Quotes by C. JoyBell C.

I cannot have a man who is afraid of everything, I dont have the time to soothe insecurities and fears, I cannot have a man who is standing on a stone by a creek, watching for the fish to swim by and every time he sees a fish he says Oh look, this fish scares me, I wonder what this fish means, this fish might mean- this, or this fish might mean- that for Gods sake, they are just fish, and they dont mean anything! Such a sad thing, so many fine, strong men standing on top of little stones, pointing at fish all the time! Such a waste! Such a waste of time! I can only have a man who will leap into the water, not minding the damn fish and whatever other little things that scare him. I need to have someone who is braver than me; if I am a pirate, he has to be the pirate Captain, if I am a pirate Captain he has to be the flying dragon.

The real thing that keeps men and women apart, is fear. Women blame men and men blame women, but the culprit is fear, women are afraid of one thing, men are afraid of a different thing; the fears of women have to do with losing while the fears of men have to do with not being good enough for something. One is loss, the other is insecurity. Men are innately more insecure than women and women are innately more needful of companionship than men. Its good for both men and women to be able to recognize and identify these fears not only within themselves, but within each other, and then men and women will see that they really do need to help each other. Its not a game, its not a competition, the two sexes need one another.

Dont let a thief into your house three times. The first time was enough. The second time was a chance. The third time means youre stupid.

You can have a pet zebra and put that zebra into a small cage every day and tell the zebra that you love it, but no matter how you and the zebra love each other, the fact remains, that the zebra should be let out of that cage and should belong to someone who can treat it better, the way it should be treated, someone who can make it happy.

There are all these relationships that are like cookie cutter shapes; identical and repetitive. Then there are all these relationships that arent even relationships! Just facades for show and tell. But every once and a while, youll see this bird breaking out of this cage and its so weird and its so obscure and youve hardly ever seen it before so you dont even know at first if you should name it Ugly or Beautiful! Relationships, stories of love, that just shatter the walls around the mind. They made it. They broke through. Like Ugly-Beautiful birds bursting forth from rusty cages! And then suddenly you stop and you think to yourself, Maybe love really is real.

I think that many people will intentionally overlook all of the lifeless facts about their relationship with their significant other, just because they do not want to go through the trouble of breaking up, because its safe, because other people expect it of them, because there is a fear of being alone... and in the process of doing this, they miss out on the life that is meant for them. Our lives must not be lived to be safe, to be out of trouble, to meet the expectations of others, and to avoid fear. On the contrary, our lives must be lived with courage, which can only be present if there is fear; our lives must be lived for what we know in our hearts is for us, not for what other people believe is for us; our lives must be lived even when it is not safe and even when things are troublesome. To die in full knowledge that you have pleased everyone safely, or to die in full knowledge that you seized what you knew was meant for you -- which way do you choose to die? Because that is the way you must choose to live!

If we were all looking for something easy come and easy go, then all of our lives would be easy. The problem is that we look for something real, dont we? And it is this longing for what is real, that makes finding the right person to be the most difficult task in the world. You can marry someone and promise the rest of your life to the person, only to find out later that this person makes you feel lonely. If we had no innate longing for true love and for true partnership, then none of us would have any problems! Therefore, the most frightening question to ponder upon, is, what if true love does not exist; what if the real stuff isnt real at all? In such a case, life would be meaningless. I suppose I would rather believe in love relentlessly, than live in this world meaninglessly.

Do not ever allow your mind to rob your soul of what belongs to it.

There are those who say that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through the denial of oneself; you must deny yourself many things, go and live in a mountaintop, never mingle with other people, talk to the birds..but I say to you, why should you dismantle your home? Where is the meaning in removing the bricks from your walls one by one? What is the purpose in uprooting your floors? Is there any significance in only allowing yourself a tin roof and a muddy bed? Why deny your house its structure? A truly enlightened soul is strong enough, is bright enough to live and shine through, even in a beautiful house! There is no need to ransack the house in order to see an inner beauty etched against a distraught surrounding. A bright and beautiful soul can shine forth even from inside an equally beautiful surrounding.

I believe that secularism is not the enemy of spirituality. Our spirits are in fact secular and free. But the enemy of your spirit is materialism which produces legalism. People scramble for the perfect law in order fix everything, while failing to see that law only points towards what is material. And so, people find themselves going around in a circle that will never end. The key is to break away from that circle. You have to begin focusing your attention onto what is inside you and what is inside everybody else. This will in turn produce common sense, intuition, and understanding. Then comes strength.

