Figuring Out My Life Quotes & Sayings

I think N.Y.C. definitely had something to do with my figuring out my life path. — T. Cooper

I've just grown up a lot and started to encounter some of the big decisions of life in terms of what career I wanted to do and figuring out personal relationships and things. — Lee Norris

What I tell my kids is, 'I'm preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen-time rules.' — Michelle Obama

True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks. — John Waters

Most of the time, I feel like a total fraud. Like I have no idea how I've made it this far without the world figuring out that I have no idea what I'm doing or that I'm relying on some sign or the fact that I glanced at the clock at 11:11 or the fact that Paul McCartney's "With a Little Luck" was playing on the radio when my alarm woke me up to give me a little extra confidence that "we can make this whole damn thing work out." This "whole damn thing" being my life. — Caprice Crane

If you want to be reborn,' it is written in the Tao Te Ching, 'let yourself die.' This is what I've been having trouble with, the fact that letting go can feel, at times, like a death. Someday, I know, I will lose everything. All the small deaths along the way are practice runs for the big ones, asking us to learn to be present, to grow in faith, to be grateful for what is. Life is finite and short. But this new task, figuring out how to let go of so much that has been precious
my children, my youth, my life as I know it
can feel like a bitter foretaste of other losses yet to come. — Katrina Kenison

I'm at a period in my life when I'm figuring out my idea of who I am and what I want and how to hold onto love
all that big stuff. And I'm starting to realize that it can happen at any age. I know people who are in their 50s who are figuring out what they want and who they are, and I think it's great. It's like you're always approaching life as a beginner. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Papa, do you believe there is any meaning to life?" I blurted out. "I don't not believe" he said sternly. "I know. The meaning of life - the meaning of a single, individual human life, since I assume that is what you are asking - consists of figuring out the one thing you are great stand then pushing mankind's mastery of that one thing as far as you are able, be it an inch or a mile. If you are a carpenter, be a carpenter with every ounce of your being and invent a new type of saw. If you are an archaeologist, find the tomb of Alexander the Great. If you are Alexander the Great, conquer the world. And never to anything by half — Olga Grushin

There is another reason ever-single women fare even better than previously married women in later life. They mastered the single life long ago. From structuring social events in a culture that caters to couples, to figuring out how to work and get all the tasks of everyday life accomplished when there may or may not be others readily available to do their unfair share, always-single women have been there, done that. It is not a new or daunting challenge. — Bella DePaulo

The task of worrying is to come up with positive solutions for life's perils by anticipating dangers before they arise. If we are preoccupied by worries, we have that must less attention to expend on figuring out the answers. Our worries become self-fulfilling prophecies, propelling us toward the very disaster they predict. — Daniel Goleman

One must devote oneself to figuring out that one must live for the good, for its own sake. It was a secular morality. Contemporaries did not know what to call a thing like that - he questioned their every faith, their every way of life - so they called it atheism. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

I just don't believe in wasting time. I see that all around me. People who live like they will be here forever. Using people, hating people, hating themselves, destroying the ones they love, destroying themselves. I believe in figuring out what you want and reaching out. And grabbing it. Is that so bad? — Lynetta Halat

Figuring out our gifts in life is part of our journey to becoming enlightened human beings. — Allison DuBois

Jeez, on those TV real-life cop shows they don't do this. They got all kinds of guys with microscopes and computers figuring shit out.' 'We're a small department,' Jesse said. 'We can't afford smart people.' 'This could be a total waste of time,' Simpson said. 'Ah,' Jesse said, 'you are beginning to understand the intricacies of police work. — Robert B. Parker

But the swamp don't mind. How could it? It's all just life, going over itself, returning and cycling and eating itself to grow. I mean, it's not that it's not Noisy here. Sure it is, there's no escaping Noise, not nowhere at all, but it's quieter than the town. The loud is a different kind of loud, because swamp loud is just curiosity, creachers figuring out who you are and if yer a threat. Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any of yerself left at all? — Patrick Ness

I've heard you talk about this town like it's the only thing you love aside from fixing cars. People go entire lives without figuring out exactly what they want from life. You already have it, and the future you and your dad have planned out for you is going to take it away from you. — Adi Alsaid

