8 Quotes To Help You Through Your Internship

Image via hercampus.com

Plucked from my inspirational journals, many of these quotes offer artistic inspiration, but daily inspiration as well.

See the challenges of your internship in a new light as these writers open up a world you already know.

1. “Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.” -David Foster Wallace

Although David Foster Wallace is most known for his encyclopedic Infinite Jest, he isn’t incapable of being short and sweet. This quote makes you feel okay about working a lot and feeling like you aren’t going anywhere.

Progress isn’t automatic nor does it have to be massive. Keeping your head up and moving forward are what really matter.

2. “Because of their fossils

Leonardo understood the tops of mountains rose into light

from the mangled floor of the sea. How far

have we come every morning, from how deep away,

to dig from the corners of our eyes

such amber fragments?”

-Albert Goldbarth [Untitled] (Because of their fossils), The Kitchen Sink

Albert Goldbarth can make even the simplest action seem important. What you’re doing may seem mundane, but if such an act as waking up can be beautiful, so can everything else you do.

Put intention into every small move you make and appreciate that each movement is helping you get where you need to go.

3. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” -Rumi

Wanting to change the world is normal, natural even, but growing up means realizing you must change yourself before you can change others. You’ll get a lot more satisfaction by making yourself who you want to be rather than nagging and waiting for other people to improve.

Taking pride in what you’ve accomplished is good, but knowing that you can always improve is what will make the difference.

4. “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.” -Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

We aren’t consciously aware of each day changing us. Much of what builds you comes from the daily grind. The hours pass without celebration, but these are the things that make you. The small stories and smaller paychecks will pay off, but in the meantime, celebrate the small victories of a single day going well.

5. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” -J.D. Salinger

You may not realize your importance to someone. You could be keeping someone sane or an operation running smoothly. Each part of a company is vital no matter how small, and you could very well be holding the universe together for more people than you know. Don’t underestimate your importance just because others don’t overtly notice it.

6. “She’s afraid of walking from her parked car to her apartment in the dark. She’s afraid of the scuffling sounds in the walls. She’s afraid she’ll fall in love and get stuck living in Chicago. She’s afraid  of ghosts, deep water, rodents, night, things that move too fast — cars, airplanes, her life. She’s afraid she’ll have to move back home again if she isn’t brave enough to live alone.” -Sandra Cisneros, Introduction: A House of My Own

Sandra Cisneros is one of my favorite authors (see the next quote as well) but that doesn’t mean she is immune from fear. Everyone is scared of something and more people are scared of things you do every day.

Even the most creative, talented, and powerful people have fears just like you. But having these fears doesn’t mean you should let them stop you from moving forward. Let them push you into challenging yourself and you’ll realize that you’re capable of more than you thought.

7. “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.” -Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

In Cisneros’s book of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, the young protagonist doesn’t quite fit in. You may feel like you don’t have five cents to your name and that you never will. Maybe your boss doesn’t even remember it, but hang in there, you’ll find your stride.

8. “Perhaps all dragons in our lives are really just princesses waiting to see us just once being beautiful and courageous.” -Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Don’t loathe the challenges you face. They are what improves you. They are what you’ll remember on your good days when you’re far from the bottom, when you can judge how far you’ve come.

Remember to find solace from your struggles in the things you love, but also in the things you must do. Each day is a new opportunity to change your life and work for the things you want, however slowly you wish.