Quotes that appeal and are polarizing

Lights out Alice!

I always have my shields up when it comes to motivational speeches and videos or even wise quotes and analogies. Most of them are generically specific in the sense that it is relatable enough for most situations and people presume it is being specific enough that it filters people and their situation well enough to segregate them into or out of this bucket. As an overthinker and serial sympathizer, I can just about fit myself in any bucket I want to. Which is why I know it is not that straight or simple.

We connect with any quote or speech or video because some part of it clicks and resonates with our situation. This does not necessarily mean we are picking up the entire message or the point, just that we picked up enough for us to take notice. We may arrive at a different conclusion, not necessarily the one that we are supposed to have or the one quote was trying to take us to.

Next issue with such quotes or videos is the fact that they do not tell us about the underlying assumptions or context that led to this point before suggesting the way forward. They do not give outright disclaimers on what the fallout of a particular course of action would be and when one should and shouldn't go ahead with it.

All we are given is, here is the quote, here is the solution, do what you want with it. To this, I chuckle, because we as humans, we trip over each other to listen to these helpful motivational quotes and videos,  (akin to a black friday sale) without understanding the implication or the effect, hoping it would erase all our misdeeds or shortcomings.

That said, here are a few favourite quotes I found earlier today:

1. Life is a series of choices that produces a result that matches your value

2. We go back to people that have rejected us because:

• It is comfortable
• It is not easy being alone with our thoughts
• We are looking back at the past with rose tinted glasses and forgetting the bad and exaggerating the good
• Impulse

3. Once a door closes on a relationship, doesn't matter if they come back knocking, be wary of their true intentions and let them in slowly, if at all.

4. "Most of the time the people we like don't like us back. It's just life. Romeo and Juliet were the exception, not the rule."

5. "Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other...what about those people that fall in love all alone? "

...Knowing that she cries for someone else when you cry for her...when you put in ten fold the effort, go to farther corners than anybody else would have to ensure that things are okay and it does not have the same impact...and you realize that life and love is not a mathematical equation that has to add up. Just because you love someone, doesn't mean that they will love you back. Just because you put in the time and the effort and the gestures, it doesn't put any burden on the other person to reciprocate.

It still hurts Alice, but less than yesterday and I have started picking up the pieces!