The Pitt-Johnstown Personal Counselng Center is a very student-friendly office. It sometimes resembles a train station with students stopping in for various reasons (e.g. to get a drink of some of the best hot chocolate around, great cookies, and of course to participate in phenomenal counseling sessions!).
An attractive homemade journal rests on the coffee table in our reception area. The title on the cover invitingly reads: Nameless, Shameless Quotations. Our students have had a great time writing quips, anecdotes, musings, advice to others, personal reflections, etc. in that journal for several years now.
Imagine that you stopped in our office, noticed this journal with its intriguing title, and you simply picked it up and started to read. You would find the quotes that follow. After reading them, you might feel moved to add an entry of your own just like our students do! Please feel free to email us and let us know your thoughts!
Nameless, Shameless Quotations
"I've learned that I'm not the only one to ever feel this way and that my reactions are normal."
"Grieving is normal, everyone goes through it."
"Anger passes and life continues on."
"There is no shame in feeling or expressing feelings, the real shame is denying this in yourself and others. We go through life being told 'Don't think, don't speak, don't feel' - from parents, and teachers, down to friends and spouses. I tell you this, do think, do speak and do feel. For not to do these is to let the poisons of the past continue to infect us until we die, either bodily or spiritually, and death never has many answers, and living in darkness deprives us of the light we need to grow."
"Pace yourself!"
"LOVE --just accept it!"
"Forget the past, but remember what it taught you."
"If you think like you always thought, you will do what you always did. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. If you got what you always get, you will think like you always thought."
"The summer plan: to chill with the girls and play with the guys!"
"I run with my heart and my soul."
"I don't have alot of class, but I have alot of STYLE!"
"True love does not exist when it isn't there. But true love can't be hidden where it can't be found."
"I'm sleepy. Packing and saying goodbye are tough!"
"...just because I'm on Paxil, doesn't mean everyone else is!"
"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness, looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is that the only place they ever needed to search was within."
"I'd like school if it weren't for the classes!"
"Life is a 'do it to yourself' project."
"I gotta stop quit'n sh*t."
"My is that well-needed rain ugly!"
"Wisdom is the reward for listening when you'd rather be talking."
"Personal counseling offers many important forms of support and comfort to those of us who need it...as to the opinion of those who don't...who cares? P*ss on 'em!"
"Some people watch the Travel Channel and some people live the Travel Channel!"
"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today." -James Dean
"Thanks Celexa!"
"When you're a hammer....everyone else looks like a nail!"
"Life is a garden...DIG IT!" - Joe Dirt (movie)
"The world is neither harsh nor cruel. The world simply is. People are harsh and cruel; but they are not like this with the sole intent of hurting us; that is just how they are. It is how we respond to their 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' Most things that occur in life are not personal, they are just happening without any thought of how we react. So to avoid the anxious and negative perceptions of life, stop taking things personally and simply let them unfold."
"You spot it, you got it."
"For about 16 years, I simply let life unfold. When I started to mess with the unfolding process, I got myself into some s***. So now I think about what's happening and how I, as a lone entitity can change that which needs changing in my life only. As for anyone else and their meddling, --I can't control nor understand nor convince anyone otherwise. Paul McCartney said it best..'There will be an answer...let it be."
"Love is something you teach yourself...some do it better than others."
"An idle mind is the devil's playground...and I'm the devil's see-saw."
"If I don't live to see tomorrow, I won't regret the way I lived today."
"Don't shop for kiwis in a shoe store."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it!" (Yogi)
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not failing; that is life. Keep hope and try your best. You can offer nothing better." -W. Edmund
"I have traded intelligence for wisdom."
"Half of doing something is believing you can."
"A woman who is convinced that she deserves only the best in life, will challenge herself to give the best - - then she is truly living, phenomenally."
"For the most important things in life, the goal must not be to win. Too many times, it is impossible to win. The important thing then is to keep from losing." -W. Edmund
"Sometimes you have to walk through that person's shoes before you judge!"
"Some people have photographic minds. Many people need to buy film."
"Don't give up! You need tenacity and focus. "
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. - Mahandask Gandhi
Look at a young child working on a project and never a thought of failure. There is just 'what do I need to make this what I want it to be?' When it's all done, no matter what it looks like, there's a sense of pride and accomplishment."
"Joy is a net of love by which you catch souls." -Mother Theresa
"To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. -William Blake
"No one told me senioritis lasted 4 1/2 years and started when I was a freshman..."
"You can't have what doesn't want you."
"How would you like to wear your a** for a hat??!!"
"I'm bound and determined to get right!"
"I'm looking for something I already have."
"True perfection lies in imperfection."
"Everything will be all right." -Brandon Flowers from "The Killers"
"I'm optimistic when it comes to depression."
"All of you who enter here, (The Personal Counseling Center) will find some hope and a little cheer!
"I'm relaxed...and that worries me!"
"I never liked beer until I had kids."
"You can do it. Just follow the directions!"
"...wake up...get rid of all the bling bling...it don't mean anything if you don't have any sense...go to school school...don't be a fool...there are no excuses...now is the time..." T.D. Jakes
Use self-reflection to see what kind of person you are, and use influences to dcide who you would like to be at the end.
Don't think you're the only one dealing with "stuff". We have lots of company. Turn to God!!!
Nobody wants to kiss someone who smokes.
If you want to know exactly where your heart is, pay attention to where your mind goes when it wanders!
"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose".
If the two definitions of "popular" are "well-liked" and "common", then why are ppular people in an elite group that nobody really likes...?"
I never liked beer 'till after I had children!
You gotta be prepared to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.
Love is something you teach yourself. Some do it better than others.
One tear, one lie, when you and I, say goodbye.
If I don't live to see tomorrow, I won't regret the way I lived today.
An idle mind is the devil's playground, and I'm the devil's see-saw.
Splinters in my mind taken out, melt through the cloud below me, fall quickly to the earth and burn.
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose". (Janice Joplin)
"Thou shalt be, everywhere and always, the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil. Thus is thine life, and unto those innocent, above all, thou shalt do no harm". (The Code of Chivalry).