Quotes & Sayings About Not Being Where You Want To Be

I do not fear death. I resent it. Everything must die, apparently, and I am no exception. But I want to be consulted. You know what I mean? Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots. I have a new passion, my darlings, a passion for being myself, and for being more than previously has been manifested for a single lifetime. I am determined to die at my own convenience. Therefore, I journey to the east, where, I have been told, there are men who have taught death some manners. — Tom Robbins

I do not want to be cynical, but if developing nations are kept backward by being told, again and again, you belong to the poor and you are there, where you actually belong, then nothing will change. — Paul Kagame

Look for it in the wintertime, if you want to find The Light Of The Season - the real light, not the Hallmark one. Look for the location of resistance. Look for the darkness in which you can be a spark. Look for the opportunity to be bright, to light someone else's way, to warm their hands, to shuttle them safely through the dark. Look for the crack you can fill or the shadow you can dispel by bringing a little bit of the light of resistance, carefully and precisely, to just the place where it is needed. Look for the place of being bright - of being bright and present outside your own house, or in the window, on the opposite side to the mezuzah, letting anyone who passes know. We are here. — S. Bear Bergman

I just want to be able to live my share of existence without being obliged to detract from the existence of others. I don't belive in prophecies that favor suffering over common sense. I came naked into the world, I'll leave it naked, what I possess doesn't belong to me, and neither do other people's lives. All human unhappiness comes from this misunderstanding. You have to be prepared to give back what God has loaned you. No earthly thing belongs to you, not really. Neither the homeland you talk about nor the grave where you'll be dust among the dust. — Yasmina Khadra

She's contemplative; I can feel the air around her thick with her thoughts. "No," she says at last, "I want to believe you're being sincere but I know you're not. So I say no, because even if I allow myself to fantasize a little about our lives in a cabin on the beach, I still find myself being left by you. There's almost no scenario I can think of where we live happily ever after."
"There could be," I tell her and mean it at the moment. Maybe mean it for longer. Her fingers stop moving and she sighs. I open my eyes and she's staring down at me. The lights have come on around the parking lot and one of them shines directly into her face. She angelic, a neon seraphim under the brilliant skies of the spring. I can see us on our boat, eating our hand picked clams on the fire behind our place. I can see it so vividly I'm almost sure it's happened. — Jaden Wilkes

I love photo shoots where I can be like a pinup, not myself. Where I can be feminine, glamorous, dark not like in real life. I hate it when you go in and they want you to be 'natural,' to be yourself. I just hate it. I love having fun. When they ask you to smile, I hate it. Of course I smile in my real life, but to do it on cue, that's not spontaneous. I'd rather do something that's like a little movie, like a little story, rather than just me, I feel naked. — Eva Green

Since I'm an asshat, I thought I'd have a choice with you, that I'd be able to walk away if you disillusioned me or turned out to be a blood-sucking creature of the night - and okay, I would have bailed if you were evil . . . Or maybe not. Knowing myself, I'd want to save you. But you're not evil. The point is, I'm realizing you're the same as everyone else in my life, only a thousand times more potent, and that has nothing to do with where you come from. I can grit my teeth about what you do, but I can't control how I react to your laugh. I would rather be near you, see you touch everything but me, than be holding any other girl. I like being with you, Love. Playing, talking, fighting, not-touching. — Natalia Jaster

Writing for the sake of writing, writing that draws its credibility from its very existence, is a foreign idea to most Americans. As a culture, we want cash on the barrel head. We want writing to earn dollars and sense so that it makes sense to us. We have a conviction - which is naive and misplaced - that being published has to do with being "good" while not being published has to do with being "amateur." ...
"Did you write today?"
"Yes."
"Then you're a writer today."
It would be lovely if being a writer were a permanent state that we could attain to. It's not, or if it is, the permanence comes posthumously.
A page at a time, a day at a time, is the way we must live our writing lives. Credibility lies in the act of writing. That is where the dignity is. That is where the final "credit" must come from. — Julia Cameron

I think we probably will end up in America because he would be giving up much more to come and live here. If you want to work in film, that's really where you have to be. But I'm not sure that being an ex-pat is very good for one's sense of self. — Emily Mortimer

To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.
This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR. — Ryan North

