3 Reflective Phrases
For a few sentences we are not going to change our life, but perhaps when we listen to them something will stir inside you and enter your mind and heart like a sincere and direct bullet. Some phrases describe what happens to us so well that, beyond reflection, they seem like an invitation to change.
We may not be used to reading great reflections, a philosophy book or a movie that challenges all our dogmas or prejudices, but most people remember a few phrases that shocked and made them reflect. Perhaps one of them is one of the three that we invite you to read below.
1. “Everyone has a plan, until they get the first punch in the face.”
The first of the sentences is not from any philosopher and we believe that the boxer who said it never aspired to be, but sometimes the most direct things are the most sincere and those that contain a deeper message. Simple, straightforward and direct.
This phrase was said by boxer Mike Tyson and it contains a very powerful message, being able to establish a link between boxing and life. We all have a plan for our life, we believe that we can follow it without problem and that the wind is in our favor. That happens until the first difficulty appears and with it the fears and doubts.
You can be convinced to do something and suddenly life can give you a good hook: the diagnosis of an illness, an assault or the betrayal of a person who matters most to you .
2. “Has anything you’ve done so far improved your life?”
The unforgettable but harsh film “American History X” has starkly the impact of Nazi ideology in an environment of young Americans. The coexistence between blacks and whites begins to become dangerous due to the racist ideas of the leader Cameron Alexander and his penetration in the minds of some boys, especially that of the protagonist, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton).
Derek is an intelligent and sensitive boy who begins to hear racist ideas from his father and internalizes them. On the other hand, his friendship with Cameron, the leader of the neo-Nazi group that is installed in the community, causes him to become radicalized, before the helpless gaze of his high school director, the African American, Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks).
Finally, Derek murders two African Americans on the doorstep of his home, in full view of his entire family. He is imprisoned and it is in prison where all his prejudices against blacks are dismantled, especially because of the friendship he establishes with one of them.
One day, Derek is raped in the shower by a group of neo-Nazis who distrust his attitude and his friendship with a black boy. They attack him to humiliate him and because they consider him a traitor. When he is in the infirmary, he receives a visit from his friend and director of the institute who asks him the following question: “Has anything you have done so far improved your life?”
Derek collapses because he is aware that everything he has done for that idea has ended up destroying everything of value in life. If we ever find ourselves in a very dark well and do not know what we have done to be this way, we should ask ourselves this question.
We will honestly know how to recognize all the toxic patterns that have led us there, which does not rule out that we have had difficult situations and little luck on our way. We always have some responsibility, little or a lot. Using these types of questions as emotional catharsis can help us change.
3. “You cannot find peace by avoiding life”
We are currently immersed in a world in which discomfort must be avoided at all costs, with the traditional religions having less and less impact in the Western world, since many of them also do not calm the current life of human beings.
The world has run out of alternative references to endure pain. We are ashamed and we live it in silence, medicating ourselves and more and more alone. Virginia Woolf said the third of our sentences.
Current trends in psychology, such as ACT, seem to agree with him. It is to avoid in order not to suffer, along with excessive stress is one of the evils of our time: we avoid due to inherent guilt due to the impossibility of not reaching the models of success and well-being.
These words, among the many phrases that Virginia Woolf left us, encourage us to face life and situations that we do not like. We are social beings and we need it. By avoiding you will always find pain and isolation, never peace. Loneliness is wonderful when chosen, not self-imposed out of fear of the world.
