I read this amazing article today. It was called "Be the real you," published in Glamour magazine (June issue). I have a lot of quotes from the article I want to share because this article meant so much to me.

---"Life isn't perfect and neither are you." Why do we live our lives attempting to be good or perfect at everything when it’s impossible? It’s a battle we know we shouldn’t fight.
---"I had viewed the world through pretty rose-colored Ray-Bans." This quote hits close to home. Up until March of this year this is what I had demonstrated. It’s a shame it took a lot of things to come crashing down to realize my closed mind on my life.
---"... That living a real life is better than living a charmed one." I wouldn’t want to get everything for free because then I would never appreciate anything.
---"Being real -- uncovering who you truly are -- makes you stronger, more rooted, more likely to have a rich and interesting life." I think I am just beginning to uncover who I truly am. I’m still so inexperienced in life because I’m young. I’m glad this year happened the way it did (not about my grandma or Duane though). Without some events of this year (I say year when I’m talking August-May), I would have never come to who I am now. I think I am stronger right now then I have ever been.
--- “Real is the new ‘happy.’” I love this quote. It’s so profound to me; I can’t even begin to fathom the meaning of the sentence.
--- “We’re taught to think that if we’re doing life right, we feel good, so if we’re feeling pain we’re failing.” This couldn’t be more head on. I mean my mom and dad always told me NOT to believe everything I hear. Regardless, society has faltered and learned this way of thinking.
--- “But pain is not a failure, a punishment, or feeling only for weenies.” Pain is a part of life. It’s like taking the good with the bad. You can’t have just one. Life only works with both.
--- “A life that accommodates both joy and pain: That’s as real as it gets.” You can read this over and over again but it will never prepare you for the experience.
--- “Life was not something that gets interfered with by hard and sad things that knock you off the track. Rather, this was the track.” Just like, the good with the bad. I can’t imagine appreciating joy if there wasn’t pain.
--- “It’s important to recognize how much negative feelings tell us about what’s really going on.” It’s intuition or something. What your gut tells you.
--- “Everyone’s got a story… To be happy, you need to understand yours.” I think this relates to everyone in any avenue.
--- “Anxiety and sadness help you identify not only what you shouldn’t go into but also what you need to get out of.” This quote hits me hard. “What you need to get out of.” I mean the past year I’ve gone through many friendships AND relationships I shouldn't have and NEEDED to get out of. It’s too bad I didn’t understand that anxiety and sadness in friendships/relationships wasn’t healthy. I understand that more than ever (but still probably not enough) now.
--- “It’s not an easy option – but it sure beats sleepwalking through an unsatisfying life.” Who wants to wake up every day and wish they could just go back to sleep. And I don’t mean literally. How you could not look forward to something ever? I love driving back up the hill on Stuart to see those beautiful Colorado mountains.
--- “Figuring out your story is crucial…”
--- “The best way to understand your story is to look for what inspired the pattern that keeps cropping up in your life.” If you don’t understand why you act the way you do or do the things you do, you will never be “happy.”
--- “Love is a risk because I might get left.” Everything is a risk and a challenge. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

--- “The moral is: Life is a heck of a lot more fulfilling when you start embracing all its richness – and realness.”

I hope you can take away as much from this article that I did.