English Literature & Inspirational Stories

“Nothing is more tragic than loving someone to the depths of your soul and knowing they cannot and will not ever love you back.”

— Rick Riordan

Life has taught me that when only one person fights for too long, comprehends too much, and compromises even if it hurts to the point where the person is depleted, drained, and empty, the relationship will become dull and eventually end. These are the times when that person's warm love turns cold, as seen through her eyes and her smile, which is no longer as genuine as it once was because it's now the soul that speaks enough is enough and it's too much to bear.
And that indicates to me that not all stories have happy endings; some can be tragic, agonizing, or full of unexpected turns and surprising conclusions. The lesson found in the pages of your sad stories is the greatest part of all of this; and the questions left unanswered, it was supposed to be love, so why does it end? Perhaps it was meant to be left unanswered, or perhaps it was best to leave it unanswered.

"I’m So Tired"

More than a part of me wants to say goodbye
I’m so tired of counting all the tears that I cry
Moving backward over walls forward steps are unclear
I float through reality while surrounded by fear
The right I hold onto is the right to be sad
All the critics assume that my insanity has gone mad
I sit once again on the edge of my bed
My soul is hanging low while my hands hold my head
So many questions I have 5 minutes in the day
This that anything or nothing, what is coming my way?
I am a waste of time is now my belief
Right now death seems to be my only relief
This is my thought for today, who knows what tomorrow will bring
Comforting words from the day, or will I hear the darkness sing?

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain

"Softness is not weakness.
It takes courage to stay delicate
in a world this cruel."
Beau Taplin

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

— Mark Twain

Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.

— Kazuo Ishiguro, “Never Let Me Go”

“Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake sits to warm itself. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the days' golden grains. Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.”

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

“I still miss you from time to time. There are just so many things that remind me of you. Believe me when I say, I tried forgetting your whole existence, but it wasn't as easy as remembering the sparks in your eyes, the curves of your smiles, the calmness of your voice, and the way your laughter made me feel just as happy. Believe me when I say that I tried opening my messages again without expecting your name to pop up in my inbox, but somehow I was waiting for a call from you. Believe me when I say I still miss you every now and then, but I guess I'm no longer hoping you will come back.”

— Andrian Adong, an excerpt from the book “Of Thorns and Words to Bleed”

I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you, I left because the longer I stayed the less I loved myself.

― Rupi Kaur, “Milk and Honey”

Your soul communicates with the people around you. It sends out signals in different ways, through your eyes, the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you move your hands, even the way you sit. Some people will pick up on those signals and interpret your feelings based on them, or they will not notice any difference. If they do, then they've got the key to your heart. If they don't, then they have much to learn about you. If you can look into my eyes and understand how I feel, then you've got the key to my heart. If you can know that the slightest change in my voice means that I am happy, sad, frustrated, amazed, irritated, or tired, then you are close to me because you are close to my soul and you can understand the way that it is expressing itself. Your soul can communicate with mine, understand mine, and care for mine. Therefore, I will care for yours.

That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don’t believe
Does not exhilarate.

That if it be, it be at best
An ablative estate —
This instigates an appetite
Precisely opposite.
~ Emily Dickinson

I envy those younger versions of myself in which I was able to dream of becoming something. Because currently, I'm stuck with the part where I tend to work hard without even thinking about anything, without knowing what kind of work I want to do. I don't even know what I'm good at... and I'm afraid. I'm afraid that one day, I'll go with the wrong decision for myself and everything I've been dreaming for the people I love will be ruined.

— Kharen Ganancial

On a fateful September morning a mug fell from Sofia's hands and shattered in to many pieces. It was Sofia's favorite mug. Every morning she poured tea in it and sipped from it merrily, with butter and hot bread baked in a cast iron pot. Her father had brought it from Asfahan when he went off with caravans carrying silk through the ancient silk route. It was an Ivory white cup with purple jasmine flowers painted around it's face.
It held a million memories in it, of her father and her lover too.
As the broken pieces of mug lay scattered like petals on a grave the memories of yesteryears welled up in her eyes. She stood in her place for a while like an idol in a museum,watching shards of glass tossing sun beams hither and thither. She wished if it was only a dream and that she would suddenly awake and thank God but to her sheer misery it wasn't. It was bitterly real. Sofia gently knelt down and stacked the broken pieces of glass on her palms as if they were some holy relics .
"It is even more broken than my broken heart" she mumbled. Then made her way out of the house. Down the alley she went meandering through the peach orchards. Stepping softly on the stepping stones, she came to the old flour mill. Then she opened the door and stepped inside. The metal grey stone wheel was spinning and tossing flour like a mist. She walked around with broken pieces on her her palm. With a heavy sigh Sofia gently placed the broken pieces on the old wooden shelf and left as silently as a ghost.
"Had father been here he would have hugged me close and brought me a new one." She thought.
The mug was a birthday gift from Sofia's father. A precious gift now lost forever. It was in her possession since she was seven. For the past eleven years it daily reminded of her father who had gone away with a caravan and never returned home.
The same evening an old man with a messy white beard and a woolen cap came to the mill to claim his flour. He picked up a jute sack and stuffed the sack with buckwheat. Then he tied the mouth of the sack with a thread. As he straightened his back to leave a coin on shelf for the mill owner his sight fell upon a broken mug. He picked up a shard of glass and his eyes glittered bright. "Such a splendid piece of glass." He uttered. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a handkerchief and gently wrapped the pieces of the broken mug. Then he loaded the sack on stallion's back and trotted out of view.