I'll have you know there is adventure and then there is crime. And crime, such as you are suggesting, my pretty little filching mort, will see you standing in the Old Bailey being consigned to a hanging." "Then I daresay it would be best if we weren't caught." "Not caught!" He shook his head. "At least now I know where you live." "However do you know that?" "Because I'm quite certain the place you escaped from earlier was Bedlam." "Bedlam, indeed," she sniffed. "Whyever would you want to break into someone's house?" She shrugged. "I just merely want to try. It can't be that difficult. Thieves do it all the time." "And are hung all the time. — Elizabeth Boyle

In New Zealand, we have a one-party disclosure system, where if one of you knows you're being recorded, it's completely fine. It doesn't matter if the other person doesn't know. Look, I'm not breaking new ground by recording people who don't want to be recorded. — David Farrier

I can't impose on my friends for too long. I'm not sure what to do." He tipped her face up and brushed a kiss across her lips. "You'll marry me, of course. As soon as it can be arranged." Her pulse skipped, and she pulled back. "Right away?" His eyes were smiling and full of love. "I'd marry you tomorrow if we could arrange it that quickly." The thought of being a family with him and Edward brought heat rushing to her cheeks. "I'd like that more than anything in the world," she said. "Tell me what to do and I'll arrange it." "There are so many things to do, I don't know where to start," she said, laughing. The smile left his face. "When, my love?" The possessiveness in his voice heated her cheeks even more. "I need at least two weeks. I have to make a dress." "I'll buy you one." "I want to make it. I'll only have one wedding day. — Colleen Coble

A few weeks ago, my manager asked: "Do you feel like you're back? I feel like you're back." She meant it as a total compliment, but we had this great conversation where I was like, "You know what? I try really hard not to use that language, because it's not about going backward in life." I think it comes from this culture of antiaging, which is so not loving ourselves. I've been really focused on not being "back" to anything, but being the best version of myself right now. My body is the site of a miracle now. I don't want to be pre-miracle. — Kerry Washington

One of the first steps in freeing yourself from a gaslighting relationship, then, is to acknowledge how unpleasant and hurtful you find this Emotional Apocalypse. If you hate being yelled at, you have the right to insist that yelling not be a part of your disagreements. Maybe some other woman wouldn't mind the loud voice, but you do. If that makes you sensitive, so be it. You have the right to set limits where you want them, not where some mythical other, "less sensitive" woman wants them. — Robin Stern

I'm through with you. Yes, I am going to put you down. From now on, I am my own God. I am going to live by the rules I se for myself. I'll discard everything I was once taught about you. Then I'll be you. I'll be my own God, living my life as I see fit. Not as Mr. Charlie says I should live it, or Mama or anybody else. I shall do as I want in this society that apparently wasn't meant for me and my kind. If you are getting angry because I am talking to you like this, then just kill me, leave me here in this graveyard dead. Maybe thats where all of us belong anyway. Maybe then we wouldn't have to suffer so much. At the rate we are being killed now, we'll all be soon dead anyway. — Anne Moody

'Fantasy' is one of the fewer tracks where it's more literal than most of our things, but at the same time it's totally open-ended. Clearly it's a song about things not really appearing as you want them to, or things either getting what you want and not being satisfied with it because it wasn't how you hoped it would be, or thinking you want something and not getting it and the realisation of that. — Lizzy Plapinger

You want to understand are they needing you or not??
Are they with you or not??
Do they feel what you to make them better or not..
Wow these are a lot of questions, I just don't know from where to start...
Okay..., just stop doing that, stop being part of them, just remove them from social and non social live for a time... and keep waiting you could give some kind a information about where you will be or not and wait you will see everything. — Deyth Banger

So much of being a grown-up is about managing or quelling desires. For food, for drink, for sex, for good times; if you're a woman, I maintain, for ambition. You should not want too much. It is strange, then, to be in a position where society demands you should have an appetite for something. And yet here was a rare instance where I was appetite-free, and the world seemed to be saying, "You have to want this thing, if only so that we can help you work through your feelings about not having it! — Courtney Hodell

Don't get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend. — Atom Egoyan

We always want what is not ours. It's intriguing. We think if we can just get that, we'll finally be happy. The lure of what we do not have is deceptive.
True freedom, however, is found in being content with what we already have.
Can you imagine it?
Can you imagine being whole, complete, fulfilled - content with what you already have? It sounds too good to be true.
Utter satisfaction?
That is freedom.
That is what everyone is searching for.
Where, though, can you find this kind of contentment?
I've noticed that the more I've come to know Jesus, the less I've desired material things.
Materialism is what happens when you find your joy in things. Contentment is what happens when you find your joy in Jesus. They're complete opposites. You can easily differentiate a materialistic person from a content person. — Cole Ryan

