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Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river--and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you.
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Alysha Speer
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Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance.
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Stephen R. Covey
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Swim, crawl, stagger, walk, bend, stagger and gone – that’s life in simple terms, and all that matters here is how well we fought.
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Merlin Franco (A Dowryless Wedding)
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Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance, albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.
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Erich Fromm (To Have or to Be? The Nature of the Psyche)
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The water doesn't know how old you are.
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Dara Torres (Age Is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams at Any Stage in Your Life)
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We’re just queuing for a possibility, queuing for something, maybe queuing for nothing,’ she said, smiling her sad and loving smile. ‘But it will pass, my dear. Even the longest queue dissolves eventually.
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Tomasz Jedrowski (Swimming in the Dark)
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Lovers' reading of each other's bodies (of that concentrate of mind and body which lovers use to go to bed together) differs from the reading of written pages in that it is not linear. It starts at any point, skips, repeat itself, goes backward, insists, ramifies in simultaneous and divergent messages, converges again, has moments of irritation, turns the page, finds its place, gets lost. A direction can be recognized in it, a route to an end, since it tends toward a climax, and with this end in view it arranges rhythmic phases, metrical scansions, recurrence of motives. But is the climax really the end? Or is the race toward that end opposed by another drive which works in the opposite direction, swimming against moments, recovering time?
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Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
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WHEN YOU WORK FOR OTHERS, YOU ARE AT THEIR MERCY. THEY OWN YOUR WORK; THEY OWN YOU. YOUR CREATIVE SPIRIT IS SQUASHED. WHAT KEEPS YOU IN SUCH POSITIONS IS A FEAR OF HAVING TO SINK OR SWIM ON YOUR OWN. INSTEAD YOU SHOULD HAVE A GREATER FEAR OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU REMAIN DEPENDENT ON OTHERS FOR POWER. YOUR GOAL IN EVERY MANEUVER IN LIFE MUST BE OWNERSHIP, WORKING THE CORNER FOR YOURSELF. WHEN IT IS YOURS TO LOSE-YOU ARE MORE MOTIVATED, MORE CREATIVE, MORE ALIVE. THE ULTIMATE POWER IN LIFE IS TO BE COMPLETELY SELF-RELIANT, COMPLETELY YOURSELF.
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Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson (The 50th Law)
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Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim...
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H. Jackson Brown Jr. (The Complete Life's Little Instruction Book)
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Years ago, in a motivational seminar by the master, Zig Ziglar, I heard a story about how mediocrity will sneak up on you. The story goes that if you drop a frog into boiling water, he will sense the pain and immediately jump out. However, if you put a frog in room-temperature water, he will swim around happily, and as you gradually turn the water up to boiling, the frog will not sense the change. The frog is lured to his death by gradual change. We can lose our health, our fitness, and our wealth gradually, one day at a time. It might be a cliché, but that’s because it is true: The enemy of “the best” is not “the worst.” The enemy of “the best” is “just fine.
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Dave Ramsey (The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness)
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Sometimes, the ocean floor is only a stop on the journey. And it is when you are at this lowest point, that you are faced with a choice. You can stay there at the bottom, until you drown. Or you can gather pearls and rise back up — stronger from the swim and richer from the jewels.
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Yasmin Mogahed (Reclaim Your Heart: Personal Insights on Breaking Free from Life's Shackles)
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The truth is -- we are always highly motivated when something means a great deal to us. If I fell into a deep lake and I didn't know how to swim, I would become highly motivated in an instant. Climbing from the lake would mean more to me than anything else in the world. My effort would be no less than astounding and I would suddenly become one of the most excited and enthusiastic persons imaginable.
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Steve Goodier
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I can't swim," the student told his master.
"Then learn to walk on water," the master replied.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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Just keep Swimming!
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Ellen DeGeneres
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True, luck may rule over parts of a person's life and luck may cast patches of shadow across the ground of our being, but where there's a WILL-- much less a strong will to swim thirty laps or run twenty kilometers -- there's a way to overcome most any trouble with whatever stepladders you have around.
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Haruki Murakami (The Elephant Vanishes)
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The only way to prepare for social life is to engage in social life. To form habits of social usefulness and serviceableness apart from any direct social need and motive, apart from any existing social situation, is, to the letter, teaching the child to swim by going through motions outside of the water.
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John Dewey (Moral Principles in Education)
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I've realized that you might have big waves, and you may have small waves. But it never matters because the waves always break. And what if they don't? That just means that you must keep swimming until your wave appears.
