Robert Frost

This is a portion of a line from Robert Frost’s “A Servant to Servants,” but I think I saw it for the first time on a coffee mug, and it had been changed to “the only way round is through.” I’m not sure Frost meant this line to become what it has; regardless, it’s had an incredible second life, not as a part of a poem, but on its own as a motivational quote.

Whatever you call them, sayings, aphorisms — if they’ve got the right history — or platitudes — if you want to be a little insulting — or inspirational/motivational quotes, they have made some place in most people’s worlds.

I don’t hate inspirational quotes. I certainly post plenty of them. True, they aren’t always logical and they certainly aren’t universal. They aren’t even always helpful and some of them can be downright dismissive.

However, they are, for the most part, incredibly engaging. For example:

“The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.”

Immediately, it’s easy to point out this platitude’s flaws. It’s inflexible. It leaves no room for the ebb and flow of human existence and I think we’ve all seen, especially this year, that life doesn’t operate on a linear incline because Shit Happens — an excellent quote all its own.