Dreamers diving headfirst

today i got a coffee on my lunch break and a man had his daughter on his hip and two coffees in his hands and he held the door open for me anyway

i went to go pick up a skirt that was being held for me and the employee said to me “uhg, i’m so tired, the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet” and i said “your hair is so beautiful” because it was long and red and shiny and had blown out curls and she perked up and said “thanks! it’s to distract from the fact that i didn’t put on makeup this morning” 

i was driving home and i realized i was in the wrong lane and i needed to move over and a car slowed down so i could merge in front of them

that was just today

whether or not you think people are kind is a sort of confirmation bias, i think

if you go through life expecting people to be terrible, that’s what you’ll remember, that’s what you’ll focus on

but if you go through life looking for kindness, that’s what you’ll find

overtip your waiters. let the car go in ahead of you. smile at the homeless person and give them your spare change. compliment people. 

you yourself are likely never more than one rushed morning away from a bad mood, one missed paycheck away from suffering, one accident away from ruin

you are probably not a politician or a ceo or a god. you cannot remake the world in your own image

but you can make other people’s lives easier and softer in small, effortless ways that cost you nothing. you can be the silver lining not just for your friends and family but for hundreds of thousands of strangers you haven’t even met yet. life is nothing but one opportunity after another to both show and be shown kindness

life can be cruel. people can be terrible. 

‘LOVE YOU MOM’

- Louis talking to the crowd and Jay, before performing Two of Us tonight.💜

It is August. My life is going to change. I feel it.

I mean at any given time you’ve got a huge box of cans of tomato sauce, a huge bag of rice, a bunch of spices in your cupboard, a bunch of noodles and pasta just kicking around, and several cans of soup and frozen dinners for when you’re feeling lazy.

When one of my cousins moved out for the first time my aunt got her stocked up on staples. Flour, canned veggies, spices, sugar, rice, anything that doesn’t go bad in a few days. All that cost over $400 upfront.

After that initial investment in all that stuff though, living gets a lot cheaper. All your staples almost never run out all at once. So in one week you probably just buy some perishables like meat and veggies and maybe buy another giant bag of rice because your current one is sort of getting low.

So when people on the internet tell you that they can teach you how to make gourmet ramen for less than $3 they’re technically right but they’re also assuming that you just have a lot of these staples lying around and can afford to buy in bulk. Maybe the amount of miso paste you used only amounts to 10¢ but the entire bag cost $12.

If I only had 20$ to eat this week I’d already have a bunch of canned stuff and grains in my cupboard and I could probably afford to buy some cheap vegetables and meat. But if someone couldn’t afford to pay $400 to fill their cupboards up the first time they can’t rely on there already being rice when they only have $20 at the end of the month. They need to buy food as they want to use it. So in their situation it makes sense to buy a $1 hamburger from McDonald’s or a box of Mac n cheese and some milk to cook it with. Not vegetables that cost just as much as that box of Mac and cheese and won’t feed nearly as many people.

My dad and his siblings spent a good chunk of their childhoods being poor after their dad’s business went under and something they often tell me is that “the poor can’t afford to be thrifty.”