The truth behind the truth is this: even if you are a victim, you must never be a victim. Even if you deserve to be one. Because while you wait for somebody to come along and set things right, life has moved forward without you.

All improvements, transformations, achievements, liberations; everything you want to change about yourself and your life; everything you want to make happen, any obstacle you want to overcome, any crisis you must survive—the prerequisite is being able to allow yourself to feel whatever it is you feel and not pretend to feel something you don’t.

Whatever may be just one word but it shoulders two different meanings that work together to shame someone. It is a dismissal. And the eye roll, whether literal or just implied, is a statement of superiority. But it’s a clever, effective statement of superiority because it doesn’t come right out and state the position. Rather, the person on the

Shame is also a covert and effective bullying method.

Except this “if we’re meant to meet, we’ll meet” attitude isn’t truly relaxed. So we’re not going to commend you for it. This attitude is more passive than relaxed. A passivity born of entitlement.

Need is the focused, highly fortified form of want. Need is want that has been transformed into something closer to certainty by decision and commitment. When you need air, you get it. When you need water, there’s no question about what you’re going to do: you’re going to get a drink even if that means grabbing the garden hose by the neck. Need can

Admitting you feel rage or terrible pain or regret or some old, rotten blame does not mean these feelings are part of who you are as a person. What these feelings mean is, you need to change your thinking to be free of them. Maybe you need to stop fiddling with an old wound and stirring up these old feelings.

Because confidence is not the presence of anything at all. Confidence is a reduction of your own interest in whether others are thinking about you and if so, what they’re thinking. Put another way, to be more confident you need to give a whole lot less of a shit about what other people think of you. Confidence is not something you feel or possess;

Some people struggle and cannot seem to let go of other people’s opinions of them, whether real or imagined. That means they’re not able to be themselves. Which means other people won’t see them as confident. This is a self-esteem issue. The phrase “self-esteem issue” is a cardboard stage prop of a phrase. What does it even mean? I guess I have a