―
Heather Havrilesky,
How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life
A quote from How to Be a Person in the World
Saved by Alex Dobrenko and
“You are weak and raw and broken, and that's okay. That's where real life begins. Throw yourself into that rawness., Dive into a bunch of stories about absorbing and leaning into disappointment and loss and melancholy as a way of moving through it.” ― Heather Havrilesky, How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life
Saved by Alex Dobrenko and
“Being able to say ‘this is who I am’ when everything else feels uncertain, flimsy, prone to dissolution, may be the greatest comfort we have. Is anything more seductive, more empowering?/ To be alive is to subject oneself to the reality of being permeable/ so, while I welcome the pleasure of those moments when I feel like myself, I don’t think I w
... See moreLife is fierce and difficult. There is no life we can live without being subject to grief, loss and heartbreak. Half of every conversation is mediated through disappearance. Thus, there is every reason to want to retreat from life, to carry torches that illuminate only our own view, to make enemies of life and of others, to hate what we cannot unde
... See moreWe are launched into the abyss—the space between the not-true-enough life we’re living and the truer one that exists only inside us. So we say, “Maybe it’s safer to just stay here. Even if it’s not true enough, maybe it’s good enough.” But good enough is what makes people drink too much and snark too much and become bitter and sick and live in quie
... See moreWhen you recognize that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them, that you would not have chosen the things that happened in your life, but you are grateful for them, that you will hold the empty bowls eternally in your hands, but you also have the capacity to fill them?
THE WORD FOR THAT IS HEALING.
How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.
... See moreOur humanness is not given to us. Instead, it requires our participation in its construction and realisation, which often comes about through collapse or calamity. We rummage through the chaos of our inner worlds, through our multitude of selves, to discover what we are, what we wish to be, and our authentic relationship with the world. This proces