just be yourself & do your own thing

>Just do your thing, cruise in your lane, thrive, be happy, find vitality in your life. By all means, check off the boxes that you think make you a more appealing person to be around. But after that, all you can do is let it rip and see what happens

"just do your thing" is a non-self-consciousness-inducing way to express the wisdom that "just be yourself" tries and fails at, and the reason is obvious if you look at the words.

turns out if you let yourself want what you want*, everything is amazing (* instead of supposed-tos, shoulds, “if I were a good person, I’d…”s, rules, everybody else’s opinion, what’s ‘sane’, what’s ‘reasonable’, what you have worked out intellectually, etc.)

I don’t know how many hundreds of ways there are to say this — I guess as many as it takes until it lands: looking for answers outside of yourself is useless if they don’t lead you to the answers inside you.

Trying to follow someone else’s answers can be dangerous, in about the same way eating wood shavings is dangerous: you’ll feel full while you w... See more

Kierkegaard: “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

Rumi (Coleman Barks): “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”

i’ve realized that basically everything i talk about comes back to this core idea of making who you naturally are more full and expressed in your life by seeing yourself more clearly! this can manifest as confronting your shadow, paying attention to your natural gifts, leaning in

i think the cornerstone belief amongst all of these is: hey, you are unique - and you are inspired by and drawn to things that seem so obviously attractive and inspiring to you that you think everyone is interested in them. but they’re not. and this is okay—you are drawn to them