I cannot change you. I cannot change other people. So I have decided to put all of my energy where I have the most leverage , where I know I can make a difference. Instead of being upset that this world is not populated the way I want it to be populated, I have decided to become the citizen that I want the world to be populated with. That's how I create the vision. — Gary Zukav

I don't want fame as far as the tweeting or the image of it. But, the idea of being famous is actually exciting to me, just because then you can have a choice in what you do. I would like to be at a point where I'm not asking for parts anymore, and I'm actually just choosing between a part that I want to do. — Emily Meade

We do what we want to do. We write songs. We try not to repeat ourselves too much. We have our own sound and our own way of doing things. Up until now it has always been enjoyable. None of the members have ever got to the point where they don't want to be involved in it ... It's not entirely possible for me to stand back and look at the Rolling Stones because being a part of it you can't. I wish that I could just sit in the audience for one night and see the show. Everyone in the band has said that at some point. But then you wouldn't be seeing the whole band. And that's the problem with that. — Keith Richards

I think I am at that stage of Life now where Success or Failure, nothing Bothers me. If I get little success then I get lots of rejections and failures on a regular basis too. But none of that bothers me at all. I can take failure as sportingly without getting bothered as I take success. And this is how my life has drastically changed in last one year or something. I don't do things anymore to please people around me and all I care about is If I am happy being where I am and I am enjoying doing what I am doing or not. I may not be where I want to be yet but I am Happy.This is what matters in Life. Isn't it? Find what you love. Sooner or Later but you need to find one day, and once you find, give your everything to it. There may be many failures and rejections on the way but you will reach where you want to be some day and most importantly, you will be happy and in Peace with where you are. — Shivam Singh

You may not be where you want to be, but you can look back and be thankful you're not where you used to be. — Joel Osteen

When I was overweight and unhappy, I thought about being smaller, I thought about fitting into different clothes and feeling comfortable in any environment or social situation. But I didn't do anything about it. I was letting myself fall victim to not planning, not clarifying steps to reach my goals. Don't go on just wanting something. Start consciously planning where you want to be. — Ali Vincent

Rappers, as a class, are not engaged in anything criminal. They're musicians. Some rappers and friends of rappers commit crimes. Some bus drivers commit crimes. Some accountants commit crimes. But there aren't task forces devoted to bus drivers or accountants. Bus drivers don't have to work under the preemptive suspicion of law enforcement. The difference is obvious, of course: Rappers are young black men telling stories that the police, among others, don't want to hear. Rappers tend to come from places where police are accustomed to treating everybody like a suspect. The general style of rappers is offensive to a lot of people. But being offensive is not acrime, at least not one that's on the books. The fact that law enforcement treats rap like organized crime tells you a lot about just how deeply rap offends some people
they'd love for rap itself to be a crime, but until they get that law passed, they come after us however they can. — Jay-Z

I finally feel like I'm finding my way
and not just living day by day
I'm doing what I love
I'm going where I want to go
I'm being who I want to be
I'm happy
And you know what? I think everyone deserves to feel the same way. — Connor Franta

I love America for an idea. The reality is important but ambiguous. In Senegal, there stands a building where slaves were stored before they were sent on to the New World. It was built in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence. I love America for the clear idea behind the cloudy reality. Without the idea, the joys of America would be mere accident, the ephemera tossed up by the hand of fate, to disappear in the wind. And what is that idea? It is the idea of hope, that grand, audacious idea that makes the Britisher blush with embarrassment. It may be an idea not everyone cares for, but it is one I need, I want. I love her for her thought, first, of where you're going, not where you're from; for her majestic optimism against the gray resistances of Europe, most pure in Britain, so that in America I feel like - I am - a sexual being. — Zia Haider Rahman

Do you remember the books from our childhood? Those were you could decide yourself what the character should do next?
I always loved those books, getting to decide what will happen, being responsible for it.
But did you ever decided for something, flipped to the page, read it and then thought: "No, I don't want this to happen!" And then you went back to where it all went wrong and just took a different path.
It was always so easy with those books, if you didn't like what was happening you just chose a different path, like pressing rewind till it makes sense again and then hit play.
It's not like I am always unhappy with my words, actions or decisions in a situation, but I can't stop wondering how everything would be right now if I had said something different at some point.
I guess I will never know but it makes me question my words, decisions and actions right now, because what if I chose wrong and then I don't get what I wish for because of one word or one step? — Lena Goetz