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Ali Marie (What Went Wrong Last Summer)
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It did matter to get out of bed. There were webs to weave. Strings to grasp. Packages to deliver. Conversations to start. Thoughts to be expressed. Sams to slam into. Oceans to swim. And sad little men hiding in electrical sockets, waiting to be born of the human imagination.
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Bud Macfarlane Jr. (Conceived Without Sin)
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Fish don't need swimming gear when speeding through the deep waters.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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A fish doesn't need swimming gear when you throw it into the ocean.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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Stop drowning your dreams by jumping into waters that you are unable to swim in.
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Loren Weisman
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If you are full of fear, you will drown in the shallowest river. If you are full of faith, you will swim across the deepest ocean.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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I think being yourself—your true, entire self— is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream.
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Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
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But there were always things swimming around in me that I could neither hold on to long enough to comprehend or learn to live with. It was like the change in the air that comes before a storm. You feel the energy build but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. That’s what it was like for me. When those times came I couldn’t talk. There was no language for it. I suppose when you can’t understand something yourself it’s impossible to let anybody else in even if you’re motivated to.
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Richard Wagamese (Indian Horse)
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Don't resist when life needs to remove the "old" to make room for the the "new." The pain you're feeling isn't caused by letting things or people go, what's actually hurting you is swimming exhaustively against the natural flow that was intended to carry you.
What's truly meant for you shouldn't feel forced, and your blessings are definitely on the way. So stop clinging to whatever needs to be purged... focus instead on freeing yourself to receive. What God has for you, is meant just for you... you'll never have to fight or compete with anyone for what's been divinely designated as yours.
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Kianu Starr
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The impossible is what motivates me everyday to go to the pool. It's so satisfying, so epically rewarding when you start chipping away at those idealistic goals. Nothing has made me more committed to my training than choosing a scary goal and taking the steps to go after it.
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Katie Ledecky (Just Add Water: My Swimming Life)
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If you want to see the beauty of any fish, throw it into the water, you will see how best it can swim because that is its source. Do you want to see the beauty in you? Don't look in the mirror, don't put on makeups, no jewelleries or expensive designer clothes, just go back and reconnect to your source and I bet, the best of you will show up. Until you return back to God, your best won't come out because He is your source.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
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We can spend today joyously celebrating potential by acting upon our purpose, or we can spend it mourning the days and opportunities gone by… the first will find you amongst the few who are content and accomplished; the latter will find you with the suffering majority as you exhaustedly swim in the ocean of regret.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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swimming in the ocean leads to the shore, Flying in space leads to the moon,
walking in Life leads to success
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Naimish Gandhi (The Mystical Mark: A supernatural detective story)
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Welcome the pain and allow it to engulf you. Dive in it. Swim through it. Only then you will understand your immense power over it.
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Hiral Nagda
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A bird will only fall from the sky when it stops believing in its ability to fly, and a fish will only drown in water when it stops believing in its ability to swim.
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Matshona Dhliwayo
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Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance, albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking process attempts to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of logic and plausibility.
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Erich Fromm (To Have or To Be?)
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We are all made up of the heart broken or the heart breakers and sometimes you break your own heart for the pain you caused to someone else. The only way to mend is to open your heart and swim deep into the waters of forgiveness, pacifying like a band aid to your heart.
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Christine Evangelou (Stardust and Star Jumps: A Motivational Guide to Help You Reach Toward Your Dreams, Goals, and Life Purpose)
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An e-reader is super helpful. And no more toe paper cuts. 10. Some kind of sport or recreational activity—soccer, dance, swimming, professional hopscotch. You can do it! I’m trying out my motivational speaking skills here. 11. Pants that button easily. Trust me, when nature calls at school, you’ll be grateful you listened. 12. Your handy-dandy hook. From buttoning pants to lifting a dollar out of your pocket, a good hook is essential. 13. A wide variety of nail polishes. Boys probably don’t care much about this, but when people are staring at our feet as much as they do, we want to look our best. Am I right, ladies, or am I right? 14. Nunchuks. At least until bully spray becomes available. 15. An open heart and eyes. You think you’re the only one out there who feels different? What about that kid sitting alone in the library or out on the sidewalk? 16. Awesome parents. This is a must. 17. Friends who listen.
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Dusti Bowling (Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus)
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Plane Ride -
In our sport it is natural and necessary to set up goals to inspire us. We all want to achieve the next level, the break-thru performance. What we (all of us) must not forget is that the journey to these goals is the best part. The daily process of obtaining success takes up the majority of our time and effort throughout our lives. Remember to appreciate what you’ve done in the past and what you are doing in the present on your way to higher goals. This will allow you to always strive for something more without missing out on the fact that your path to success is as much a starting point as it is a finish line.
