Celebrating Ten Years of Maria Popova's Brain Pickings, #5

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

5. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.

Here is the fifth in Maria Popova's list of things she loved reading and writing about:
 Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life