this restoration comes from. If fullness is the goal for us as the church and as Christians, we must seek to understand the fullness of what God intended for His creation. We need to more deeply understand God the Father, Jesus the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit. We need to more deeply grow in intimacy with the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. More often than not, we’re fixed in the brokenness of our world because we are constantly surrounded by such things. But if we’re not careful, we lose sight of God. We lose sight of God’s purposes and intent for creation. We lose sight of God’s promise to restore our brokenness and our fallen world. This is why for us, as Christians, the person of God, the deity of God, God’s justice, and God’s goodness are such powerful things. God’s justice is His plan of redemption for a broken world. God’s justice is renewing the world to where He would have intended it to be. Justice is not just a thing that is good. Justice is not merely doing good. Justice is not something that’s moral or right or fair. Justice is not, in itself, a set of ethics. Justice is not just an aggregation of the many justice-themed verses throughout the Scriptures. Justice is not trendy, glamorous, cool, or sexy. Justice isn’t a movement. Justice is so much more, and the understanding of this fullness is central to the work that we do in pursuing justice.

These girls aren't wounded so much as post-wounded, and I see their sisters everywhere. They're over it. *I am not a melodramatic person.* God help the woman who is. What I'll call "post-wounded" isn't a shift in deep feeling (we understand these women still hurt) but a shift away from wounded affect---these women are aware that "woundedness" is overdone and overrated. They are wary of melodrama so they stay numb or clever instead. Post-wounded women make jokes about being wounded or get impatient with women who hurt too much. The post-wounded woman conducts herself as if preempting certain accusations: don't cry too loud, don't play victim, don't act the old role all over again. Don't ask for pain meds you don't need, don't give those doctors another reason to doubt the other women on their examination tables. Post-wounded women fuck men who don't love them and then they feel mildly sad about it, or just blase about it, more than anything they refuse to care about it, refuse to hurt about it---or else they are endlessly self-aware about the posture they have adopted if they allow themselves this hurting. The post-wounded posture is claustrophobic. It's full of jadedness, aching gone implicit, sarcasm quick-on-the-heels of anything that might look like self-pity. I see it in female writers and their female narrators, troves of stories about vaguely dissatisfied women who no longer fully own their feelings. Pain is everywhere and nowhere. Post-wounded women know that postures of pain play into limited and outmoded conceptions of womanhood. Their hurt has a new native language spoken in several dialects; sarcastic, apathetic, opaque; cool and clever. They guard against those moments when melodrama or self-pity might split their careful seams of intellect. *I should rather call is a seam.* We have sewn ourselves up. We bring everything to the grindstone.

No, you have been brought up with the lies that books have told you, and granted they are far more comforting and aesthetically pleasing than the truth. I will not rip the illusion from you. Keep it, hold it, love it, let it give solace on dark days. Let the truth die a noble death, with no marker, no troubadours singing its songs, no glorious parades or the trotting out of its many lustrous icons on saint days. Let the truth die with the man who holds it. If there was anything I learned while teaching, it is that truth is overrated. The lies are just as, if not more, beautiful and poetic. And after centuries, if the lies have survived, they become the truth, as such.

If you truly believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you believe that the gospel matters not just for your personal salvation and blessing, but also for God’s pursuit of restoration, redemption, and reconciliation of the entire world. Christians believe in the gospel that is revealed to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ: A gospel that not only saves but also serves; A gospel that not only saves but seeks to restore all things back unto the One that ushered forth all that is good and beautiful; A gospel that not only saves but ushers in the kingdom of God; A gospel that not only saves but restores the dignity of humanity—even in the midst of our brokenness and depravity. This gospel is not just for us. The gospel is good news for all. Justice as Discipleship

