And if I know one thing it’s that if you’re experiencing a genuinely moving moment, if you’re really in it, the absolute last thing you want or think about doing is taking out your phone, cutting through it and cheapening it. The best love is quiet. The best confidence is quiet. And so are the lives with the most meaning.
The better life you absolutely can build isn’t going to be brought to you by ChatGPT but by your own steady uphill clawing and through careful management of your own expectations. You live here. This is it.
It’s so strange how we’re able to carry forward this mystery of personal identity even when our present selves are so different from our future selves and from our past selves most of all. I think a lot about this question of, what is a person? Am I the same person as my childhood self? Sure, we share the same body, but even that body is so differe... See more
In choosing how we are in the world, we shape our experience of that world, our contribution to it. We shape our world, our inner world, our outer world, which is really the only one we’ll ever know. And to me, that’s the substance of the spiritual journey. That’s not an exasperating idea but an infinitely emboldening one.
The older I get, the more I realize that the most luxurious thing is being able to live in a walkable city. Wearing a nice little outfit and walking 15 mins to buy just enough groceries for a single dinner will make you feel like Mrs. Dalloway going to the market.
Perhaps confidence isn’t something to be built; it's right under the surface when that heavy bulk of needing to be someone is lifted. Embracing being no one helped me feel authentic and confident, which, in my opinion, is way cooler than any expensive-looking sweater.