Every anime lover should understand the one rule to remain relevant: don’t die.
I think this applies to the average person as well, at least until the age of 21.*
*You can die a legend, too, though I don’t condone suicide. Aaliyah or Tupac.
You can make every other mistake under the sun. You can get a devastating diagnosis. You can invest in a relationship that benefits you naught at all. You can hurt, and get hurt. You can eat trash and watch trash until your mind becomes fuzzy.
That’s all okay. And hopefully when you look back on your younger years you’ll forgive yourself for time wasted.
The coolest thing for me as an emerging adult was the ice shock of being in new spaces with people who either A) didn’t care for me or B) had no knowledge of my previous background or reputation. And that’s where I began to rebuild and experiment with new personality or appearance. I wore prescription-less glasses because I knew it was hot. I had never had a good impression of myself before that point. How petty is that? 🙂
A male friend studying abroad who I was trying to wingman for… one of his new friends gave him the advice of “women are petty and emotional” … to which I responded: “I am petty and emotional with my best friends. can confirm!”
Who is to say that a shallow feminine predilection is not a fantastic and survival-bred way to live?
Not to glorify the before and after medication binary but back then I lived in a certain projected fantasy where I would suddenly cry remembering a story of bullying my friend shared, or to see hate comments on my brother’s FaceBook, or to imagine my mother in a car accident that didn’t happen. These scenarios made me sad beyond focus. I would often project that my brother might be jealous that I went to Brown or that I curried more favor with my parents.
If you read my friend Jamie’s post, you’d understand there is a certain perverse Machiavelli to exploit these small thoughts to a grander scheme.
I lack that social mastery. For my case, suffice to say, overall, the elimination of those thoughts benefited everyone: Kevin doesn’t care and my feeling on his behalf is incorrect.
I would continue to give you advice on how to simplify your mindset, how to set short and long term goals, SWOT analysis, etc.
But in fact, more than your own temperament and situation handling is who your giants are.
The best way that I leveled up this month was to make use of locale. My parents and boyfriend’s parents picked the neighborhoods they now occupy for different reasons. For my parents, they hoped we would assimilate better into white culture, and valued a larger and peaceful homestead. I would argue BF’s house has better periphery to the city and important locations. Each has its benefits.
Jamie, what I would ask you to ask yourself are the following things:
- Is your parents’ home a landscape of warmth and opportunity or stifling gas?
- Do you believe that financial separation from family and spouse is equivalent to agency? If so, how does that rank in your priorities?
- If I told you that you were Bojack (a dangerous hypothetical ripped straight from the wiki)— “caring and insightful, but his insecurities, loneliness, desperate need for approval, and guilt over his own actions often result in self-destructive and selfish actions that devastate those around him” —, what would you do about it?
I love you.