I spent my whole life figuring out how to get out of work. I would say I was intelligent, but intelligent in a very surreptitious, invisible way. — Bruce Davison

Much of life, fatherhood included, is the story of knowledge acquired too late: if only I'd known then what I know now, how much smarter, abler, stronger, I would have been. But nothing really prepares you for kids, for the swells of emotion that roll through your chest like the rumble of boulders tumbling downhill, nor for the all-enveloping labor of it, the sheer mulish endurance you need for the six or seven hundred discrete tasks that have to be done each and every day. Such a small person! Not much bigger than a loaf of bread at first, yet it takes so much to keep the whole enterprise going. Logistics, skills, materiel; the only way we really learn is by figuring it out as we go along, and even then it changes on us every day, so we're always improvising, which is a fancy way of saying that we're doing things we technically don't know how to do. — Ben Fountain

We depend on this planet to eat, drink, breathe, and live. Figuring out how to keep our life support system running needs to be our number-one priority. Nothing is more important than finding a way to live together - justly, respectfully, sustainably, joyfully - on the only planet we can call home. — Annie Leonard

Life was a swirl of mysteries, each one waiting to be plucked up and explored, but not necessarily solved. As the weight of responsibility bore down on a person, it could feel like a long list of chores leading up to the final one - figuring out how to die with dignity. But Quincy's interpretation of his surroundings seemed a truer representation of life's meaning, or rather, the lack of meaning other than to dazzle and delight and befuddle from cradle to grave. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Figuring out what to do with your life is only Half of the equation, the more important half is, whom you are doing it with — Sel

I want that perfect ending. But I've learned the hard way, that some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. My life has not been about knowing or figuring everything out. It's been about having to deal with change, about taking a moment and making the best of it, even if I knew I'd have to take a big risk. Life is really about trying to move forward without knowing exactly what is going to happen next. — Jose N. Harris

If the key to life is figuring yourself out; family must be the lock. — LDarnell

I've been heartbroken. I've broken hearts. That's part of life, and its part of figuring out who you are so you can find the right partner. — Heidi Klum

I'm certainly not an expert and I imagine I'll spend my life figuring it out. What I do know, is that you can't take it all on yourself: find amazing people to collaborate with, build a team, and support other people doing the same. When you share your goals and ambitions with other people and they share with you, you exist in an energizing cycle of always creating new things with people that believe in you. — Karlie Kloss

And there's no figuring out the unknowable. And there's some kind of oxymoron in that that's more moron than anything else. — Sarah Mussi

You must find a way to express your ideas and compel your audience to react through the idea itself, and then figuring out what the best representative of that idea may be, and bringing it to life. — Kevin Spacey

I was supposed to be at the condo, wasting time on the beach, just Dad and me, figuring out college and my life and spending time together. Instead, I was in a new house with new people - including a future stepbrother who'd seen me naked. — Kody Keplinger

People change. Time makes us grow. Life happens, good and bad, and it's the person you love, the man inside you can't live without, not the sum of what he did or didn't do when he was younger and still figuring life out. — Jay Crownover

I have an Honors Degree in Drama from the University of Alberta, but when it was done I knew a life in modern theatre was not for me. While figuring out what the hell I might do instead of theatre, I spent a couple of days on a horror film doing stunt work. I'd never been behind the camera before, and I loved everything about it. I joined the local film co-op - The Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta - because you could trade skills for experience. These indie filmmakers were making their own stuff their own way, all the time. Instant education. — Karen Walton

The greatest dilemma man has to face is figuring out what to do with his time — Sunday Adelaja

People go entire lives without figuring out exactly what they want from life. You already have it, and the future you and your dad have planned out for you in going to take it away from you. — Adi Alsaid

Have you ever had a large spider in the tub, figuring you'll wash it down the drain you turn on the shower, and set it to hot?
Only to have the stupid thing grab onto the edge of the drain and hiss at you!! — Neil Leckman

If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don't have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don't. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state. — David Graeber

Genius involves figuring out who you are, and owning yourself. It's about amplifying your best traits and compensating for the rest. Geniuses grab life by the horns, and persevere amidst setbacks. They take control of their lives, instead of waiting for others to open up doors. In this very important sense, greatness in completely, utterly, made. — Scott Barry Kaufman

