A huge part of welcoming in the New Year is reflecting on the year that is coming to a close. One of the most important things I look for when I reflect on the past year is personal growth. As you get older you realize just how much changes in a year. You are usually in awe of how much you have overcome, learned, and changed as a person. I like to compare old journal articles or anything else I have written from the beginning of the year until the end. I like to see all the new things I learned, what changed my views, my life, and my perspectives. I like to see what was important to me.
Sometimes when I can’t find the words to express what I am feeling, I read quotes. My Tumblr is full of quotes I have collected over time. When I go back through the archive of my Tumblr account, I can tell what was going on in my mind based on the quotes I reblogged. The best ones are written down in a notebook.
What I love about quotes is how they can mean nothing to you one day yet weeks, months, or years later, they strike something in you and mean absolutely everything. I find that connection, that ability to have someone explain exactly what you’re thinking, not only useful, but also fascinating.
Here are my most important quotes of 2014. The quotes I read and couldn’t forget. The quotes that helped explain exactly what was going on in my life. I wanted to explain the significance of each quote but decided to just share the ten quotes and allow you to connect them to your own life. I hope you enjoy!
1. “There is no designated time for anything in your life. You don’t have to have your first kiss at any certain time, you don’t have to get married in your 20′s and you don’t have to do anything just because other people think it’s best. In fact, you will be much better off if you just do what your heart says. The day you stop caring what other people think is the day their opinions don’t mean anything, because you’re not there to give them weight.”
– Brianna Wiest in “10 Things I Wish I Could Have Told Myself 5 Years Ago”
2. “We live in an age where we feel guilt whenever we have to cut someone off but the reality is that some relationships do need to die, some people do need to be unfollowed and defriended. We aren’t meant to be this tethered to the people in our past. The Internet mandates that we don’t burn bridges and keep everyone around like relics but those expectations are unrealistic and unhealthy. Simply put, we don’t need to know what everyone else is up to. We’re allowed to be choosy about who we surround ourselves with online and in real life, even if it might hurt people’s feelings.”
– Ryan O’Connell in “You Don’t Have to be Friends with Everybody”
3. “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”
– Henry David Thoreau
4. “Love your parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.”
– Unknown
5. “The woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet.”
– Mohadesa Najumi
6. “She was unstoppable. Not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them.”
– Beau Taplin
7. “You wear strength so well, I forget that you have to take it off at the end of the day; still feeling the marks that it leaves on your soul.”
– T.B LaBerge
8. “Secret to writing a bestseller: You write. You stop dreaming of writing. You stop talking about writing. Stop wishing you were writing. And you write.”
– Jonathan Gunson
9. “Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.”
– Emma Watson
10. “Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.”
– Anna Quindlen in “Every Last One”