🪩

By the way, just a reminder: when people around you start "innocently joking" about someone else's personal life, love life, or anything private and sensitive - don't engage. Negative talk, even when it's about someone else, shapes the way your brain processes the world and can affect how you create a healthy, positive environment for yourself. Also, that's bullying, and we're too old for that.

The reason strangers admire and praise you is projection. It's easy to applaud someone's success while convincing yourself it's all a gimmick and a facade. Once they get closer and realize you genuinely live by doing, working, creating, and evolving, they're forced to confront the fact that this way of living is actually possible and, in some ways, even simple. Then comes the uncomfortable “why can't they do it too?” That's a great question, not sticking around to find out though.

Looking back at all the terrible things that happened to me and where I am now, I feel nothing but pride and joy for how hard I worked on myself and for everything I wanted. Somehow, I ended up an okay person with a not-bad-at-all moral compass, and I want to thank myself for sticking around and being my best friend, my most trusted source of comfort, and a guiding light despite, despite, despite.

If I can ride my bike to and from the gym in a tropical storm just because I'm dedicated to my wednesday leg day, he can answer the message you sent him 24 hours ago. Move on, girl. I'm freeing you.

Liking is passive. It requires nothing from you. That's why I don't care about being liked, I don't care hearing about it, and I don't take it as a compliment.