Jellis Vaes

“You either live to become an anchor of inspiration for those around you, or you live to become an anchor for a lesson for them. Whatever you become, it is entirely up to you to decide.”

“There is not one single thing you cannot do if you are able to see fear for what it truly is. Life is full of choices, and one of those choices involves fear. You can either let it control you, or you can learn to control it.”

“If you feel unhappy, sick or depressed, spend more time in nature and you will come to see the colors of life, you’ll come to experience the amazing changes that this world can do for you. The wonder of the purest and most honest beauty there is, one that is not here to define anyone or anything, but simply to let you see why this life is so worth living.”

“If there is something that I have learned from my time on this planet of ours, something that I can share and that I know to be true, it’s that we disconnect ourselves from nature and the wilderness too many times. Our birthplace. Our home.”

“Traveling solo is an incredible – life changing – journey, which I can recommend anyone to undertake. It’s the fear of being alone that prevents many people from daring to take the step to go on that journey. But as with many things, within that fear you’ll discover the greatest triumphs.”

“Happiness is largely about being socially connected, yet we cannot be connected if we keep on being so hard and unforgiving towards ourselves and on the scars we wear inside.”

“We are constantly taught in both in what we read, and what we see on the TV be it consciously and subconsciously, that being unhappy is not normal. Every time we read or hear about how we should be feeling happy, and how we need to go about it, and for whatever reason we aren’t at that moment in time, well, you feel that’s something must be wrong with you. “What’s wrong with me, I should be feeling happy in my life, but I’m not. Every article I have read says all those steps on how to be happy, but they don’t seem to work for me, I am still unhappy.”You come to see unhappiness as some kind of problem with you, with your personality. Something not normal at all. But it is. It is very normal. It is part of every human being, it is a part of you, it is part of who you are. You’ve got to first of all understand and acknowledge that feeling unhappy is nothing but normal and it isn’t something you should be afraid of. It only means that your emotions are functioning well and are taking care of you by keeping you up to date with the truth.”

“Don't waste this life being sad, angry or depressed as you just don't have as much time as you think you do.”

“It’s true that no one ever said life would be easy, but it is also true that no one ever said you had to go through it alone.”

“There is good to be found within anything bad. Even within the death of your own father.”

“Understand one thing very clearly. Because all this: your time, this world, your life in it and all of those opportunities, they have a deadline.”

“If you know why you are here, if you have a reason – a purpose, you know why you are born – you know why you are alive and you will feel alive. Purpose is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world to have.”

“Removing yourself from the familiar and opting for the unfamiliar opens up the unknown. And within the unknown there are questions we have never asked ourselves; experiences we have never imagined; lessons we have never had a chance to learn. What we ultimately need when we are stuck within a bubble, is change. Another perspective of seeing and knowing what is possible. Traveling will open that up for you. The world will play its role; all you need to do, is pack your bags and allow it to happen.”

“The world is alive, and just as we humans draw energy from connection with other human beings, so we do too from this world.”

“It’s true that no one ever said life would be easy, but it’s also true that no ever said you had to do it alone.”

“I honestly think that depression, unhappiness or the feeling of emptiness is more a lack of amazement about life than anything else.”

“Look, you can say that life is meaningless, because in the end we are all no more than dust in the wind and all that we do will ultimately be forgotten in hundreds or thousands of years’ time. But do you really want to live with that belief? Give yourself a higher meaning, give yourself a purpose why you were given this life. I am not a religious person but I do believe that we are all given this life for a reason, and that death is only the beginning of something bigger. Call me crazy, I don’t care. It gives me sense and an urgency to make this life count because I know it matters. You feel that way because you do not have that. Give this life a meaning and all that you do and will come to do will become meaningful instead of meaningless”

“Look within yourself and ask yourself honestly what you want to be. Throw away the idea that school is the only way to get educated. Anything can educate you. Understand this and look through all the possibilities.”

“Problems, struggles, difficulties, whatever you want to call them, are normal. In fact, each and every person you see walking on the street, sitting in the metro, working out at the gym, wherever, is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Problems are the most human thing about being a human, and are one of the few things that each and every one of us has in common.”

“How much your life sucks, or how awesome your life is, is really all determined by how much fear controls your life.”