juliana ong

I used to believe in the adage, “If they wanted to, they would.” But now I think it’s more like, “If they’re open-hearted, and open-minded, and curious, and not too cautious, then, maybe, they might. Or they still might not.”

There’s this old Yiddish proverb that says, “Der mentsh trakht un Got lakh.” In English, it translates to: Man plans, God laughs.

It is in relationships that we discover both our depths and our limits, there that we anneal ourselves and transcend ourselves, there that we are hurt the most and there that we find the most healing.

No one deserves to be praised for kindness if he does not have the strength to be bad

Perhaps the most important insight is this: when we criticize our technology, we’re really criticizing ourselves. And when we try to imagine better systems, we’re really trying to imagine better ways of being human.

People either pursue an interesting or a happy life (that does not mean you are either boring or miserable; it means these values guide your decision-making). Penelope Trunk has a test I came across years ago. People who fall in the ‘interesting’ camp move away from family for career reasons, are maximisers of looks, status and experiences, have... See more

When we insist that we could only ever effectively love someone who’s been perfectly “healed” — who will not struggle, accidentally hurt us, trigger us, say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, or participate in any other uncomfortable display of humanity — we are reinforcing, and perhaps projecting, our own beliefs that we have to be perfect in... See more

I know that limerence can be misleading. It can be the beginning of a good relationship, or a complete disaster. If someone feels like the answer to the question of your life, you might want to address the fundamental sense of lack that they are triggering.