Sometimes you have to live day by day. Nothing in life is guaranteed. What's yours today might not be yours tomorrow. And what you're working for towards tomorrow, might not be yours tomorrow. You can't control what the world brings your way in return for what you do.

You can only control what you do. So if you have anything to say, say it. If you have something to do, do it. If you have a place to go, go to it. Because tomorrow, you might not be here. The other person might not be here.

That place might not be here. And you will live with the regret, knowing that you missed moments that you could've have been doing and saying and going — and you didn't.

Stop waiting for the perfect moments and don't allow the coldness and hardness of this world to make you believe that what you have to say or do is not important.
— Najwa Zebian ...

Every single time you were convinced something would be the end for you, you find a way to get through it.

Every single time you thought you couldn't survive something, you preserved. Every single time you were convinced that something would get you down for good, you survived it and find a way to push through.

Despite everything life has thrown at you, you're still here. No matter how much you're struggling, you still wake up every morning and do your best with what you have.

Give yourself some credit. You're a lot stronger than you realize.

— compassionatereminders.tumblr.com ...

“People change. Feelings change. It doesn’t mean that the love once shared wasn’t true or real. It simply means that sometimes when people grow, they grow apart.”

500 Days of Summer (2009)
dir. Marc Webb ...

#September11 #NeverForget #TwinTowers
#BookReview

This is one of the defining books of a generation; perhaps the best way to demonstrate to todays young people the reality of the atrocious events of 9/11, best described through the eyes of the survivors, government officials and emergency aid workers who lived through the day and its immediate aftermath.

I can't remember another reading experience like this. Whatever your own experience of 9/11 was - and for all of us who lived through it, we remember where we were, what we were doing - Garrett takes that lived experience and makes the day come alive through the stories of hundreds of Americans, and makes you feel like your memories blend with those of the people whose stories are told on these pages.

The author does an stellar job of creating a forum for survivors to tell their stories in such vivid detail. The book is large, although divided into several chapters from the morning of 9/11 onwards. Extracts from phone calls made from the towers and the hijacked aircrafts are included and make up some of the most poignant parts of the book. Chapters following eyewitness accounts of the victims who were forced to jump from the towers by the intense heat and fire were absolutely heartbreaking, as was the descriptions of the heroic rescue efforts of the emergency services who lost so many of their colleagues.

Although I have watched numerous documentaries on 9/11, nothing compares to reading the voices of the survivors first hand. This is a difficult book to read, but a very important one nonetheless. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the author for the priceless gift he has given us and future generations. For the millions of people born after 9/11 this book will ensure the event doesn’t one day become simply a dry statistic in a history book. ...

If the path you’re on⁣ doesn’t lead to you⁣
expanding your heart,⁣
soul, and mind, ⁣it’s not the right path.
—@lalahdelia ⁣ ...

#HappyIndependenceDay #India

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 🌻
– Rabindranath Tagore ...

#CurrentlyReading #unitedbookstagram
I had picked this book a few years back, but was unable to complete it due to multiple circumstances. I am giving this a shot again and happy to report that I have completed almost 500+ pages - still quite a bit of way to go. Hope to get there soon. Have you read this? Thank you @thereadingwanderer for inspiring me to pick it up again.
.
.
What are you reading today?
.
.
.
Book: 1Q84
Author: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin & Philip Gabriel (Translator)
Pages: 925
First published May 28, 2009
.
Synopsis: The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.
As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers. ...

"You don’t have to be shining all the time. You’re allowed to dim and it’s okay to be quiet sometimes.

I just wish you have that someone who tolerates you when light isn’t around."
- Farah Samer ...

"Everybody has gone through something that has changed them in a way that they could never go back to the person they once were." 🧡
- Unknown ...

this is just a gentle reminder that you are human.

some days it feels like we can conquer the world and cross one hundred (and one) things off our list , while other days getting out of bed and touching our feet on the ground feels like the hardest weight we have ever lifted.

so this is me giving you permission to be human and to feel human, too. sometimes we are not meant to be everything all at once and lately many of us start our day knowing we have no other choice. it does not have to be graceful. it does not have to be perfect, but know that no matter how you get to the end of your day realize that you made it...and that...that will always be beautiful 🖤
- Wilder Poetry ...

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. 🌻
- Martin Luther King, Jr. #InternationalFriendshipDay ...

The older I get, the more I realize the value of privacy, of cultivating your circle and only letting certain people in.

You can be open, honest, and real while still understanding not everyone deserves a seat at the table of your life. 💛💛
- Steve Maraboli ...

Let me die
before the one's
I love
for losing
them first
would kill me
twice.
- @atticuspoetry ...