Lani Assaf

A total eureka moment; the files are in the computer. I felt like a beautiful Benjamin Franklin with a key and a kite. Was this boundaries? Manifesting? Math? Whatever it was, it was simple. What if I could apply this logic to the rest of my life? Ex: I always have an amazing boyfriend because I don’t date losers. I always love my job because I... See more

I used to believe rigor and love were mutually exclusive, or that they somehow worked against each other, that love was supposed to feel like something flooding you, something you surrendered to, rather than something you showed up for daily, tinkered with, sculpted, rediscovered. I guess another way of putting it, I imagined love as the bucket’s... See more

You talk about breakups as useful, if not altogether happy, opportunities to celebrate what was gathered over the course of a relationship. Most of my breakups have been dominated by the sense that I’d never be loved so well again, that I had fucked up with the one person who’d ever be capable of loving me. And I think that sense springs from a... See more

But of course the idea that I would know what I or anyone deserves is just another manifestation of my own outsize ego, right? That I should be the arbiter of such things. Thank the stars I’m not. Do you deal with this at all?

You have so much within you. Pay attention to it. Pay attention to your feelings of discomfort and uncertainty—watch yourself as you think and feel. The thing I like about writing is that it’s quite literally thinking —a way for me access my own interiority and construct something from it. What I write is all mine, it’s a living thing, it’s an... See more

“When nothing is working, explore and make a lot of small bets.

After something starts working, double down on what works best.

When that stops working, explore and make a lot of small bets again.”