The largest website for English phrases and quotes

The largest website for English phrases and quotes

Category: Dee-Williams

I’ve never been good with asking for help; it seems risky, but at some point when things are really dicey, your stubbornness gives way to a certain form of humility that, after you get over yourself, feels liberating. I started to believe that the universe was conspiring to help me finish my house, sending people along at the right moment.

asking-for-help, humility, liberating, stubbornness, the-big-tiny, universe

Over time, I realized I wasn’t necessarily seeing people or things at their best or worst; instead, I was simply seeing things as they were.There didn’t seem to be a moral high road to take in most situations, and “What’s the right thing to do?” wasn’t an easy question.

morality, the-big-tiny, the-right-thing

I felt like a champion because I was figuring shit out. I was a doer and a getter-doner, and it was okay to be identified by the neighbors as the little lady who had a dump truck of manure delivered, a load that made the entire neighborhood smell like a dairy barn for weeks.

action, champion, doer, the-big-tiny

I went to Guatemala to help build a school but left wondering what “help” would really look like… I hadn’t prepared myself for how humbled I’d feel, or how hard it would be to find my footing when witnessing a cycle of poverty that seemed to defy any sort of help.

help, humility, poverty, the-big-tiny

Change what you can, darlin’. That’s my best advice.

advice, change, the-big-tiny

I had no idea that “letting go” would be so complicated; that it would sometimes feel liberating and other times more sorrowful and lonely. In the long run, most of it was like standing on the shore, watching your family set sail for America, and they’re smiling and waving good-bye, and getting smaller and smaller, but you are still the same size with no one to talk to.

letting-go, liberation, loneliness, sorrow, the-big-tiny

We were taught not to offer or invite aid, because, like it or not, helping is a messy, confused proposition; sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, and sometimes you have no choice but to trust that the man holding your tire iron, cussing at your old lug nuts, is a deeply kind human after all.

aid, kindness, the-big-tiny

Whose idea was it that we should all get jobs, work faster, work better, race from place to place with our brains stewing on tweets, blogs, and sound bites, on must-see movies, must-do experiences, must-have gadgets, when in the end, all any of us will have is our simple beating heart, reaching up for the connection to whoever might be in the room or leaning into our mattress as we draw our last breath?

connection, heart, life, rushing, the-big-tiny

The Internet is dumb. The Internet, with all its access to brain research, anthropology journals, social studies networks, and biographies and autobiographies, can’t begin to map the complexity of our lives, or how we each affect others.

affect-others, complexity, internet, the-big-tiny

I was a let-er-goer and she was a hanger-on-er, but that doesn’t mean I don’t lean into her territory every once in a while.

simplicity, tiny-homes

That obstinate sense of independence was the biggest challenge I face in building my little house (that, and not always knowing what I was doing). I was stubborn in the way I hated to ask for help. Some people are good at it, asking friends or their husbands to collect ginger ale and crackers at the grocery because they feel nauseous, or standing on the side of the road with a tire iron in one hand, hoping someone will stop to change their flat tire. I’m not like that; I’d rather have a rough stick dragged across my gums than walk to the neighbor’s house to borrow sugar or ask for help jump-starting my car.

asking-for-help, challenge, independence, stubborn, the-big-tiny

Fear and logic belong together.

fear, logic, the-big-tiny