Burn on through

Today, I was chatting with someone, we'll call him/her "X," and the conversation turned to the future and this new person's job, etc. I began talking about my hopes for the future, how I can't decide what I want to do...not because I don't want to, but because I'm so passionate about so many different things and I don't feel like I've been shown a clear path just yet. Anyway, to make a long story short...it boiled down to this person telling me that I needed to make my expectations smaller...pick something and just do it. Settle. And it just hit me wrong. That's precisely what I don't want to do and why I've been feeling so turbulent! I don't want to "settle" for something at age 22 and just do it!!! And I know it works for some people, and that's perfectly fine. But if I'm so terrified of the idea, then I know it can't be right for me. There's something out there...and I'll find it. And I'll be HAPPY.
So I decided to turn to some of my favorite quotes. These words always inspire me and help me believe that anything is possible. I love books and their characters...


“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
-Jack London


"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
-Gandalf - The Fellowship of the Ring


Arthur: Pelagius told me once: "There is no worse death than the end of hope."
Guinevere: You and I are not the polite people that live in poems. We are blessed and cursed by our times.
King Arthur


"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island....and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."
-Walt Disney

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.
-The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
Albus Dumbledore - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone