Rachel Ropeik

push your own boundaries in the expectation of having a new kind of fun. The rewards are a double freedom – the freedom of knowing yourself and pleasing yourself beyond your old comfort zone, and a deeper sense of achievement.

Passing is an art form, darling. It’s a craft. And just like any craft, the artistic ideal is always impossible to achieve.

If your goal is just to be supportive, helpful, and compassionate toward yourself whatever occurs, your goal is always achievable. You learn to embrace the mess as the full expression of experiencing human life. It’s not like you reach a state of balance and then stay that way. We constantly fall out of balance, over and over, and it’s compassion

It’s important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it’s hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we’ve learnt even if what we do changes us and we risk not recognizing each other when we return.’

New York fucking City, tedious and boring, its charms as illusory as its facade of authenticity. Its lines were too long. Everything was a status symbol and everything cost too much. There were so many on-trend consumers, standing in lines for blocks to experience a fad dessert, gimmicky art exhibits, a new retail concept store.

Tender self-compassion harnesses the energy of nurturing to alleviate suffering, while fierce self-compassion harnesses the energy of action to alleviate suffering—when these are fully integrated, they manifest as caring force.

What is story if not the safe harbor for our most disturbing imaginings?

It made me wistful for the illusion of New York more than for its actuality, after having lived there for five years.