I was so unsuccessful for so long. I was used to the word no. I was used to you're not good enough or not quite there or you need to fix this about you. So I am honestly walking in faith every single day that I am going to be able to handle whatever God has for me. I am not used to being in a place where people appreciate my work and understand my work and want to be a part of my work and getting something out of my work because for so long it was so misunderstood. The success part for me is the hardest part and everyday I'm still battling. — Tamar Braxton

As a conscious rap artist, you should not want to be in a gangster market. You should be trying to establish your own market, create a place where you can be yourself and make some money and feed your family. — KRS-One

I love you, Ink, and I want you-only you. Being strong doesn't mean I don't want you too. You are the only person who knows every part of my life, every part of me in it, the good and the bad and the horrible, and you still love me. You are always with me, even when you're not there. And when you're not there, I can feel it, like an empty space where you ought to be, and I can hardly wait until you're back to fill it again. Neither world feels like it fits, but we belong. — Dawn Metcalf

He ran a hand through his hair. "What I have to be tomorrow, who I have to become, is not ... it's not something I want you to see. How I will treat you, treat others ... "
"The mask of the High Lord," I said quietly.
"Yes." He took a seat on the bottom of the stairs. I remained in the center of the foyer as I asked carefully, "Why don't you want me to see that?"
"Because you've only started looking at me like I'm not a monster, and I can't stomach the idea of anything you see tomorrow, being beneath that mountain that mountain, putting you back into that place where I found you. — Sarah J. Maas

Inner peace - you need to know who you are, what you want out of life. You have to do your own thinking, and for that you better know who you are, and not just know but be secure in it, comfortable with yourself. Plus you gotta have discipline. Stamina. And luck sure helps. A little luck counts for a lot, including our great good luck of being born into the greatest economic system ever devised. It's not a perfect system by any means, but overall it's responsible for tremendous human progress. In just the past century alone, we've seen something like a seven-to-one improvement in the standard of living. I'm not saying we don't have problems, we've got a helluva lot of problems, but that's where the genius of the free market comes in, all the drive and talent and energy that goes into solving those problems. — Ben Fountain

Punishment? You don't have any right to punish me. And I can curse. I choose not to most of the time, but don't think it doesn't go through my head, asshole. I was trying to give you something. I was trying to give you my body."
"That's where you fucked up, little girl. I don't want your body. I want your soul. I want your everything. And I definitely want your orgasms. I want them all. I'll be a greedy bastard, savoring them and hoarding them all for myself. You wanted to give me your body? I can buy that on a street corner, sweetheart. You're the one who's being selfish now."
"How is it selfish to offer to have sex? I don't understand what you want."
"First off, I want you to stop hiding yourself from me. You're the one making this tawdry by pretending it's dirty and not worthy of the light of day."
"I didn't mean it that way."
"We're going to do this my way. We tried yours and it didn't work, so I'm taking control. I should have done it in the first place. — Lexi Blake

Taking drugs on a recreation level is one thing. But taking them while you're working on a stage is, I don't think it was that great. It's the control factor. And the thing about being on stage, you really want to feel that you're sort of in control a lot. It's not a place where you want to be out of control. — Mick Jagger

He [D'Artangnan] succumbs to her [Miledy Winter] level of seduction and gives into it. It's only when the series starts to progress that he realizes what she's doing, and the tables turn slightly. But that relationship really pays homage to how D'Artagnan can be easily swayed. You see him grow into somebody who can actually make a decision where he's not being used and forced into doing something that he doesn't want to do. — Luke Pasqualino

We only give credence to that which we can prove exists. Since we cannot find evidence that gods, miracles, and other supernatural things are real, we do not trouble ourselves about them. If that were to change, if Helzvog were to reveal himself to us, then we would accept the new information and revise our position."
"It seems a cold world without something ... more."
"On the contrary," said Oromis, "it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do, instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. I won't tell you what to believe, Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else's notions thrust upon you. You asked after our religion, and I have answered you true. Make of it what you will. — Christopher Paolini

Solitude is listening to the voice who calls you the beloved. It is being alone with the one who says, 'You are my beloved, I want to be with you. Don't go running around, don't start to prove to everybody that you're beloved. You are already beloved'. That is what God says to us. Solitude is the place where we go in order to hear the truth about ourselves. It asks us to let go of the other ways of proving which are a lot more satisfying. The voice that calls us the beloved is not the voice that satisfies the senses. That's what the whole mystical life is about; it is beyond feelings and beyond thoughts. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

