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21 " On the day you decide to intentionally start denying yourself, your life will improve in a thousand ways. It is a lesson I am now trying to figure out how best to teach my children. It is not about saying no to them; it is about teaching them to say no to themselves. These "
― Matthew Kelly , Resisting Happiness
22 " You cannot succeed at anything unless you are willing and able to delay gratification...Resistance hates discipline. It hates self-control. Resistance abhors delayed gratification and any type of self-denial that makes your heart, mind, and soul strong. "
23 " Boredom is a manifestation of selfishness. It can only occur when we are overly focused on ourselves. It always means that we have set God and neighbor aside to focus exclusively on ourselves, and that is never a recipe for happiness. "
24 " ACTION STEPIf you are ever bored, look for a way to get outside yourself and serve others. "
25 " From time to time it is good for us all to learn to listen again. Listen to those you love. Listen to your body. Listen to your conscience and soul. Listen to God. "
26 " It is impossible to be bored at Mass if you come to listen to what God has to say to you right now in your life. It doesn't matter how good or bad the homily is; God will speak to you through it. It doesn't matter how good or bad the music is; God will speak to you through it. Whether it is a wonderful, prayerful mood or there are kids running up and down the aisle throwing crayons and eating potato chips; God will speak to you. "
27 " People do stupid things because they mistakenly believe those stupid things will make them happy. "
28 " God loves ordinary things. The world is always trying to seduce us with the extraordinary. The culture fills our hearts and minds with spectacular dreams about hitting home runs, but life is about getting up every day and hitting a single. "
29 " You cannot succeed at anything unless you are willing to delay gratification. This ability and success are intimately linked. ACTION STEPSay no to yourself at least once every day. "
30 " You can get good at something just by working hard at it. If you’ve got some talent and you work hard at it, you can get really, really good at it. But excellence, peak performance, being the best you can be at something—that doesn’t happen without coaching. "
31 " It’s uncomfortable to look at ourselves, assess our selfishness and sinfulness, and tell another human being about it. "
32 " When you do break through resistance, celebrate that, and then press on to live the life God imagined for you before the beginning of time. And if you ever feel discouraged or defeated, remember this: Every moment is a chance to start anew, a chance to turn it all around. "
33 " All of life’s regrets come from not having the discipline to overcome resistance and delay gratification in order to build a bigger future. In the same way, when we slay resistance we are always glad we did. "
34 " We lose our sensitivity to sin in exactly the same way. After a while, a big self-destructive behavior doesn’t look that bad among all those little self-destructive behaviors. "
35 " Four words: Be gentle with yourself. It turns out they are some of the wisest words anyone has ever shared with me. "
36 " Being gentle with yourself consists of realizing your faults, failings, and weaknesses, and dealing with them appropriately. God doesn’t want us to beat ourselves up. He wants us to press on and try again. "
37 " Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about redeeming them—every day begin anew. "
38 " One of the most important reasons to be gentle with ourselves is because if we cannot forgive ourselves, we will struggle to forgive others. And if we cannot forgive ourselves or others, we will resist even God’s forgiveness. When we are gentle with ourselves, when we are patient with ourselves, we develop awareness, and awareness breeds compassion. And every person who ever crosses your path needs a little compassion. "
39 " Be gentle with yourself, be gentle with others, and never stop striving to be all that God created you to be: the-very-best-version-of-yourself. "
40 " The passive me says: “Feed me”; “Entertain me”; “Hold me”; “Love me”; “Listen to me”; “Tell me I matter”; “Make me a priority”; “Don’t make me think too much or work too hard”; and so on. The passive self tends to be a very selfish self, and resistance loves the passive self. Resistance hates when you get into a proactive disposition. That is when resistance pulls out all its tricks, because it hates action. "