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Matthew Alan
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Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?’
Amos 3:3
‘Does This Person Belong in your Life?’
A toxic relationship is like a limb with gangrene: unless you amputate it the infection can spread and kill you. Without the courage to cut off what refuses to heal, you’ll end up losing a lot more. Your personal growth - and in some cases your healing - will only be expedited by establishing relationships with the right people. Maybe you’ve heard the story about the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river because he couldn’t swim. ‘I’m afraid you’ll sting me,’ replied the frog. The scorpion smiled reassuringly and said, ‘Of course I won’t. If I did that we’d both drown!’ So the frog agreed, and the scorpion hopped on his back. Wouldn’t you know it: halfway across the river the scorpion stung him! As they began to sink the frog lamented, ‘You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why’d you do it?’ The scorpion replied, ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature!’ Until God changes the other person’s nature, they have the power to affect and infect you. For example, when you feel passionately about something but others don’t, it’s like trying to dance a foxtrot with someone who only knows how to waltz. You picked the wrong dance partner! Don’t get tied up with someone who doesn’t share your values and God-given goals. Some issues can be corrected through counselling, prayer, teaching, and leadership. But you can’t teach someone to care; if they don’t care they’ll pollute your environment, kill your productivity, and break your rhythm with constant complaints. That’s why it’s important to pray and ask God, ‘Does this person belong in my life?
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Patience Johnson
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I feel as though dispossessed from the semblances of some crystalline reality to which I’d grown accustomed, and to some degree, had engaged in as a participant, but to which I had, nevertheless, grown inexplicably irrelevant. But the elements of this phenomenon are now quickly dissolving from memory and being replaced by reverse-engineered Random Access actualizations of junk code/DNA consciousness, the retro-coded catalysts of rogue cellular activity. The steel meshing titters musically and in its song, I hear a forgotten tale of the Interstitial gaps that form pinpoint vortexes at which fibers (quanta, as it were) of Reason come to a standstill, like light on the edge of a Singularity. The gaps, along their ridges, seasonally infected by the incidental wildfires in the collective unconscious substrata.
Heat flanks passageways down the Interstices. Wildfires cluster—spread down the base trunk Axon in a definitive roar: hitting branches, flaring out to Dendrites to give rise to this release of the very chemical seeds through which sentience is begotten.
Float about the ether, gliding a gentle current, before skimming down, to a skip over the surface of a sea of deep black with glimmering waves. And then, come to a stop, still inanimate and naked before any trespass into the Field, with all its layers that serve to veil. Plunge downward into the trenches. Swim backwards, upstream, and down through these spiraling jets of bubbles. Plummet past the threshold to trace the living history of shadows back to their source virus. And acquire this sense that the viruses as a sample, all of the outlying populations withstanding: they have their own sense of self-importance, too. Their own religion. And they mine their hosts barren with the utilitarian wherewithal that can only be expected of beings with self-preservationist motives.
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Ashim Shanker (Sinew of the Social Species)
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My instincts and experiences warned me that children in foster care should not have to figure out the system alone. Navigating social services and CPS custody by myself was akin to swimming in peanut butter. There had to be a better way, and I concluded it was better with a supportive CASA.
There is no excuse for a child to face the foster care system alone in this era. If you know of a child swimming in peanut butter—be their jelly!
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Joan Ulsher (MISPLACED CHILDHOOD: A TRUE STORY OF RESILIENCY AND CHILD ADVOCACY)
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A beautiful, majestic, and awe-inspiring sea awaits you. And you are welcome to enter however you see fit - to wade, to walk lightly, to swim for your life, or to sail. The decision is yours. No one will stop you from returning to the sandy towel on the shore if you desire.
But I’d like to think you chose to come to the sea for a reason. You have been called to the sea. There is something here that you need, and it has awaited your arrival for quite some time.
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Stephen Lovegrove (How to Find Yourself, Love Yourself, & Be Yourself: The Secret Instruction Manual for Being Human)
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Your mouth can correct what is wrong. Your eyes can see evil and your mouth can speak righteousness. Your body can say I am sick while your mouth can say I am healed. Your eyes can say I am blind but your mouth can say I can see, Your pocket can say I am empty while your mouth can say I am swimming in abundance. Your Doctor can say that you are HIV Postive and Cancer but your mouth can say my body is a holy temple of God and by His stripes I am healed. Your womb can say that you are barren while your mouth can say "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Don´t live by sight, live by faith. Put it in practice.
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Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)