know everyone reading this is haunted by a regret. Some boneheaded moment that you’d pay your left arm to get back; a mistake that in hindsight seemed so easy to spot, but not at the time.
Some of us will spend our days daydreaming of what life would have been like had we not made that mistake—oh, how much better everything would be.
Snap out of that shit.
You can’t predict the future, not even in your imaginary “what if” scenarios. When we’re not happy with our present, we can start wishing away our future by focusing on the past, or … we can do something about it NOW.
Regret is a burden we all hold, for whatever reason, and holding on does nothing but weigh us down. Learn from the mistakes of your past, thank them for occurring, and then gently push them into the wind and wave as they flutter away.
No decision is ever absolutely great or absolutely horrible—stop thinking so extreme. Understand your past, don’t waste time judging it. Understand your present, don’t waste time judging it. Use what you learn from these understandings to help create the future you want. This isn’t easy, and I promise you’ll fuck up some more in the future, but be ready for that, and when it happens, start digging for the jewels of wisdom that come from those foibles.
Folks can only love you for yesterday, but you can appreciate yourself for your present. Take a super-deep breath and hold it. Hold it a bit longer, then slowly breathe it out and keep blowing until there’s no air in your lungs. Congratulations, you just pressed reset.
Now move forward and create a life you want.
The less you give a damn, the happier you’ll be. Create a life that feels good on the inside, not one that simply looks good from the outside.
We can’t see other people’s struggles, pains, pressures, and anxieties. They put up the same front that we do. Trying to evaluate your life in comparison to others will always leave you more depressed for that simple reason.
When we focus on creating happiness from the outside then in, we’ll continue to fail because we’re using other people’s measures of success and pretending they’re our own. What makes you feel like a million bucks may involve a pair of ripped jeans and that T-shirt with the holes in it. How you feel is more important than how you look, and though I agree staying fresh can help the way you feel, the best thing you can wear is your confidence and happiness.
Don’t care what others think until you’ve taken your own thoughts into consideration. You can’t predict what other people think, and even if you could, it’s impossible to make everyone happy. The world is full of diverse opinions, and some of those opinions are in your favor, and some are not.
I don’t have the ability to get to know all of you on a personal level, but I’m super confident there’s something unique about each of you worth bringing to the forefront. Make your happiness worth more than the opinions of others.
Give a damn about yourself first, then those who give a damn about you, and then see if you have any damns left to give.
Loving someone can sometimes feel like you’re pouring everything into a bottomless pit.
You would give anything just to hear a splash at the end, just to feel they’re aware of your efforts and energy because right now, nothing feels good enough.
Maybe you can try harder, maybe you’re not doing enough, maybe you’re not good enough, or maybe, just maybe:
YOU’RE LOVING THE WRONG PERSON.
Love is something you share because you have it, not something you give desperately because you need it. The person at the top of your love list should be (drumroll … the suspense is killing me …) YOU.
If someone isn’t appreciating the love you send their way, then there needs to come a point when you wake up, get up, and walk away—not to make them miss you, but so you can recapture your dignity and self-worth.
I’ve said it numerous times, and I’m going to say it again: if you don’t love yourself, you have no business seeking love from others. Other people will exploit your need for love and affection for their own benefit; don’t hold that against them, just stay away from them.
If these words are hitting home, don’t pity yourself—love yourself and put yourself in the situation you deserve to be in.
Your priorities are not revealed in your words, they are revealed in your actions, and your actions are revealed by your schedule.
You can say something (or someone) is important to you, but if it isn’t penciled in, you’re lying to yourself.
Tomorrow is not a promise—not even kind of. If fear is holding you back from doing what you want (or need) to be doing in your life, just realize that fear isn’t going anywhere, and everyone who has done something amazing has done it despite the fear, not in its absence.
Until science can do otherwise, we’re all ending our story with death. It’s really up to you how you use the days leading up to your eventual demise. The thought of death scares some, and makes others feel liberated. I like to remember, as long as there’s breath in my lungs I can create any life I wish to create (it won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile is), and once the breath is gone, it doesn’t matter anyways.
Life is too short to be in any situation you don’t want to be in, and it feels even shorter when you’re with people you don’t want to be around. There aren’t any erasers to undo our past, but there are fresh pages to write a new chapter. I have great friends who mustered up the courage and strength to escape their comfort zones and place themselves in situations they would much rather be in. It took time and it was a struggle, but they came out as better people with better lives. You can do the same thing. It won’t be easy, but so what? Is there really a point to building a life if it isn’t the life you want?
I strongly encourage you to take risks; you’re worth it. The fear isn’t going to go away, so respect that relationship and work with it, around it, and despite it.
Let your actions do the talking from now on, and if something is important to you, let it show in your day-to-day movements.