Agalia Tan

You should attempt things that are difficult enough to guarantee some early embarrassment, but important enough that long-term regret is unlikely.

Trying something difficult will usually make you look foolish or inexperienced. That’s fine. That's the cost of learning.

As you let the possibility of merging your career and your passion live in your mind, I’ve tried to distill the patterns that I’ve observed into a series of questions:

Will you use this opportunity to grow and evolve or will you use it to beat yourself up?

How will you avoid insecurity work?

Can you learn to enjoy the process as the end in itself,... See more

We need to treat alignment not as a prerequisite, but as a process. “Getting it” isn’t a static quality—it’s a product of access, timing, exposure, and experience.

One method is to design for shared sensemaking. That might mean narrating your mental model instead of assuming it’s obvious. It might mean making space for dissent even when time feels... See more

This is the root of Klein’s theory. “The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not appearance,” she wrote in 1990, meaning it’s less about how close a woman hews to the beauty standards than the fact that she believes she’s never close enough, and acts accordingly. “Competition between women has been made part of the myth so that... See more

Has love fallen into the realm of planned obsolescence? Where beautifully packaged, terribly fragile emotions are evidence of having reached the summit of our aspirations, only to be left yearning, craving that next big hit? Desire is the newest addiction. The feeling of “want” being much more thrilling than the comfort of being satisfied. Craving... See more