Dead Toad Scrolls Quotes

“The greatest challenge in life is to be our own person and accept that being different is a blessing and not a curse. A person who knows who they are lives a simple life by eliminating from their orbit anything that does not align with his or her overriding purpose and values. A person must be selective with their time and energy because both elements of life are limited.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Life has a tendency to provide a person with what they need in order to grow. Our beliefs, what we value in life, provide the roadmap for the type of life that we experience. A period of personal unhappiness reveals that our values are misplaced and we are on the wrong path. Unless a person changes their values and ideas, they will continue to experience discontentment.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Self-transformation commences with a period of self-questioning. Questions lead to more questions, bewilderment leads to new discoveries, and growing personal awareness leads to transformation in how a person lives. Purposeful modification of the self only commences with revising our mind’s internal functions. Revamped internal functions eventually alter how we view our external environment.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We wait too long to tell the people we love that they are the very reason that we exist. We assume that our wife, child, other family members, and friends understand our love and affection. We assume that people we care about understand our enigmatic idiosyncrasies and willingly accept the shrouded reasons behind our demonstrable oddities. We assume that other people sense that we struggle valiantly in our blackened landscape. We presume that other people comprehend our struggle to glean meaning amongst the ashes spewed from the absurd circumstances that we operate. Sometimes we need to stop and tell the tenderhearted persons whom we care about that we love them and explain that our awkward strangeness is not a rejection of them.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Living is a process of developing oneself. Without experiencing pain from disconcerting periods of our lives, we would be different person, perhaps a lesser person.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Life’s most precious moments are not all loud or uproarious. Silence and stillness has its own virtues.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Rudeness is a means to attract attention, assert power, cover-up ineptitude, deflect personal insecurities, and intimidate meeker people.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We are the product of our past. We start each day where we left off the day before. Changing the way we dress, where we work and live, or even changing a name does not alter our basic constitution. Transformation of the self requires a radical alteration in the way that we perceive the world and derive meaning.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We create a meaningful life by what we accept as true and by what we create in the pursuit of truth, love, beauty, and adoration of nature.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The ego might resist change until a person’s level of discomfort becomes unbearable. A person can employ logic to overcome the ego’s defense mechanism and intentionally integrate needed revisions in a person’s obsolete or ineffective beliefs and behavior patterns. The subtle sense that something is amiss in a person’s life can lead to a gradual or quick alteration in a person’s conscious thoughts and outlook on life. Resisting change can prolong unhappiness whereas implementing change can establish internal harmony and instate joy in a person’s life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Regret comes in four tones that operate in unison to shape our lives. First, we regret the life that we lived, the decisions we made, the words we said in anger, and enduring the shame wrought from experiencing painful failures in work and love. Secondly, we regret the life we did not live, the opportunities missed, the adventures postponed indefinitely, and the failure to become someone else other than whom we now are. American author Shannon L. Alder said, ‘One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.’ Third, we regret that parts of our life are over; we hang onto nostalgic feelings for the past. When we were young and happy, everything was new, and we had not yet encountered hardship. As we age and encounter painful setbacks, we experience disillusionment and can no longer envision a joyous future. Fourth, we experience bitterness because the world did not prove to be what we hoped or expected it would be.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Our thoughts shape us. We become our obsessions. Our thoughts can enslave us or save us.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Expressing doubt is how we begin a journey to discover essential truths.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A poet warrior realizes both the brutality and the beauty in life, and apprehends that the suffering we tragically endure is partly what makes us human. What also makes us human is the ability to love, the ability to stand in nature’s presence, and to nurture this earthly paradise to tend to our family’s needs.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Every unpleasant worldly experience in life exposes our sensitive nervous systems to painful phenomena. Despite all the beer commercial advertisement slogans urging us to live with gusto, life is unavoidably painful. Life is a battering ram that inflicts trauma upon human beings. People blunt the traumatic force of enduring a lifetime of pain, fearfulness, and unremitted anguish and boredom with religion, sex, booze, drugs, fantasy, and other indulgent acts and forms acts of escapism.