The old man arrived at his cottage and unloaded the sack. He placed it in the store and immediately hurried to his workshop. The workplace was littered with pottery and tools. There he took out the broken mug and slowly laid the shards of mug on the table. A smile broke across his lips. " The beauty of imperfection". He giggled. With his wrinkled hands, the potter juxtaposed each piece of mug and resurrected it's shape again. "Fortunate girl, or the fortunate mug should I say, all pieces are there and not even a single missing piece of puzzle." He laughed. "Let's aggrandize this beauty." He whispered merrily and drew his tools of magic. He set the burner ablaze and melted some gold coins in a kiln. Then with a finesse like Elvish mastery he spread molten gold on the broken edges of glass and juxtaposed the mug in to a piece of art. The gold gleamed from the cracks as it firmly held the mug together. Like a magic spell.

Sofia couldn't sleep that night. The mug was a gift from her late father. Now that it was broken. It was just a memory, like that of her father, an indelibly excruciating one. She hugged her pillow and buried her face sobbing, until the spell of sleep took over her.

She woke up early in the morning and made her way to the flour mill to see the work. On the way she saw some hoof marks. She unshackled the chain and creaked the door open. The mill was busy grinding corn and the place smelled of flour. Whole mill seemed blanketed with flour dust. She walked around lazily and suddenly her eyes fell upon a mug. A mug with flour dust settled on it. There was little light in the mill as the sun was hidden behind the mountains. She picked the mug wishing it was the one she wished for. She sat on a bag of corn and held it close to the lantern. As soon as she blew the dust off the cup a scream left her mouth. It was the same mug from Asfahan that her father had gifted her on her seventh birthday. All pieces bonded with a golden finesse.
"Broken yet beautifully aggrandized." She remarked.

[Wanderer]

❤️"Sonnet 116"❤️
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Sailing to Byzantium” by W. B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium

یہ بوڑھوں کے لیے کوئی ملک نہیں ہے۔ نوجوان
ایک دوسرے کی بانہوں میں پرندے درختوں میں
- وہ مرتی ہوئی نسلیں - اپنے گانے پر،
سامن آبشار، میکریل سے بھرے سمندر،
مچھلی، گوشت، یا پرندہ، تمام موسم گرما کی تعریف کرتے ہیں
جو کچھ بھی پیدا ہوتا ہے، پیدا ہوتا ہے اور مرتا ہے۔
اس سنسنی خیز موسیقی میں پھنسے ہوئے تمام نظرانداز
غیر متزلزل عقل کی یادگار۔

II

بوڑھا آدمی معمولی چیز ہے
ایک چھڑی پر ایک پھٹا ہوا کوٹ، جب تک کہ
روح تالیاں بجاتی ہے اور گاتی ہے، اور زور سے گاتی ہے۔
اس کے فانی لباس میں ہر پھٹے کے لیے،
نہ ہی وہاں گانے کا اسکول ہے لیکن پڑھ رہا ہے۔
اس کی اپنی عظمت کی یادگاریں؛
اور اس لیے میں نے سمندروں پر سفر کیا اور آیا
بازنطیم کے مقدس شہر کی طرف۔

III

اے خدا کی مقدس آگ میں کھڑے بابا
جیسے دیوار کے سونے کے موزیک میں،
مقدس آگ سے آؤ، ایک گھیرے میں،
اور میری روح کے گانے کے مالک بن جا۔
میرے دل کو دور کر۔ خواہش کے ساتھ بیمار
اور ایک مرتے ہوئے جانور کے ساتھ جکڑ لیا۔
یہ نہیں جانتا کہ یہ کیا ہے؛ اور مجھے جمع کرو
ابدیت کے فن میں۔

