anna

The loneliness of being misunderstood is acute, a sharp sting. The loneliness of choosing silence is chronic, a dull, heavy ache that settles in your bones.

I started practicing wanting things the way other people practice yoga or meditation. Small things at first. Asking for extra foam in my coffee instead of just accepting whatever they gave me. Telling friends what movie I actually wanted to see instead of deferring to whatever they preferred. Wearing the dress that made me feel beautiful even if it... See more

Because somewhere along the way, I'd learned that wanting things, especially romantic things, especially things that required another person to cooperate with your dreams, was setting yourself up for humiliation.

Surrender the need for your life to make sense to everyone else, and instead, make it make sense to you. Own your decisions, make your mistakes, grow from what you learn, lean in, and make more decisions

“We may not know if there’s a God, but we do know there is a self—and we certainly have to answer to it.” We can’t lie to ourselves, or at least we can’t for long. We know when we’re not trusting ourselves. We know that deep down we knew better than to ignore our intuition.

As Naval says: “If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.” The right decisions come from you. Even the “wrong” decisions are the right decisions in the big picture—because we learn from them either way, and learning is winning. So, before looking outwards to seek endless inputs from others—ask yourself: what do you think?

Before I had this sense of self-trust, though, I was always optimizing for optionality, keeping the “doors open.” Indecisiveness plagued me in my formative years—those years where you make the decisions that quote-unquote determine the trajectory of your life.

Confidence happens when you face what you are avoiding, consciously. Confidence happens when you make the space to tune everything else out, and take care of yourself

This is what confidence is, ultimately: the capacity to project love, peace and curiosity at once, without effort. The capacity to be exactly where you are, without yanking yourself out of the moment, without trying to escape , without seeking anything from the person in front of you, without trying to convince them of something or contort yourself... See more