My Quotation Journal

Here is what an average page in my quotation journal looks like...

I am almost finished with the journal and am working on transferring all the quotes to a Word Document, in case there is ever a fire and all the words get burned to ashes. I hope to give this journal to someone special some day. From my eyes, it is one of the best gifts I could ever give, not only because of what the journal means to me, how precious it is, but also because of all the ideas and bits of life advice it contains.

Quotations to Support Creating a Soul Profile

Here are a few quotations related to my last few blog posts. They reiterate the idea that what you do, the role you play, and even what you think does not add up to who you are. I dare you to sit alone, in silence, and just be. Explore the unfamiliar territory of your mind. Discover your strongest desires and the nature of your true self

"Please don't make your career your life. Let it be your passion, let it bring pleasure, but don't let it become your identity. You are so much more valuable than that." - Celine Dion

Celine Dion

"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning...a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be." - Joseph Campbell

"Your thoughts are not who you are. They're not reality. You can have all sorts of concepts of water, but they can't quench your thirst." - Tara Brach

"Every day the path to your own spirituality starts with clarifying who you are and what you want." - Oprah

Oprah's Lifeclass: "What Do You Want?"

The second of seven questions that Oprah and Deepak Chopra encourage us to ask ourselves in developing a "soul profile" is "what do you want?" In order to pull out and discover what I yearn and ache for, I close my eyes to focus on the specific question and let the words and ideas surface and become my answer.

I want health. I want to find the right person, to find true love. I want to connect with someone, the person with whom I choose to spend my life, on the deepest possible level. I want that connection to be intimate, intelligent, emotional, and a connection of great friendship, empathy, understanding, and trust. I want to be changed. I want to see myself reflected in another. I want to live simply. I want to continue to travel. I want to let education be forever a significant part of my life.  I want to complete good works of writing, not necessarily to publish. I want to change people's lives by changing their days with my words. I want to help people live in greater self-awareness, happiness, and depth. I want more. I want to read more. I want to be more spiritual. I want to live to the point of tears quite literally and on a daily basis. I want to always see meaning in the small and seemingly insignificant as well as the big. I want to develop closer relationships to people I already consider close. I want to push myself to become an expert in something I love.

I do not want silence.

In order to answer these questions, I am finding it easiest to make a list, think simply, think deeply. I am afraid to lose my answer and get lost in fancy language, trying to make it sound in writing more than what it is.

Live in such a way...

"We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather around us, that they may see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet."-William Butler Yeats

Wow. I want to live in this way.

This quote gives me goosebumps. It is profound. It is wonderful to read aloud and see which phrases slow you down...."beings gather around us," and "because of our quiet."

I include an image of Caravaggio's Narcissus because it demonstrates how still water can draw a being to its surface and see his own image reflected. If we live in such a way, calm and quiet like still water, can people see themselves when they look upon us?

Narcissus, however, is not moved to live a "clearer" or "fiercer" life. Instead, he is decieved by the reflection and falls in-love with his image.