Domestic pain can be searing, and it is usually what does us in. It's almost indigestible: death, divorce, old age, drugs; brain-damaged children, violence, senility, unfaithfulness. Good luck with figuring it out. It unfolds, and you experience it, and it is so horrible and endless that you could almost give up a dozen times. But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on. Through the most ordinary things, books, for instance, or a postcard, or eyes or hands, life is transformed. Hands that for decades reached out to hurt us, to drag us down, to control us, or to wave us away in dismissal now reach for us differently. They become instruments of tenderness, buoyancy, exploration, hope. — Anne Lamott

In America we've spent over a billion dollars on autism research. What have we got for that? We've not seen anything that's appreciably impacted the quality of life of autistic people, regardless of their place on the spectrum. Quite frankly, we've spent $1bn figuring out how to make mice autistic and we'll spend another $1bn figuring out how to make them not autistic. And that's not what the average person wakes up in the morning aspiring to. They think: am I going to be able to find a job, to communicate, to live independently, either on my own or with support? Those are the real priorities. — Ari Ne'eman

I'm having the time of my life figuring out this next move. — John Mayer

'Presumed Innocent' was written over a six to seven year period with intervals in between where I was figuring out the end of the book and writing other stuff ... My life as a writer was carried on against the odds. I had written four unpublished novels by then ... as a writer of fiction, I hadn't gotten very far. I just wanted to do it. — Scott Turow

My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I'm luckier than other mortals, and they sure don't come from visualizing victory. They're the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it.
Like most astronauts, I'm pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I've thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking. — Chris Hadfield

No one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do and judging you because of it. Pretending to be something you aren't because you're trying to please a bunch of judgmental hypocrites and shitheads is not the way to be happy. Living the life you want to live is. It really is that simple. — Tucker Max

We thought the hard part was over - but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out - there is nothing harder. — Paullina Simons

There is no better or worse, inferior or superior. It's figuring out where you're meant to be and then getting there. This is true in every aspect of your life. If you fight to stay somewhere you don't belong, it will never be good and never get better. — Donna Augustine

Having no expectations for some people in your life can be depressing, if not devastating. But with others, it's what is necessary. The hard part is not just figuring out which one applies, but accepting it. — Sarah Dessen

Tatiana sat on the bench by the bay, by the morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o'clock in the morning. Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go? No. It wasn't possible. Something's happened. He can't cope, can't make it, can't find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over - but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out - there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander? — Paullina Simons

One thing I have never understood is how to work it so that when you're married, things keep happening to you. Things happen to you when you're single. You meet new men, you travel alone, you learn new tricks, you read Trollope, you try sushi, you buy nightgowns, you shave your legs. Then you get married, and the hair grows in. I love the everydayness of marriage, I love figuring out what's for dinner and where to hang the pictures and do we owe the Richardsons, but life does tend to slow to a crawl. — Nora Ephron

comfort can sometimes be a crutch when it comes to figuring out your life. Goals are achieved through discomfort and hard work. They aren't achieved when you hide out in a place where you're nice and cozy. I — Colleen Hoover

My job is to be a role model, and that's what I want to do, but my job isn't to be a parent. My job isn't to tell your kids how to act or how not to act, because I'm still figuring that out for myself. So to take that away from me is a bit selfish. Your kids are going to make mistakes whether I do or not. That's just life. — Miley Cyrus

In the initial season of a show, you're figuring out your character and their life and their background and you're putting together all the chapters of the book. — Sophia Bush

If your goal is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and most of your focus has been on finding the church that will best meet your needs, figuring out which translation of the Bible is the best, or reading the best books on discipleship that you can find, but your life is the same as it was before - I would argue that you aren't becoming a disciple. Nothing other than following Jesus Christ can make you his disciple. — Kevin Watson

You are figuring out how to produce a result that you desire in your life. You are not thinking about losing something or maintaining the status quo. You are working to move your life forward from where it is now, making it better than what it is today, considering how you desire your life to be - and that's exciting! Gain gives you focus, a direction to head toward. — Steve McClatchy

Just recognizing and naming that many of the things we treat as historical fact are stories can help erode their power over our sense of identity and thinking. If they are stories rather than "truth," we can write new stories that better represent the country we aspire to be. Our new stories can be about diverse people working together to overcome challenges and make life better for all, about figuring out how to live sustainably on this one planet we share, and on deep respect for cooperation, fairness, and equity instead of promoting hyper-competitive individualism. — Annie Leonard