At the end of the day, the argument between spirituality and about spirituality, is all against the nature of spirituality. In arguing spirituality, we go against its very nature. The important question: “Am I being kind in what I am saying/doing”? And that is all. In all truth, to eat an ice cream cone and to smile with the joy of a child, is about a billion times more spiritual of an activity, than to discuss views about spirituality. The experience of innocence; the experience of joy—this edifies ourselves and others. And that is spirituality. An ice cream cone can be the most spiritual object in the universe, at any given time.

We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesnt. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Dont look to the left, dont look to the right; we simply dont have the time. Never be afraid of fear.

Losing something happens in a day. An end takes one day. We all seem to focus on that one day, on that ending, rather than on the beautiful story that was created before the end came. We are obsessed with endings, so much so, that we would rather not live at all, than live and then lose. So, we have two choices: to not create our stories because we know that one day they have endings, or, to build our stories and therefore to live, filling the many years with memories and moments! An end takes one day to happen, but life takes place in the moments and in the memories that we choose to feel, to build, to hold. Dont miss out on the years, for the fear of one day.

The medicine to fear, these days, is a dose of reality! Because these days the reality is far worse than the disembodiment of the ideal. People today are afraid of the disembodiment of the ideal, because they think the ideal is the reality. A rabbit that does not know it lives in the ground with snakes, is constantly afraid of the sea hawk possibly finding its way to land, to destroy the rabbit’s meadowy existence. In the meadow, living in fear of the sea hawk, not knowing the hole in the ground next to its burrow belongs to a snake. I show the rabbit where the snakes are, thus eliminating its hazardous fear. Misplaced fear is hazardous fear. Fear well placed is a skill for survival.

There are two kinds of friendship: the beneficial friendship and the erroneous friendship. The erroneous friendship balances on the principle of the closer we are, the more okay it is for me to say anything I want to you and for me to treat you any way that I want to, and for me to disrespect you and take advantage of you while a true friendship is rooted in this principle: the closer we are, the more respect I have for you, the better I will treat you, the higher I will regard you, the more good things I will wish for you. You will know someone is a true friend by basis of observing their actions towards you as the friendship grows deeper. A true friend will continue to hold you in higher and higher regard while the error of a friend will see your goodwill and newfound fondness as basis to do and say whatever he/she wants, that is disrespectful and non-beneficial to you.

I believe in women uplifting other women. The only thing that makes our gender weaker, is the fact that we are the gender less likely to stand up for the other. We are the gender more likely to try and make another look bad, and when one of us is already bad, instead of being kind, we pound them into the ditches. And thats what makes us weak, nothing else. If we can change this, we can change the whole structure of our being female, I truly believe this. Personally, I grew up admiring other women and wanting to be friends with them, but unfortunately, I learned the hard way that they were the ones who would hurt me. Women hurt other women all too often, and thats a fact. Id like to see not just us not hurting one another; but us actually making a conscious effort to be happy for another when she is happy, to hope the best for another when she has better, and to lift another up when she is down. We know that so many of us are harsh, cold and selfish, and we try to protect ourselves from one another, thats the reality. But its also a reality that what is real can change. So that means we can change it.

It is only when you accept how different you all are, that you will be able to see how much the same you all are. Dont expect anybody to be the same as you, then you will see that you are in many ways the same as everybody.

I think that, people are people. Thats why the way I treat the lady working in the deli who slices my ham is the same way I treat my friend who drives a Chrysler. Thats why the way I treat the guy who packs my groceries is the same way I treat my rich friends. Because people are people. Some are rich and some are poor, and theyre all people.

We all have thorns in our flesh. All of us. Love is when we stay and help someone pluck out their thorns one-by-one and they do the same for us. Love is also when we pluck the thorns out of our own flesh, one-by-one. But today, the world teaches us that we shouldn’t even see those thorns, that we should only see the petals. As a result, we don’t know how to love ourselves and we don’t know how to love others. Stay with the darkness, and bring that darkness into the light. It’s there, look at it.

You know what a supernova is? Its a dead star. And yet, it is the most beautiful specimen in the universe. Lots of people are supernovas but dont know it, they think that theyre dead; they dont know that theyre beautiful.