Najwa Zebian Mind Platter Quotes

To the heart in you, don’t be afraid to feel. To the sun in you, don’t be afraid to shine. To the love in you, don’t be afraid to heal. To the ocean in you, don’t be afraid to rage. To the silence in you, don’t be afraid to break.

Whatever you do, do it with purpose. Being focused is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to be proud of. When you know what are you are doing and have a clear vision of where you are going, you will not need to chase opportunities. Opportunities will seek you. Happiness will chase you. And, instead of being a choice, you will be the one choosing.

If they don't appreciate your presence, they may never recognize your absence.

You don't need to explain why you're protecting your soul from harm. You really don't.

Don't see the worst in a person and expect them to see the best in you.

Don’t tell me what I want to hear. Tell me the truth. It may hurt, but it definitely won’t hurt more than the feeling that I was told something out of pity, not out of honesty. If you mean it, say it. If you don’t, keep your words until the right person is standing in front of you. If words are said too many times, they become cheap, and I only deserve to hear what is valuable

Broken Wings              Don't break a bird's wings and then tell it to fly. Don't break a heart and then tell it to love. Don't break a soul and then tell it to be happy. Don't see the worst in a person and expect them to see the best in you. Don't judge people and expect them to stand by your side. Don't play with fire and expect to stay perfectly safe. Life is about giving and taking. You cannot expect to give bad and receive good. You cannot expect to give good and receive bad. Does it happen? Yes, but don't make that an excuse for you to keep doing what you know is wrong. Don't blame life for what you do. That is so selfish and ignorant on your behalf.

Reflecting is essential, but regret should not ground you in the past. It should make you grateful that you have a conscious mind that realized right from wrong. It should give you strength to wisely use your present to make your future better.

The reality you live in is partially up to you. The fantasy you live in is entirely up to you.

... don't invest your feelings in things. Don't invest them in people. Don't be good, considerate, honest, generous, and compassionate to others because you are investing in them as people, meaning because you expect something in return. If you do, you will be, and most likely you already have been, brought to deep disappointment. Be good to people because you are investing in goodness, consideration, honesty, generosity, and compassion, because those qualities have never failed to be rewarding.

Don't tell me there's no place for innocent hearts in this world. Don't tell me I need to accept what I don't believe in. I respect it. Don't confuse my values for my stubbornness, although I am stubborn. Don't confuse my positive attitude for being naive. Allow me to wrap my heart around you for a moment. Listen to this. Innocent hearts may not belong anywhere in this world but they are big enough for any heart in this world. Innocent hearts belong in innocent hearts. Innocent hearts belong in the hearts of those who genuinely want happiness.

You turn your back on yourself when you allow every closed door to stop you from moving on to the next one. Sometimes we choose to stand at a closed door and hope that it will somehow open, although that may defy logic and although we may know deep down that no goodness will come from it. We wait. We choose to wait. We choose to have hope, and we're always scared that the door will open the second we walk away. We claim ownership over what we do not have and fear losing it, although it really never was ours.

Being a leader is about leading your own mind's logic and leading your heart's reason. Be cognizant of the decisions that your mind and heart make, and your life will be much more meaningful and rewarding.

The truth can be seen, but it is not believed until it is openly said.

How can a mother sacrifice years of her life, put her career aside, make her dreams wait, without waiting for a paycheck at the end of the month? Would a paycheck bring her the same kind of happiness anyway? Not. Even. Close. We don’t make ourselves compassionate; we are born compassionate.

Change You can draw a path for your life and have all of your goals set. You can change yourself as much as possible and change things around you just to reach those goals. Here’s the catch. Never underestimate the power of fate. It can knock down the highest of goals that seem guaranteed in your life. Plan, yes, and decide, yes, but be prepared for plans not to work. If they don’t work despite your hardest efforts, there must be a reason. You may not be able to see the reason at the time, but you will one day, maybe even years later. Did your efforts go to waste? If you don’t learn from them, then yes, they did go to waste. Even after changing yourself and your surroundings for the sake of reaching that one goal, you may realize that it was waiting for you at the place where you started, when you were the true you who did not need to change or be changed. Change for yourself, not just for a goal.

Don't let your want replace your need, because a day will come when you will lose what you need to get what you want.

See yourself through the eyes of those who love you. They see all of the goodness in you when you fail to see it. They see the best in you when you see the worst. They are always ready to lift you up even before you fall down. They see every reason why you deserve happiness, love, and joy when you may feel that you're the furthest thing from deserving all of that goodness. Learn to care about those who care about you before you try to make those who don't even notice you turn your way. If you can't see happiness in what you already have, you're fooling yourself if you think that getting what you want will make you happy. If you can't see happiness in the simplest of things, you won't be able to see happiness in what's bigger. If you can't see the beauty of the stars, you may never appreciate the beauty of the moon.

This is when you realize that sometimes, just sometimes, you need to close your door so others can knock on it. Sometimes you need to stop shining so others can notice your existence. Sometimes you need to stop answering unasked questions so others can start wondering.

Don’t worry about what people think of you or about the way they try to make you feel. If people want to see you as a good person, they will. If people want to see you as a bad person, absolutely nothing you do will stop them.

