how i want to live my life

“Friction-maxxing is ... the process of building up tolerance for ‘inconvenience’ (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) – and then reaching even toward enjoyment. And then, it’s modelling this tolerance, followed by enjoyment... See more

The good listener: someone who has learnt how to find bits of themselves in the experiences of others.

– Alain de Botton

What I’m in search of is maybe hard to explain in a neat sentence, but, maybe, it’s some sense of resonance. You know when you’re reading and you’re like “Oh, this person is saying this thing I’ve been thinking or feeling forever, but didn’t know how to express in words?” That’s a beautiful feeling when you can see yourself more clearly through... See more

I want to say thank you, please, I love you so many times that the words become a prayer. I want to hold eye contact and smile with warmth long enough for a nervous heart to steady. I want to listen until sorrow speaks in a dialect I can understand. Because once, when I was all edge, someone handed me gentleness I had not earned, and it softened... See more

To love humans is not optimism; it requires an unrelenting, deliberate faith, the stubborn act of catching every dropped match and insisting it can still light a candle. It is choosing to notice the softness happening everywhere: a stranger pressing tissues into another’s palm, a barista sliding an extra biscuit across the counter, the way a lover... See more