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Understand that people will come and go in your life. For better or for worse.
Just because you've known somebody most of your life don't assume you know anything about them. They can surprise you, for better or for worse. And for my experience it's generally for the worse.
People change and sometimes it's best to just let go.
Alcohol is a poison.
If you have to force it, you're going to break it.
Sidenote: rectal fistulas are awful.
Intentional change happens through years of dedicated work and organization. Very few people accidentally improve themselves overnight. Even fewer wake up to discover they've improved society.
To elaborate on this one: Sudden change (for the better) happens, but it's extremely rare. It's happened twice for me, and I think those are outliers. Usually, progress is slow and tedious, and you don't notice it while it's happening. Only in retrospect does the change become truly visible.
The people living in the Renaissance didn't feel that change was happening around them.
Being alone doesn't always make you lonely, and loneliness doesn't always mean you're alone. The feeling of loneliness derives from feelings of helplessness or hopelessness.
Counterintuitively, some people make you feel lonely. Abusive people, even if close to you, will often make you feel lonely. Apathetic people can also make you feel lonely.
I'm not sure if this will be a revelation to everyone but it was to me.
You can't argue with crazy. In fact, if you're that desperate for crazy to validate reality for you, you have deeper problems.
Oh also if you help a family member who's threatening to kill themselves, they're just gonna threaten that every time they need $5.
DO NOT actively try to help anyone who is not sincerely asking for help
A small amount of selfishness is necessary for a healthy life
Be patient with a baby/child and not getting frustration.. They may not always do what you want and it's important to understand that it's not on purpose, they don't know any better (literally).
We're all going to die.
No one's worth my wellbeing. My happiness comes first. Be self suficient for my own happiness. Nobody's special.
If your happiness comes first then it is because you are special. Which means that everybody is special.
Now at that time King Pasenadi of Kosala was upstairs in the royal longhouse together with Queen Mallikā.
Then the king said to the queen, “Mallikā, is there anyone more dear to you than yourself?”
“No, great king, there isn’t. But is there anyone more dear to you than yourself?”
“For me also, Mallikā, there’s no-one.”
Then King Pasenadi of Kosala came downstairs from the stilt longhouse, went to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened.
Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha recited this verse:
“Having explored every quarter with the mind, one finds no-one dearer than oneself. Likewise for others, each holds themselves dear; so one who cares for their own welfare would harm no other.”
If your happiness comes first then it is because you are special.
I was going to write that, but left it out to not sound pretentious. Because I had no self love, I used to consider people who I loved special, but they ended up being incredible mean and detrimental to me. Even Christian Divine figures have disappointed me. So I learned the hard way the only special being to me should be myself.
That there is no silver bullet, no quick fix, no "Eureka" moments that happen without work. "Progress" is less an exciting event, more a rhythm made by the repeated struggling against entropy; when you're doing it well, you'll come to hardly notice its beat until one day you look around and everything's different.
You'd think that recognising this progress might be motivating, but it's often demoralising because it demonstrates how unglamorous the work of self-improvement is. You hardly get time to enjoy your achievements, because as you grow, you become aware of how much more there is to do; the burdens on one's time and energy tend to expand as our personal capacities do, so even if one makes incredible progress it can feel like you haven't moved at all — in both your "before" and "after" snapshots, it can feel like you're still barely staying afloat in life, even if objectively, you have massively improved your coping skills.
And the worst part of it all is knowing that it's okay to be feeling like this. You're tired because it's a lot of work, and you're demoralised because the work doesn't end. You're not the only one who has the stake in your life and your wellbeing, and as you grow, this will be underscored by a greater sense of duty towards the systems and people that depend on you; When I was young and very depressed, I stayed alive for my family and I resented the fact that they cared about me because it bound me to life. (Un)fortunately(?), over the years, my attempts to stick around to avoid hurting the people I care about has led to a bunch more people being invested in my wellbeing and I ended up loving those people too. How privileged I am to have such wonderful people in my life, who give me hope for the world and embolden me to keep fighting. And yet, I resent these people too. I have to allow myself that, at least a little bit, otherwise I'd collapse under the pressure of a duty to a world so much larger than I am. The worst part of it all is that I wouldn't have it any other way.
So here I am, still plodding along, despite everything, hoping to make my existence a tiny little monument to resistance, as I stubbornly push back against all-consuming entropic decay. I know that in the grand scheme of things, nothing I, as an individual, does will matter, nor will it last, but I don't care. Well, I do care — the enormity of it threatens to swallow me whole — but I don't care that I care, because what difference does it make? The hardest lesson I've learned is that everyone feels this way, to an extent, and I'm nothing special. In that truth is terror, but also the comfort of solidarity. I may be scared and exhausted, but I know I'm not alone in this. For better or for worse, my life isn't just for me.
Amen
This is exceptionally insightful