Bits of Wisdom with Terry Weaver

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” Mandy Hale The pain of not belonging usually begins in the heart. It’s a signal to move that we ignore until misery begins to set in. When we ignore the signal, pain begins to manifest; it sometimes shows up as anger or frustration, and it often leads to an inevitable end. I remember the...

“I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.” G.K. Chesterton There’s no wonder why Chesterton was nicknamed the Prince of Paradox. We don’t have to investigate much to conclude that the most complex things in this world have a creator, a designer, a...

“If your world doesn’t allow you to dream, move to one where you can.” Billy Idol This world does not want you to dream. I know that’s a pretty black-and-white statement, but it’s true. When we dream big, we compete with other people’s dreams, at least that’s the way most people see it. Most people have a scarcity mindset that goes as follows: If you are winning, I’m losing, so join my team and he...

“It was while helping others to be free that I gained my own freedom.” Anais Nin What causes one to be imprisoned in their own mind? What causes someone to wage war in their thoughts? Where does depression, isolation, and self-loathing come from? Why is anxiety consuming our people these days? These are hard questions to answer, but what I know is that too much self-focus can create these outcomes...

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.” Walt Whitman How do we keep our faces pointed toward the sunshine? A theme throughout human history has been that light is good and darkness is bad. We associate evil with the shadows, the ominous, the unseen. There is a generalized fear of the unknown, and what lies in the shadows is unclear. We associate goodness with...

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so they have made me.” Ralph Waldo Emerson When Emerson shared these words, there was no mass media, motion pictures, or Facebook. Then, only books, newspapers, and plays had a profound influence on culture. Today we are flooded with media competing for our attention. It’s everywhere we turn. It’s hard to realize how...

“Being aware of a single shortcoming within yourself is far more useful than being aware of a thousand in someone else.” Dalai Lama The only person in this world whom we can guarantee change in is ourself. Have you ever sat with a psychologist or seen one played in a movie? Then, maybe you’ve noticed their chief tool for therapy. It’s the question. Why is this? To unearth realizations about self....

More than 2500 years ago, Heraclitus uttered the words, “Character is destiny.” When we make references to people we admire and trust, it’s because of what they have done. When we warn those we love to stay away from an individual, it’s because of their actions. We are known by what we do. He’s a teacher. She’s a photographer. My brother is a student. This is why, in part, I see the truth in Herac...

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous because religion seizes more strongly on the mind.” David Hume  If everyone is right, then no one is right because everyone is different. This logic is easy to follow. Every religion I’ve encountered claims to be right. If we follow the same logic, does this too mean that every religion is wrong? That wo...

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” John Maynard Keynes  As we age, the new becomes harder. It’s not an easy matter to adopt a new mindset because of what our current mindset is built on. It’s a matter of deconstructing systems that have ingrained our thinking for...

“There is a story they tell of two dogs. Both at separate times walk into the same room. One comes out wagging its tail, while the other comes out growling. A woman watching this goes into the room to see what could possibly make one dog so happy and the other so mad. To her surprise, she finds a room filled with mirrors. The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him, while the ang...

If you can keep your head when all about you      Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,    But make allowance for their doubting too;   If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not ma...

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” Socrates I’m guilty of going too fast, of robbing myself and those around me of the attention they need and deserve. I’m guilty of looking at the days as check–off lists and thinking, if I can just get through many days filled with many things, I’ll achieve progress.  I’ve treated people like tasks that crowd out my agenda. I’ve starved myself of the details...

"You don't need more time because you already have all the time that you will ever get; you need more focus." Kevin Kelly This tiny bit of wisdom holds massive power, so tuck it away and refer back to it often. We cannot change the amount of time we have. Chance or fate has already determined all we will get. But we do have the ability to change our focus, and our focus seems to have the power to...

“You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.” Cormac McCarthy Fiction is a metaphor for life. While reading McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road, I stumbled upon a bit of wisdom. I’ll set the stage for you. A father and son are traveling down a road that stretches across a post-apocalyptic America. The earth has been scorched, the population has run...

"Work to become, not to acquire." Kevin Kelly I’ve noticed those who are truly fulfilled in life are working to become. They’re focused on an idea more than a title, or status, or some monetary goal. I’ve also noticed firsthand, almost universally, those who have worked to acquire wish they could reverse their fortunes and trade them for something else. That ‘something else’ is most often the rela...

The adventure of a lifetime begins the day you decide to chase your dreams. Sometimes the hardest things to hear are the dreams calling us because they are often only whispers. They never shout. If we listen to our dreams they will infuse life with adventure and help us tell a grand story. If we ignore the whispers of our dreams, the same whispers become nagging regrets.  To live out our dreams an...

“Life is attention, and what we are attending to determines to a great extent how we experience the world.” Patricia Madson What we give our attention to grows. One life crisis has the power to overwhelm us by absorbing our full attention. On the other hand, a honed focus can transport us far away to a state of bliss. Think of the painter who is fully immersed in her craft, spending her waking hou...

“Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers.” Seneca the Younger I’ve been shot at, had to take cover because of incoming missiles, been jumped by thugs, and I’ve gotten into a fair share of fights. These were the times I’ve been in danger. If I count these and a few others, they’d be limited to less than a few dozen; however, if I tried to count the times I’ve experienced fear, they woul...

“Where a man’s wound is, that is where his genius will be.” Robert Bly This small utterance struck me when I first heard it because I love an overcomer story. That person who, against all odds, comes back and wins the championship, slays the dragon, or receives the crown. But what about the story of the perfect winner? No big challenge, just a gift of excellence that takes them to the win. This st...

“If you want to fly, you have to give up everything that weighs you down.” Toni Morrison What weighs you down? Stop and think about this question for a moment. What did you go to sleep last night fretting? What did you wake up this morning mulling through your thoughts? Maybe the question is not what but who? Who is stealing your peace? Who’s voice is running through your mind causing you anxiety?...

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” William Jennings Bryan We have a lot more control over our lives than this world leads us to believe. This is something I have to continue to remind myself of. The opposite is true of anything else. We’ve got a lot less control over anyone or anything other than ourselve...

"Don't be the best. Be the only." Kevin Kelly How can we be the only instead of the best? The answer is inside you and all over you because the answer is you. Each of us is born like no other, and oftentimes we go decades, sometimes a lifetime, missing our greatest strength—our uniqueness. When we finally accept we can be who we are, we realize an internal freedom that’s truly a gift. Then, and on...

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” Dr. Seuss Oftentimes, people spend their entire lives trying to fit into a box they were never meant to be in. Culture shapes us whether we know it or not. Stories make up the fabric of culture. They are told so many times, they become ingrained, woven into our culture. Have you heard of the ‘Golden Rule’ the ‘Law of Attraction’ or the ‘Seven Deadly Si...

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” Mary Anne Radmacher Fearlessness, unstoppable, indefatigable, unwavering: what do they all have in common? They’re ideas. Not realities. Everyone falls, and absolutes rarely exist. Reality is more like getting to the end of the day, looking in the mirror, and realizing...