A luta continua @conorbennett - Tumblr Blog

it can be tempting to live your life like a prequel. to live as if you’re setting up your own story.and once you lose the weight, once you have the money, once you graduate school, once you’re in a real relationship, once, once, once. then finally, you’ll begin to live, and everything you do up until that point is some kind of half-life, some unimportant foreword you can skip. don’t do this. inhabit your life completely. sink fully into the wealth of your existence. the power to manifest is in the fearless owning of who you are, so that you can shape where you’re going.

caribbritchick

Advice for people in their 20s from someone who’s just entered their 30s....

1. Don’t waste time being fearful: go for that job that you’re certain you’re not gonna get. What’s the worse that can happen? You are rejected, but you gain interview experience. Self-doubt is really a waste of time.

2. Live in the present. Yes, it is important to plan for the future, but it is easy to put off living until it is too late. Make sure that you have no regrets about what you should have done. Do one exciting thing per year.

3. Know your worth. This applies to both work and relationships; never sell yourself short. No job or romance is more important than your self respect. Also, charge for any unique skills/services that you can offer.

4. Don’t be afraid to leave bad situations. I left a stable but draining teaching job in order to protect my mental health. Even though this was a big risk, it was the best decision I ever made. NOTHING is more important than your mental health.

5. Most 20 somethings feel that they are underachieving. This is normal - especially in today’s financial climate. Don’t feel bad if you are still living at home and cannot afford to rent/buy. I’m 30 and still living at home, saving to buy.

6. People will disappoint you, but most of the time, it’s not about you. Everybody has their own demons and traumas that make them behave in certain ways. If somebody disrespects you, assert your boundaries and keep it moving. Also, examine if there was anything you could have done to avoid the situation. But DO NOT let it eat away at you.

7. In love, nobody owes you anything. Even if they made a promise, they are their own person…Everybody has the right to change their mind and to leave a situation which is not beneficial for them. This is hurtful and hard to accept, but it is the truth.

8. Learn to enjoy your own company. Your 20s can be a lonely time as your social sphere narrows, due to employment, finances and exhaustion. Use this time to find out more about yourself and do the things that you enjoy. There is something liberating about eating at a restaurant alone.

9. Be kind, don’t gossip or overshare. I am still working on this one. It is really difficult to be kind and positive in a world full of annoying people. However, your attitude will influence how you are being perceived. If you are unkind, people will laugh at your jokes but they will never trust you. They will never trust you not to treat them as you treat other people. Remove yourself from toxic people, and only share negativity (sadness/anger/depression) with a therapist and one other person that you trust. If you overshare negative feelings, you may be stereotyped as being full of drama. Furthermore, people will want you to stay in a negative place because it’s entertaining and makes them feel better about their own lives. Just don’t do it.

10. You cannot win every battle. Within conflict, it is tempting to try to force others to agree with your perspective. However, most people are set in their ways, and find it difficult to change their views and behaviours. This is especially important when dealing with toxic family members. You may never get the apology and empathy that you seek, so it is important to accept that every battle cannot be won, and gain validation internally, rather than externally.

acutelesbian

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

fat-thin-skinny

this fucks me up every single time

acutelesbian

I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.

conceitedtrash

This is so fucking important and I think it’s something I needed right now

days-of-reading

“You think you know yourself inside out when you live alone, but you don’t, you believe you are a calm untroubled or at worst melancholic person, you do not realise how irritable you are, how any little thing, the wrong kind of touch or tone, a lack of speed in answering a question, a particular cast of expression will send you into apoplexy because you are unchill, because you have not learnt how to soften your borders, how to make room.”

— Olivia Laing, Crudo