That miserable son of a bitch!” he bit out between clenched teeth. “After eleven years he’s going to have it his way. And all because I couldn’t keep my hands off her.” The vicar could scarcely conceal his joyous relief. “There are worse things than having to marry a wonderful young woman who also had the excellent judgment to fall in love with you,” he pointed out. Ian almost, but not quite, smiled at that. The impulse passed in an instant, however, as reality crushed down on him, infuriating and complicated. “Whatever she felt for me, it was a long time ago. All she wants now is independence.” The vicar’s brows shot up, and he chuckled with surprise. “Independence? Really? What an odd notion for a female. I’m sure you’ll be able to disabuse her of such fanciful ideas.” “Don’t count on it.” “Independence is vastly overrated. Give it to her and she’ll hate it,” he suggested. Ian scarcely heard him; the fury at having to capitulate to his grandfather was building inside him again with terrible force. “Damn him!” he said in a murderous underbreath. “I’d have let him rot in hell, and his title with him.” Duncan’s smile didn’t fade as he said with asperity, “It’s possible that it’s fear of ‘rotting in hell,’ as you so picturesquely phrased it, that has made him so desperate to affirm you now as his heir.

Priests, because they hear confessions and forgive sins and give counsel, are often called doctors of souls. You might call us the specialist surgeons of souls. We find the hidden problems, that people won’t speak about and couldn’t even if they would. We delve into the worst that human beings do—into the things that even they can’t explain—in order to find the person buried underneath the sin. Then we do our best to bring them back up with us. We see some of the harshest ugliness there is. Do you know why a person would cheat on their loving spouse with the full knowledge that it will wreck their children’s lives when the family falls apart? Do you know why a man would turn his own children against their mother so that they refuse to talk to her? Do you know why a woman would torture her children without leaving a mark, and scare them into not telling anyone? Do you know why people fake crimes and get their spouse arrested and sent to prison?” He stared at her expecting an answer, with an intensity that was almost frightening. She tried to voice an answer or two, but in the face of that earnest inquiry, they died unspoken. Easy answers and joking evasions wouldn’t do. She shook her head in the negative. “I do,” he said. “I’ve seen every one of those at least twice. And do you know what it’s taught me?” “What?” she asked, faintly. Sonia felt like she was talking with a monster. She was almost afraid of what lessons it had learned from the worst that human beings had to offer. “That the love of God is greater than all human evil. That where sin abounds, grace abounds more. I’ve seen some of the worst there is, and it doesn’t prove that life is meaningless. It proves that life is worth living. And it proves that we need God. I’m probably the most cynical person you’ve ever met, or ever will meet. But that doesn’t mean that I think life is bad. It means I know how much evil can exist in a good world. That’s what the faith gives me: I can stare evil in the face without blinking, because I know that it’s not the whole story.” He took a deep breath, then continued, a little more relaxed. “I’m sure that’s scary, if you’re used to blinking. I don’t know what to tell you, except that closing your eyes is not the way to be happy. If there’s something that you’re not supposed to look at, then look at it. If there’s something you’re not supposed to think about, then think about it. If something is too horrible to face, face it. Because the truth will set you free.” “You scare me,” she said, but it was an observation, neither a criticism nor a request to stop. He shrugged his shoulders. “Comfort is overrated,” he said. They stood there in silence for a few moments.

Self-control was overrated.

Take the time, and make a commitment to be an expert in the areas of your passion.

If people know that you believe it, that you are invested, and they know that you are not just skimming the surface, they will begin to realize that it’s not something you’re selling. Not something you want to monetize.

If you don’t know who you are, you risk burnout, shortcuts, and the possibility that your good intentions will harm others.

Today, we believe stories change the world. Yes, they do. But by emphasizing that so much, we place the art of storytelling on a pedestal. At times we may feel tempted to manipulate the story so that it becomes more attractive, or dare I say it, marketable. Marketable for what? Some try to manipulate a story to sell products, solicit more donations, build our platforms, or grow our tribe.

Thank you for your work, but as you share the stories of difficulties and pain, don’t forget to share the stories of beauty, hope, courage, and love. Please be responsible in your storytelling.

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.…

We can be informed and educated about many things, but we can only go deep in a few things.

Generosity is what keeps the things I own from owning me. In other words, the point of my generosity isn’t just to bless others; it’s also to liberate me.

Ideas, dreams, and visions don’t change the world. Rather, it’s people—like you and me, who faithfully, prayerfully, and tenaciously live out these ideas, dreams, and visions—who change the world.

It really is God’s grace that He doesn’t reveal the entirety of our futures all at once. If we knew what we’d have to face in the future, we’d all likely run the other way—like Jonah.