Take Responsibility Don’t rely on others to make your life better. You may seem like a puzzle piece that fits nicely into their plans at one point, but what happens if they change their minds? So be it. You have a mind to lead you by logic and a heart to lead you by reason. You choose your fate by taking responsibility and by taking the lead in your life. Don’t make yourself part of others’ plans. Make your own plan and be part of it.

Be good to people because you are investing in goodness, consideration, honesty, generosity, and compassion, because those qualities have never failed to be rewarding. Treat people righteously because you are investing in the righteousness of yourself, and, trust me, you will get something in return. You will be happy. You will be content. You will be truly free.

If you cannot appreciate what you don’t have before you have it, you will not appreciate it after you have it. Period. We thrive on the idea of being able to change our surroundings to suit our needs, and we promise ourselves to change so many things once we finally get that one wish.

Take responsibility. Just as you can't deny that you can feel love and hate, happiness and sadness, anger and ease of mind, or tiredness and relaxation, you can't deny that you have a fate that, sometimes, you can't control. That doesn't mean that it takes control over you. You can't deny that you have words that need to be spoken. You can't deny that you have a choice. You can't deny the ability that you can say no. You can't deny the ability that you have the freedom to make a decision and defend it. You can't deny injustice when you see it, unfairness when you feel it, oppression when you witness it. Stop blaming the world around you for wronging you. Take responsibility for the nos you could have said but chose not to, the words you could have said but didn't, instead wrapping your mouth with your own hands and remaining silent against what needed to be addressed. Take responsibility for the choices you could have made but restrained yourself from making.

I am not better than you because of my religion, color, culture, education, status, wealth, etc. I am not, and neither are you, I must accept, and so should you, that there are differences between us that we were born into. Why do we focus on these differences? Put your hand in mine and let us accept that our differences should not come in the way of us uniting for the basic human values that we share: compassion, peacefulness, respect, honesty, innocence, humbleness and sympathy. Does a baby born here smile differently from a baby born anywhere in the world? Do they cry any differently? We may not speak the same language and we may not live the same lifestyle, but a smile I put on my face when I see you puts a smile on your face before you can even think of it. Now, THAT is powerful. I hope that every sense of arrogance or greed in my heart is deviated to a sense of humility, so the wall of ignorance to the real issues in the world can be shattered by the common rights that I share with all of my brothers and sisters in humanity.

We base our happiness on events that may happen in the future: If this happens, I will be truly happy. What about now? What about all of the things happening in your life now? Are they really not good? Or just not good enough? Reflect, reflect, reflect. Don’t be quick to judge how regretful or amazing your past was, how good or bad your present is, or how great your future will be. Be content with now. Anticipate a better, rather than anticipating a good.

Don’t let your want replace your need, because a day will come when you will lose what you need to get what you want.

I can tell you the truth, but I can't make you believe it.

Change for yourself, not just for a goal.

At the end of the day, no one will walk your journey for you. You have to do that. At the end of the day, no one will dream for you. You have to do that.

Little do you know that, while you’re envying a person’s beauty, money, or success, they may be battling to live. Those things that they have that you don’t have may be a way of helping them cope. Those things may be a way of proving to them that perfection does not exist. It cannot exist. Just because people don’t complain to you doesn’t mean that they don’t have problems. It means that they’ve learned to accept their problems and deal with them without wanting you to worry. They think of how to keep you happy while you wonder how they could be so happy.

Somewhere along the way of trying different things that we think will help change us, we may be misunderstood to be trying too hard, to be fake, and to be different than what we really are. Compare this to the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Halfway through, it looks nothing like what it ends up being. It is your choice to either stay halfway through or to continue your journey once you start it, to reach that destination of the person you know you can be.

Don’t Lose Track I don’t live in your heart or in your mind, so I cannot judge your intentions or your beliefs. Although your actions may give me a good impression of who you really are as a person, and although I may learn some lessons from your mistakes, I have no right to openly judge you because my purpose in life is not to criticize other people’s lives but to be respectful and considerate of them along my own path to reach my end vision in life. My path may cross with yours, and I may believe that you are on the wrong track, but if I lose track of my path because I’m too busy judging yours, I will waste my time and yours. Who I am and what I believe in are mine to keep, and who you are and what you believe in are yours to keep. They are yours to strengthen, change, or even keep the same. As long as we can be true to ourselves, stay away from hypocrisy, and be respectful toward one another, we will be happy along our paths to reach our dreams. One day, you will realize that there is no one more worthy of your attention or your criticism than yourself. Imagine putting all of the effort and energy you spend criticizing others and exposing their mistakes toward bettering yourself. Wouldn’t you be much more content and happy?

If life came with a manual, it would be full of blank pages that you would fill out yourself. There would be pages that you wish you could rip out but can't, pages that you wish you could stay on and not turn, pages that you would love ...

at its base, the understanding that mistake is too big and too negative of a word, while experience is bigger and more constructive to your life.

Open your heart to me if you respect that I am worthy of your love.

An Ironic Reward for a Beautiful Heart Beautiful hearts are hard to find, and to reward them when we do find them, we convince ourselves that they're too good for us. What a reward. Instead of holding onto them, we pull ourselves away. We push them away. We forget that the beauty of their hearts comes from their ability to love and from their willingness to liberate those whose hearts have caged themselves in the past.