چہارم

ایک بار فطرت سے باہر میں کبھی نہیں لوں گا۔
کسی بھی قدرتی چیز سے میری جسمانی شکل،
لیکن یونانی سنار جیسی شکل بناتے ہیں۔
ہتھوڑا سونے اور سونے کے تامچینی کا
اونگھتے شہنشاہ کو جگانے کے لیے؛
یا گانے کے لئے سنہری ٹہنی پر سیٹ کریں۔
بازنطیم کے آقاوں اور خواتین کو
جو ماضی ہے، یا گزر رہا ہے، یا آنے والا ہے۔
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

" Song: to Celia " by Ben Jonson

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and in spite of True Romance magazines we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely at least, not all the time but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
~ Hunter S. Thompson

“All truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

When people speak about super heroes the first idea to come to mind is usually fictional characters with super natural powers.
But let me tell you this superheroes do exist among us.
Superheroes live and walk in our lives everyday.
It’s all of us who keep working hard and doing our best day in and day out for a better life for our families.
It’s all of us who keep struggling with something that hurts them deeply yet never give up and keep trying.
It’s all of us who believe in doing the right thing no matter how strong the temptation is.
It’s all of us who open our hearts to the world, are still filled with faith, hope and love no matter how rough things get.
It’s most our mothers and fathers everywhere, it’s most of our friends who hold our hands when times get dark, it’s those who loved us despite our bad days, It’s those who still manage to smile no matter how much in pain.
It’s anyone who act with kindness and compassion.
Superheroes are normal people,
Superheroes are the ones who keep pushing forward drag themselves out of bed to do their jobs every day,
Just look at yourself; superheroes are us.

“I am addicted to the peace and calm of being alone. There is something so soothing about solitude that I have no urgent wish to give it up and connect with people.”

You know why love isn't all about the sweet and happy phases of a relationship?

Love doesn't revolve around that; there are times when it becomes bittersweet, a rollercoaster of emotions wherein you will both feel adrenaline and pain at the same time. You just have to balance everything and understand both sides.

Chocolates and roses aren't the real meaning of it; it's just what we used to picture as the symbol, and we almost always tell everybody that Hades is for Persephone and Zeus is for Hera, perhaps because of the longing for a faithful relationship.

And that's not always the right thing or love for everyone; we all have different stories written in different fonts, styles, and by different authors.

Love is felt during hard times when you both don't know what to do when having an argument—you will just sit there and both ignore each other, or you will tap the hand of each other, talk about the situation, and cry until you both feel alright. It's just a matter of understanding.

Love is felt during the times when fear consumes her, and those reassuring forehead kisses from you when her hands are trembling are what make her calm.

Love is felt during late-night walks when the moon is shining above and you both are listening to music with the earphones you shared because the music playing is one of your favorite Lauv's songs.

Love is when you both feel safe in the arms of each other, when you feel that you can conquer everything, and when you feel that home is no longer a place but a person who's ready to welcome you anytime when you feel that the world is so hard on you.

5 lessons from book “Master your emotions”

1. Emotions are natural and necessary, but they can also be challenging to manage. Learning how to master your emotions is crucial for success in all areas of life.

2. Recognizing and understanding your emotions is the first step in mastering them. Take time to reflect on your feelings, and learn to identify them accurately.

3. Emotional intelligence is key to mastering your emotions. This involves being aware of your own emotions, understanding the emotions of others, and being able to manage your emotions effectively.

4. Developing a growth mindset can help you manage your emotions more effectively. This means believing that you can learn and grow from challenges, rather than being defeated by them.

5. Practice mindfulness and meditation to help you stay present and centered, even in challenging situations.

"Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken."

— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

𝟓 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐩 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 -𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬

Move #1 — Master knowing yourself.
Knowing yourself is rarely talked about in business circles, but it's impossible to think ahead without self-awareness. Once you definitively decide who you want to be, which direction to take will become much more clear, as well as why it matters.

Move #2 — Master the ability to reason.
How to process issues, and having a methodology for making decisions are important. No decision is ever black-and-white, and if you can learn to see all the shades of gray, that will help you move forward decisively, even in the face of uncertainty.

Move #3 — Master building the right team.
To build the right team around you, it's vital that you get to understand others. If you help people find the best in themselves, you can build a team that will help you grow. Ask questions, challenge your people to understand themselves, and build trust in your team.

Move #4 — Master strategy to scale.
Ideally, you want to spark exponential growth. Learn how to raise capital, invest in rapid growth, and create systems which will allow you to gain and maintain momentum. Tracking and constantly measuring the key parts of your business model is required.

Move #5 — Master making power plays. Everyone wants to beat the Goliath in your industry, and if you do that it will be great for your reputation and future operations. Learn how to control your narrative and leverage social media productively to frame your story. Always keep thinking five moves ahead.

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