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Self-slaughter is an extravagant enactment of feeling sorry for oneself. Suicide is stingy act, because no matter how wretched our life may currently be, a person can always rise tomorrow and perform some small act of kindness for other people, care for a pet, or perform some other caring act that works towards preserving nature’s graciousness. To die of their own hand is to cheat other people and shortchange Mother Nature; it is taking without giving back in kind. What combats suicide is a sense of gratitude, a willingness to give to other people, and to cease living life as a taker. Without a profound appreciation for all that is living and devoid of a sincere willingness to contribute to the flourishing of all life forms, one can callously write off the value of their own life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The greatest fear that human beings experience is not death, which is inevitable, but consideration of the distinct possibility of living a worthless life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Life will never meet all of our expectations. We must nonetheless accept all disappointments without becoming bitter and cynical. We must always remain mindful of the opportunity to extend kindness and work to improve our character.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“No age of life is inglorious. Youth has its merits, but living to a ripe old age is the true statement of value. Aging is the road that we take to discern our character. Fame and fortune can elude us, but character is immortal. We must encounter a sufficient variety of experiences including both failures and accomplishments in order to gain nobility of character.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Joy always follows on the heels of pain. If a person escapes a mindset that current events represent an ongoing tragedy, they will encounter and comprehend all the beauty that surrounds them. We find bliss by living alertly and unequivocally accepting whatever is occurring in the present moment. If a person realizes that the present moment is all that matters, they will gain an inner stillness and appreciate the beauty and joy of each day.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Talking to oneself is a recognized means to learn, in fact, self-speak may be the seed concept behind human consciousness. Private conversation that we hold with ourselves might represent the preeminent means to provoke the speaker into thinking (a form of cognitive auto-stimulation), modify behavior, and perhaps even amend the functional architecture of the plastic human brain. Writing out our private talks with oneself enables a person to “see” what they think, a process that invites reflection, ongoing thoughtful discourse with the self, and refinement of our thinking patterns and beliefs. Internal sotto voice conversations with our private-self provide several advantages, but most people find it difficult to maintain self-speak for an extended period. Internal dialogue must compete with external distractions. Writing allows a person to resume a personal dialogue where they left off before interrupted by outside stimuli. A written disquisition also provides a permanent record that a person can examine, amend, supplement, update, or reject.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“The great beauty of life is its mystery, the inability to know what course our life will take, and diligently work to transmute into our final form based upon a lifetime of constant discovery and enterprising effort. Accepting the unknown and unknowable eliminates regret.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Behind every creative act is a statement of love. Every artistic creation is a statement of gratitude.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Time provides all of us with the opportunity to change, alter our belief system, and create new perspectives that challenge a person’s character and teach him or her how to become a happier and wiser person.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We learn invaluable life lessons from people whom exhibit courage and grace under extraordinary circumstances.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Tact by its nature entails staying mum, prudently electing to forgo urging other people to pursue an alternative course of action. Creation of silent spaces in our own life and equitable distribution of periods of respite that allow for periods of equable inner reflection is necessary to spur personal growth. It is equally important to honor other people’s intrinsic need for periods of introspection, uninterrupted by unsolicited advice”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A person does not reach the pinnacle of self-realization without relentlessly exploring the parameters of the self, exhausting their psychic energy coming to know oneself. Without society to rebel against and to sail away from, there would be no advances in civilization; there would be no need for healers and mystics, priests and artist, or shaman and writers. It is our curiosity and refusal to be satisfied with the status quo that compels us to challenge ourselves to learn and continue to grow. We only establish inner peace of mind with acceptance of the world, with the recognition of our connection to the entirety of the universe, and understanding that chaos and change are inevitable. We must also love because without love there are no acts of creation. Without love, humankind is a spasmodic pool of brutality and suffering. Love is a balm. It cures human aches and pains; it unites couples, families, and cultures. Love is a creative force, without love there is no art or religion. Art expresses thought and feelings, an articulation of adore and reverence.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Life is fundamentally a mental state. We live in a dream world that we create. Whose life is truer, the rational man of action pursuing practical goals of personal happiness and wealth or the philosophic man who lives in a world of theoretical and metaphysical ideas? We ascribe the value quotient to our lives by making decisions that we score as either valid or invalid based upon our personal ethics and how we think and behave.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Life presents innumerable possibilities for love, friendship, compassion, and self-fulfillment, but we must be willing to give in order to receive. Persistence, sacrifice, a quest for knowledge, along with acquaintance with our true self is essential in order to achieve our dreams. Panic, fear, worry, doubt, anger, and a negative attitude are the biggest impediments to self-realization. The most important battle we undertake in life is not with other people; rather it takes place in the human mind.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls