Things To Remember - Blog Posts

Good stuff.

Regret is stronger than gratitude

Anne Frank

Because we all need to hear this sometimes.

I’ve been having a bad couple of weeks and I just really needed to hear these:

You are NOT a burden

You are valued 

You are NOT a shitty friend, even when you think you are

You don’t need to have it all figured out yet

It’s OK to have bad days

And it’s OK to hide from the world if you’re having a bad day

Because sometimes you just need to have some time to yourself

And that’s OK

You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to

What happened to you in the past is NOT your fault

Don’t feel guilty for not being productive

It’s going to be OK

Breathe

Relax

Recharge

YOU ARE WANTED

YOU ARE LOVED

YOU CAN DO THIS

I BELIEVE IN YOU

a lot of you aren't interested in identities as avenues for meaningful self-understanding, or for organization and solidarity with others. you're just shameless individualists cultivating a personal brand. the ultimate consumers, parading around, pretending to be leftists. how fucking embarrassing

also somwtimes when you dont understand a piece of art it's not bc ur dumb it's bc you havent had the very particular emotional experience that it's trying to invoke in you and you just cant relate. which is also why sometimes you will hear a mountain goats song and say Meh and then you go through some shit and you listen to it again and lose your fucking mind at how real and raw it is. art is how we communicate with each other about experiences that cannot be adequately represented straightforwardly with language. sometimes you have to abstract your representation of the experience in order to truly communicate how big and insane it felt

the one (perhaps only) thing i’ll always like about growing older and maturing is the never-ending opportunity to develop and refine your personal taste in pretty much anything. fashion, food, music, literature, art, design, furniture: the older you get, the more knowledge, insight and experience you acquire and it all adds up to a treasure of source material to create a new you from. carve, prune, distill, expand, sculpt, evolve - you can recreate yourself always and aging gracefully is all about endlessly enriching yourself through that recreation.

Source

i feel like the most important piece of wisdom i can impart on teenagers is that no one–no one–knows what the fuck they’re doing

my brother is 26 years old, makes $200k a year, and just bought a house with his fiance. he’s the success story you hear about but never actually meet in person, but it all happened by accident. he wanted to go to college for clarinet performance, but he got rejected from all the top schools. so he decided to major in physics instead, and then went on to get a doctorate to put off being an adult for a few more years. but then he ended up dropping out halfway through the program and accepting a job with google as a software engineer. so to reiterate: my brother majored in something he was not interested in, and then he got a job that had nothing to do with his degree. 

he isn’t successful because he had some master plan he followed, he just stumbled around blindly until something worked out. and that’s what we’re all doing–i majored in political science and now i do customer service for a company that makes industrial-sized gas detection monitors. the marketing director at my company has a degree in biology, and my mom has an MBA and works at a middle school.  no one knows what they’re doing, we’re all just trying different things until something works out.

so if you don’t have a plan, that’s fine. most of us don’t. and even those of us who do, don’t usually end up doing the thing they thought they would. it’s okay to relax and let life carry you wherever it’s gonna carry you. because even though a lot of us don’t end up doing the thing we wanted, most of us end up happy anyway.

part of what makes tragedies tragic is the story being preventable from the outside but unpreventable from the inside

Every now and then I stumble upon posts by artists discussing how to improve at drawing. Some are sharing experiences, while others are asking for advice… and sadly I often get the vibe that being scared and miserable is a requirement for success. Like, if you’re not ready to destroy yourself for your goal then you aren’t really trying and you don’t deserve any success. People are proud of how much they are sacrificing for their skill. Hard work and dedication are definitely important but some of the things I get to read on the internet are plain harmful. It really pains me to see people spread this unhealthy mindset and people as young as their teens believing it.

Please remember: You don’t need to hurt yourself to deserve success.

Be kind to yourself, eat and sleep regularly, give your hands some rest, hang out with friends, do activities that aren’t related to your goal. Staying healthy and balanced is the best way to enjoy what you’re doing – this will keep you motivated and allow you to get things done. We’re all different and if you’re someone who needs more rest and attention to their health then others – it’s ok! You deserve to be healthy as much as you deserve to succeed!