12 Words From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe That Inspired Me to Change My Ways

Small things have a big ripple effect

Photo by César Rincón on Unsplash

For a long time, I couldn’t let go of my anger.

It had burrowed into my bones and didn’t want to come out.

Every time I thought of the past, it was as if my heart had drunk a glass of vinegar. It would contort and contract, wince and writhe. And rage flooded my thoughts.

Once things cooled down, I was stuck between wanting to change and not knowing how to. So the cycle would repeat.

Then one day, whether by luck or divine intervention, I read something the Buddha had once said, and it snapped me out of my trance.

“Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

…it is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

This hit home hard. Suddenly, I realised that however wronged I was in the past, there’s no amount of anger that can fix it. And more importantly, the only person now being affected by it was me.

I still didn’t know how to change but I was more determined than ever. So I continued to read and learn until I stumbled across 12 words from Johann Wolfgang…