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Did you know,  you can quit your job,  you can leave university?  You aren’t legally required to have a degree,  it’s a social pressure and expectation, not the law,  and no one is holding a gun to your head.  You can sell your house,  you can give up your apartment,  you can even sell your vehicle,  and your things that are mostly unnecessary.  You can see the world on a minimum wage salary,  despite the persisting myth, you do not need a high paying job.  You can leave your friends  (if they’re true friends they’ll forgive you, and you’ll still be friends)  and make new ones on the road.  You can leave your family.  You can depart from your hometown,  your country, your culture, and everything you know.  You can sacrifice.  You can give up your $5.00 a cup morning coffee,  you can give up air conditioning,  frequent consumption of new products.  You can give up eating out at restaurants  and prepare affordable meals at home,  and eat the leftovers too,  instead of throwing them away.  You can give up cable TV,  Internet even.  This list is endless.  You can sacrifice climbing up in the hierarchy of careers.  You can buck tradition and others’ expectations of you.  You can triumph over your fears,  by conquering your mind.  You can take risks.  And most of all,  you can travel.  You just don’t want it enough.  You want a degree or a well-paying job or to stay in your comfort zone more.  This is fine, if it’s what your heart desires most,  but please don’t envy me and tell me you can’t travel.  You’re not in a famine, in a desert, in a third world country,  with five malnourished children to feed.  You probably live in a first world country.  You have a roof over your head,  and food on your plate.  You probably own luxuries like a cellphone and a computer.  You can afford the $3.00 a night guest houses of India,  the $0.10 fresh baked breakfasts of Morocco,  because if you can afford to live in a first world country,  you can certainly afford to travel in third world countries,  you can probably even afford to travel in a first world country.  So please say to me,  “I want to travel, but other things are more important to me and I’m putting them first”,  not, “I’m dying to travel, but I can’t”,  because I have yet to have someone say they can’t, who truly can’t.  You can, however, only live once, and for me,  the enrichment of the soul that comes from seeing the world  is worth more than a degree that could bring me in a bigger paycheck,  or material wealth, or pleasing society.  Of course, you must choose for yourself, follow your heart’s truest desires,  but know that you can travel,  you’re only making excuses for why you can’t.  And if it makes any difference,  I have never met anyone who has quit their job,  left school, given up their life at home, to see the world, and regretted it.  None.  Only people who have grown old and regretted never traveling,  who have regretted focusing too much on money and superficial success,  who have realized too late that there is so much more to living than this.

Write a letter apologizing to your body for any hatred and ingratitude you may have expressed: Dear body, Sometimes I feel so trapped inside my mind. At that moment, I just don’t know what to do. I know I shouldn’t take it out on you. You are the one always standing right beside me, you are always there for me. And the only thing I’ve ever did to you was hurting. I looked at you in the mirror, and the only thing I said was how ugly you were. But you’re not. I know you’re not. Scars, I made them. Some where just because I wasn’t paying attention. Cut myself by accident while shaving my legs, burned my finger when I took food out of the oven. These were accidents, and I know you can forgive me for those. But they weren’t all like these. Some scars I made on purpose. Because I was angry with myself, with others. Because I just didn’t know what else to do. As I said, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. But I did. And I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive for everything I’ve done to you. For all the times I’ve hurt you. And I know, saying sorry doesn’t fix everything, but I promise, I’ll do my best to make it up to you. I’ll learn to appreciate your beauty. You’re strong, you protect me, and you have never let me down. I’ll stop hurting you. At least the hurting on purpose. It will never happen again, I promise. It’s time to start loving you, to start taking care of you. I’ll be my best self, for you. Because you’ve always done it for me. Dear body, Thanks for staying with me. I know it can be hard.

Dear body, It have taken me 5 years to realise that I have never loved you, not at all. I had left demons walk into and rip you of everything you had. And I let them thinking it was the thing I was meant to do. Dear body…I’m so sorry that I’ve done this, I may never love you the way I should but I will no longer let the demons hurt you.

My dear body, The only place I have ever known I am sorry that my earliest memories of you include pinching the fat on my legs and staring in the mirror for hours critiquing every inch of you I wish I had used that time to actually treat you right I am sorry for the endless stress I have put you through (sorry for the sleep deprivation) and how from when I was 15 I never let you get what you needed to survive at a normal rate instead, I marveled at how good my harming of you made me feel I don’t blame you when you give me physiological signs to match my mental state Just know - I am loving you now and that won’t stop anytime soon, Thank you for keeping my heart beating even when I did not want it to and for allowing me to experience life in all its complexities

“First, to my brain, I want to apologize for all the negative thoughts. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve thought about harming myself, for all the painful memories of him that make letting go that much harder, and I am especially sorry for the times I wished I could put a bullet through you. Next, to my stomach, I am sorry for all the times I starved you in order to lose weight. Also I am sorry for the alcohol I consume each night before bed. I know that’s why you hurt in the morning, and I am sorry that it sometimes causes me to puke up the food I fed to you. Now, to my skin, I am deeply sorry for all the times I have purposely burned or bruised you. I am so sorry for all the times I dragged a razorblade across you until I bled, and for all the scars it has left. I promise to let you heal. Some day I will cover you in beautiful tattoos and you will become artwork. And lastly, to my heart, I apologize for all the pain you’ve endured. I’m sorry for all the stress and anxiety that causes you to beat rapidly. I’m sorry the hurtful things Mom and Dad have said along the years has damaged you. I’m sorry for those three years I convinced you you were in love with a physically and emotionally abusive man. I’m sorry for the most recent wound; I thought he was the one, but he left and broke you too. Yet, even shattered, you still hold so much love for him.

dear me, boy have you fought a hard fight this year. and for that i apologise. i never meant to make it tough for you. you were never fighting against the enemy - you were fighting yourself. i convinced you it was right and that there was something worth fighting for. i apologise for turning your mind against you. i gave you no hope of survival this year apart from the words that you ink onto paper before locking away. apart from the escape of being in someone else’s shoes on stage for an hour or two and even then the joy that once came with such activities disappeared. i’m sorry i let you believe that you weren’t worth that love. you weren’t good enough for that crush you had, you weren’t special enough for familial love and you definitely weren’t normal enough for platonic affection. most of all you were never worth the love that flows from your heart in a never ending stream waiting for someone to push it back so you feel that heartbreak - letting it creep into every crevice, cementing the fact that you were unlovable. i was wrong. i was lost in the darkness that clouded my sight and turned my living days into the same nightmares i saw at night. that took away the joy and light of dreams and replaced them with a void of empty space as the violent thoughts corrupted my nights as well. i am sorry. i say it a lot to others, to the animals and even to the world we live in but i don’t say it to you. i have hurt you. more that anyone else possibly could have. i look back upon this year and i wonder when the hope lighting the way disappeared. the once ignited flame was lost in the shadows and there was no room for it in the self-pity i shrouded you with. dear me, the new year is almost upon and i want to be better for you, help me be better.

heres an unpopular dog opinion that a lot of animal lovers need to hear because im sick and tired of people misrepresenting these dogs:

47 Meters Down… Another godsdamn movie painting sharks as monsters. This is why people are afraid of sharks, movies like these paint sharks in a bad image. 

What makes octopuses so awesome?

i am super duper appreciative of ao3 and the shit they have to put up with for us assholes

This function exists! The links below all describe the same basic task (removing a tag from your search results), based on different goals or comfort levels with AO3. If you know AO3 really well, try the first 3 sets of links. If not so well, try the last 3. (Dizmo’s has pictures so is possibly easiest.)

Convenient round-up!

Charles : What do you want me to do ?