Quotes from David E. Martin

I struggle with the fact that who I am has often been hidden behind stories that I tell myself derived from my perceptions of others' thoughts, statements, actions, or indifference.

What would you call yourself if you didn't use anyone or anything else's associations to label you?

When we see ourselves and our world defined by stereotypical expectations, the very nature of our engagement alters. And our susceptibility to this transformation of behavior may diminish our capacity to appreciate important nuance in our surroundings. In a world where we're looking for 'familiar' or 'similar' through favorable lenses and seeing 'unfamiliar' as somehow lesser, we are at risk of being blind to the self-evident.

If we could be participants in, rather than creators of, our lives, we'd let go of most of the judgements, critiques, fears, and doubts that keep us from loving life.

To have hope is to judge the present as inadequate while holding the audacity that an unrealized future will somehow improve upon the present.

Would you be able to recognize 'better' when you're in the mindset that life in its present form is somehow not good enough?

You perceive and remember that to which you can relate. When you observe something aberrant, your tendency is to build a metaphor to explain what you didn't understand.