To me that's what Jobs was about. He said at the end of the movie, 'When you realize that the world was created by people no smarter than you, your life will change.' That, to me, is a message for right now and people figuring out what they're going to do with themselves. — Joshua Michael Stern

I believe that understanding what is good is obtained by looking at the way the world works and figuring out how to operate in harmony with it to help it evolve. — Ray Dalio

As you're the employer of your body, the fastest way to start enjoying life begins with figuring out how to cut back the hours of stress. — K.R. Royal

Audiences love both the feeling part (reliving the life) and the thinking part (figuring out the puzzle) of a story. Every good story has both. — John Truby

I am not this big celebrity, but it gets really crazy. You have to go through the nuts of blowing up, in a sense, and then figuring out how to live your life with that. — Vanessa Carlton

My mother says it can't stay like this, but I believe it will. The Pants are like an omen. They stand for the promise we made to one another, that no matter what happens, we stick together. But they stand for a challenge too. It's not enough to stay in Bethesda, Maryland, and hunker down in air-conditioned houses. We promise one another that someday we'd get out in the world and figure some stuff out. — Ann Brashares

The important things in life always happened by accident. At fifteen she didn't know much, in fact, with each passing year she was a lot less clear about most things. But this much she did know. You could worry yourself sick trying to be a better person, spend a thousand sleepless nights figuring out how to live clean and decent and honest, you could make a plan and bolt it in place, kneel by your bed every night and swear to God you'd stick to it, hell, you could go to church and promise properly. You could cross your heart seven times with your eyes tight shut, cut your thumb and squeeze it and pen solemn vows on a rock with your own blood then throw it in the river at the stroke of midnight. And then, out of the black beyond, like a hawk on a rat, some nameless catastrophe would swoop into your life and turn everything upside down and inside out forever. — Nicholas Evans

I am struck by how, except when you're young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don't get that sort of system set by a certain age, you'll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. — Haruki Murakami

Honesty is most important, and it's difficult when you're young and single and sort of figuring out your own life. — Zac Efron

I think that most people will spend their whole life not figuring out what they're meant to do, or figuring out what they're meant to do on their way to do something else. So I just feel lucky that I know what I love to do. Everything else figures itself out. — Andy Kindler

You see? You're just figuring it out now, but I discovered a long time ago that the smarter you are, the more tempting it is to just let people imagine you. We move through each other's lives like ghosts, leaving behind haunting memories of people who never existed. — Robyn Schneider

All of us face hard choices in our lives. Some face more than their share. We have to decide how to balance the demands of work and family. Caring for a sick child or an aging parent. Figuring out how to pay for college. Finding a good job, and what to do if you lose it. Whether to get married - or stay married. How to give our kids the opportunities they dream about and deserve. Life is about making such choices. Our choices and how we handle them shape the people we become. For leaders and nations, they can mean the difference between war and peace, poverty and prosperity. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Everything that these folks are saying that they're trying to move away from, like comparison, perfectionism, judgement, and exhaustion as a status symbol - that all describes my life. It was more like a medical researcher studying a disease and figuring out he or she has it. — Brene Brown

I've spent the first half of my life studying and footnoting everything that can go wrong with the female body - and figuring out how to fix it. I'm dedicating the second half of my life to illuminating everything that can go right with the female body, including teaching women how to truly flourish. — Christiane Northrup

Two things consistently bring me pleasure: hot sweet tea and writing. Which is not to say that either are particularly good for me ... I use entirely too much sugar and so far don't find sucralose to be a good alternative. Also, writing is not a practice that engenders confidence. Quite the opposite. It's about making yourself deliberately insecure so that you can write the next thing and have it be worth reading.
And that's not even taking into consideration the business end of things, which can make you bitter if you're not careful ...
But I've spent my the bulk of my life to date figuring out the right mix of fat and sugar in my tea and also, how to get incrementally better (I hope ... ) at the writing, so I'm not giving it/them up! — Ariel Gordon

When weight loss becomes a goal in your life, eating right and exercising are just two pieces of the puzzle. Figuring out why you've put on the extra weight is the hardest part. — Ali Vincent