Study yourself first before you study others

"One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye." Would you as a reader not need your eyes to read the text, I would now ask you to close them. But fine, then let's try a different approach: Open your heart. I know, easier said than done, but try it with the following section. Open your heart wide and concentrate on your innermost self. On what moves and drives you deep within. 
You sit there with your eyes closed. You try to hear your heart, but that is much easier said than done. After all, you have been searching your entire life simply for something that guides and directs you in life. People come and go, moments and instants pass by you like shadows of another self. All the hustle and bustle around you. Everyone wants so much from you. And amidst the ruins of your battle you stand. You search for yourself and don't know where to begin. How can one be honest with oneself and the world without a point of reference? So you sit there and read and stumble and read on and dream. You try things, fail and somehow manage to pull yourself together and get up again. And then you become truly melancholic. Sweeping your gaze through your room you desperately try to find an explanation for everything. Perhaps your gaze now wanders to one of those stand-up ring-bound quote calendars, like the one I have standing behind my desk on my windowsill. A birthday gift. Because I think so much or for whatever reason… 
A clever mind came up with something a while ago and packed their insights into such a saying. And now our grandmother, an uncle or some friend comes along with such a quote and thinks they can help you somehow. What lies behind such general sentences that apparently apply to everyone? Or is there possibly simply nothing behind it in reality? Waffle without meaning?

When things get tough, I either write, do Sudoku, play guitar or leaf through these 365 pages, searching for myself. There are clever things in there and I always pick the saying that speaks to me in that moment. Then I read the saying I've opened to a few times in a row, hum it to myself and tilt my head thoughtfully to one side. Some sayings move me so emotionally that I have to cry or smile. Sometimes both. Such sayings always seem so simple. Like a recipe for happiness. Unfortunately, such a saying usually contains only a few of the many ingredients. There's no mention of preparation and baking. So I despair, watch films or series in which life seems as easy as many of these wise sayings. 
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Pah, if only it were always that simple! The problem is that when life gives you such lemons, you often lack the means and the strength to squeeze them. The lemon could have withered long ago. Or you might have accidentally confused it with a lime. It can also happen that only after all the work, right at the end, when drinking the lemonade, you realise that the lemon was broken long ago and everything seems to have been in vain. Who knows?
And yet we cling to these sayings. They don't give us a life recipe, but hope. Often we need nothing more than hope. Hope for change, for a higher purpose to our existence, for freedom and happiness. Especially for happiness. Many of these wise sayings are quite old, which makes them seem rather wise to me. But it's never wise to simply believe what you hear without thinking about whether it actually fits your own life and nature. Therefore, with such sayings, it's probably most sensible to always question them, to reflect on them, to see them as food for thought and to use them as such. As I write these words, my gaze automatically lifts to the saying currently open in my book of wise sayings: Be braver than you really are. Obey your feeling more than your reason. Dare to take a step further. Life will reward you richly for it.
Perhaps you have a saying that guides you through life, perhaps you don't. Either way, it's your life and only you are responsible for it, so don't dream your life, but live your dream and be yourself the change you wish to see in this world.