It’s the time of year for all the 2019 recaps, whether it be through Instagram highlights or Spotify Wrapped or numerous year-end (or decade-end!) lists. My cultural consumption this year was in line with what I deem “millennial city dweller basic.” I loved Parasite and Normal People and How to Do Nothing and listened to lots of Ariana Grande.
In the spirit of sharing something more interesting, I thought I would cull my screenshots, Bear notes and Pocket highlights for the most memorable quotes I saved this year. If you are anything like me you read lots of stuff and save about a quarter of that stuff and then promptly forget all of that stuff (just like what Maria Popova mentions below. SHE SEES ME).
Here are the twelve most meaningful quotes I saved throughout the year:
Zenhabits on practicing non-judgment, saved January 1
“What I’ve noticed, when I experience anger, frustration, disappointment…is that I am judging my experiences (and others, and myself) based on whether they are what I want, whether they are good for me or not. But why am I at the center of the universe? What about the other person? What about the rest of the universe?”
Lan Samantha Chang on the writing life, saved January 7
“To quote Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: ‘But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.’”
Wait But Why on religion for the non-religious, saved February 18
“Thinking about this level of reality is like looking at an amazing photo of the Grand Canyon; a Whoa moment is like being at the Grand Canyon—the two experiences are similar but somehow vastly different. Facts can be fascinating, but only in a Whoa moment does your brain actually wrap itself around true reality.”
Olivia Laing on art’s purpose, saved March 23
“Well, I don't think art is just about proving our existence! Art does so many things—it's a place for exploring feelings, for provoking thinking, for wrestling with difficult ideas, for creating beauty, for resolving aesthetic problems, for communicating things that might not be possible in ordinary spoken language.”
"Dependence" by Yanyi, saved March 26
“What I also mean to say is that I recognize the focus. The impulse to know someone else before you reveal yourself. The impulse to know someone else because you have never been asked to reveal yourself. The impulse to know someone else because otherwise, you do not know yourself. The impulse to know someone else because you are self-conscious of your whole self, the one that fills up too many rooms, so much space. The impulse to hide how much space you need. The impulse to hide what you need.”
Sandi Tan in The Creative Independent, saved April 8
“I want everybody who watches the film to realize that you can be all your different selves. You don’t have to be like this grownup self versus the naïve, innocent self. It’s not that. They are all part of you still going forward. It’s up to you if you want to take these former selves with you on your journey.”
Lisa Olivera’s Instagram story, saved May 30
“How do I tell the difference between resting (self care) and just being lazy?
Ask yourself if you’re engaging in self care to rest or to avoid. If it’s to avoid (my reframe for laziness), what might you be avoiding and how can you get curious about that?”
The Life Coach School on self-confidence, saved August 28
“The last one people say is, ‘I don’t want much attention.’ You have to ask yourself ‘why?’ If you’re going to go out there and do amazing things in the world and make a contribution, people are going to notice that. Here’s what I’ve found. When you give yourself your own attention, other people’s attention is okay.”
James Clear’s newsletter, saved September 19
“To improve, compare little things (marketing strategies, exercise technique, writing tactics). To be miserable, compare big things (career path, marriage, net worth).
Comparison is the thief of joy when applied broadly, but the teacher of skills when applied narrowly.”
Maria Popova on meaning in a digital age, saved October 7
“The true material of knowledge is meaning. The meaningful is the opposite of the trivial, and the only thing that we should have gleaned by skimming and skipping forward is really trivia. The only way to glean knowledge is contemplation, and the road to that is time. There’s nothing else. It’s just time. There is no shortcut for the conquest of meaning. And ultimately, it is meaning that we seek to give to our lives.”
Zadie Smith on the theme of her writing, saved November 22
“Everybody’s born and everybody exists. But to be fully human takes a little bit of effort. I think my novels are about the challenge of actually being human and not avoiding the responsibility of being human, which is very heavy.”
Rumi on the spiritual realm, saved December 22
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”
To briefly reflect on the above, this year I focused on slowing down, genuinely working and resting, creating space and time for my multiple selves, recognizing my ego and thinking outside of myself through spirituality and awe. Some of these areas I can see clear progress and for others very little, which is perfectly okay—growth is a spiral.
The end of the year is a great time to reflect on what you were maniacally Googling and reading throughout the year and distilling both what you have learned and what you can re-learn. If you’d like, browse your phone screenshots and article archives to think about what you were preoccupied with this year—let me know what you find!