* tHe UnIqUeNeSs StArTs HeRe*

“When your parter confides in you about a problem they’ve faced, and your first response is to try to fix it, what this says to your partner is not that you care enough to help, but that you don’t believe they’re capable of figuring out a solution by themselves. This is one of the most common ways to miss your partner because you bypassed empathy when that’s the only thing they were looking for. When your partner confides in you, resist problem solving. If they want solutions, they’ll ask for your input, but what they most likely want is connection, which looks like asking questions, empathizing, and never siding with the enemy. All they want is to be heard, to know they’re not alone, and to feel that you’re on their side.”

“One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people.”

It’s a microwave culture, but everyone with taste buds can agree, a slow roasted meal in the oven is better than a meal microwaved in seconds. Convenience is costly. You can have it sooner, but it won’t always be better.

“He will put you in situations where you absolutely must have a miracle. The reason He does that is because He wants you to know with all certainty that it is Him working in your life. So don’t be alarmed if the Spirit leads you into situations that are impossible without a miracle from God.”

“I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”

“I fail at the kind of small talk necessary for partytimes. I am a deep-topic discusser. I am quite capable of talking for hours on hard subjects — like why capitalism may be fundamentally flawed, or how beauty culture harms women, or why so many people refuse to believe that climate change is a real thing that is happening — but I lose the thread on simpler matters.These are not easy conversations; no wonder they make me so tired. But they are the only conversations I reliably know how to have and enjoy. I spent a long time being convinced that something was wrong with me, until I (somewhat randomly) met a few people who owned their introversion without apology, and who felt totally comfortable alerting trusted friends that their ability to be social was at its terminus, and now they must be off to sit quietly in the dark for a bit. I’m allowed to set boundaries? I thought. Even if they’re boundaries other people think are overly-strict, or anti-social, or just weird? AMAZING REVOLUTIONARY LIGHTBULB MOMENT. Introvert, extrovert, or somewhere in between, it’s important to realize that we all respond to social interaction differently, and that it’s not weird or bad if we have a limited tolerance for parties or large gatherings. Our brains aren’t broken, they just work differently, and such individual diversity is the natural way of things. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of, or to feel guilty for. It’s just difference, and our difference is what makes us interesting.”

I fell in love with quotes at a very young age. I guess it was interesting to me that someone else is able to unknowingly express my thoughts when I’m at a loss for words; it has me wasting hours on the simple thought that our minds must have soulmates too.