The family tree of Christ startlingly notes not one woman but four. Four broken women - women who felt like outsiders, like has-beens, like never-beens. Women who were weary of being taken advantage of, of being unnoticed and uncherished and unappreciated; women who didn't fit in, who didn't know how to keep going, what to believe, where to go - women who had thought about giving up. And Jesus claims exactly these who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His. He grafts you into His line and His story and His heart, and He gives you His name, His lineage, His righteousness. He graces you with plain grace. Is there a greater Gift you could want or need or have? Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, I am your God, and I am one of you, and I'll be the Gift, and I'll take you. Take Me? — Ann Voskamp

People hate it when you call them on jackassery. That's a big fact of human nature: Not a lot of people want to be called on being assholes. They prefer to do their assholishness in the dark and cover it up with fancy words. Because they don't mind being evil - they just hate being evil where people might see. — Lili St. Crow

You're always on your way somewhere. The key is: find a way to be happy wherever you now are on your way to where you really want to be. (We're speaking of the state of being you want.) It does not matter where you are; where you are is shifting constantly - but you must turn your attention to where you want to go. And that's the difference between making the best of something and making the worst of something. — Esther Hicks

Real success is not, like, materialistic. It's being where you want to be when you want to be; just living your life how you feel; having an ultimate goal and being able to accomplish it. — Lindsey Wixson

Unfortunately, we are not painters and authors, where we can do something in isolation. We require a lot of money to create what we create. It's almost like being an architect: You can't be an architect and build whatever buildings you want to. — Jon Favreau

Where students talk about being independent and on their own, you will find them practicing the most rigid conformity in dress, in speech, in moral attitudes, and in thinking. Sometimes they follow fashion at the expense of integrity. They dread to be alone. They do not want to stand out or be different. They want to conform. After they graduate from college, many of these young people want nothing more than a good job with a big firm, and a home somewhere in suburbia. But they don't find security. — Billy Graham

I truly want what you truly want-nothing different and nothing more. Don't you see that is My greatest gift to you? If I wanted for you something other than what you want for you, and then went so far as to cause you to have it, where is your free choice? How can you be a creative being if I am dictating what you shall be, do, and have? My joy is in your freedom, not your compliance. — Neale Donald Walsch

Recognizing that you are not where you want to be is a starting point to begin changing your life. — Deborah Day

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on — C.S. Lewis

If you really want to be right (or at least improve the odds of being right), you have to start by acknowledging your fallibility, deliberately seeking out your mistakes, and figuring out what caused you to make them. This truth has long been recognized in domains where being right is not just a zingy little ego boost but a matter of real urgency: in transportation, industrial design, food and drug safety, nuclear energy, and so forth. When they are at their best, such domains have a productive obsession with error. They try to imagine every possible reason a mistake could occur, they prevent as many of them as possible, and they conduct exhaustive postmortems on the ones that slip through. By embracing error as inevitable, these industries are better able to anticipate mistakes, prevent them, and respond appropriately when those prevention efforts fail. — Kathryn Schulz

What these [personality] tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine since the 'right' answer should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders ... The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee, and the information being conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from us. We don't just want your muscles and that portion of your brain that is directly connected to them; we want your innermost self. — Barbara Ehrenreich

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BEING TAKEN

When you begin to surrender, forget yourself. Become senseless with no motive, so you can be blown from east to west and back without knowing anything, or caring either. It would not be surprising if in such mindlessness your essential being went hundreds of miles without you being aware of it.

We see such wandering in the clouds and the waters. The forests and the crops too in their ways travel with caravans of people along the earth. God takes our souls on journeys he knows nothing of. Why? We don't know, being as we are the passed-out reveler laid in a wagon and driven elsewhere. What we love, what we want, is this being held in the presence, this being taken. That is the satisfaction, not learning why or how or where we are, or when we'll arrive somewhere else. — Bahauddin

What I had was classic short-term PTSD. From an evolutionary perspective, it's exactly the response you want to have when your life is in danger: you want to be vigilant, you want to avoid situations where you are not in control, you want to react to strange noises, you want to sleep lightly and wake easily, you want to have flashbacks and nightmares that remind you of specific threats to your life, and you want to be, by turns, angry and depressed. Anger keeps you ready to fight, and depression keeps you from being too active and putting yourself in more danger. Flashbacks also serve to remind you of the danger that's out there - a "highly efficient single-event survival-learning mechanism," as one researcher termed it. All humans react to trauma in this way, and most mammals do as well. It may be unpleasant, but it's preferable to getting killed. Like — Sebastian Junger