Hi Any Life Advice For 21yo

hi any life advice for 21yo

Don't date thirty-year-olds until you are at least 25.

Having a glass of water for every glass of alcohol will give you a 50% reduction in hangover viciousness.

Bad people will use your willingness to be quiet as a weapon against you. If someone's being awful to you and trusting you'll be quiet to keep from making waves, surprise them.

There is no physical object in the world that is worth as much as your honor.

Honor is not the same as dignity. Retaining one sometimes means leaving the other aside.

Don't have any sex you don't want to have; have as much as you want of the sex that you do, whether that's a lot, a little, or none at all. Nothing you can do to your own body is immoral, unless you're doing it as an act of self-punishment.

Food is morally neutral. You do not have to earn the right to eat calories. Fat and sugar keep your brain from eating itself.

Learning to sit still and breathe--in, in, in, hold, hold, hold, out, out, out, out, out, out--can give you five feet of clear space around yourself in a maelstrom.

Find out how to make three good meals: A comfort meal you can make for just yourself relatively easily, a fancy meal you can use to wow a date, and a meal you can feed a bunch of people. All the other cooking can come later, but you can build a community on those three meals.

If you ever get to the point that things are so bleak you can see no other way forward but to die, make any other choice. If that means leaving everything you own and being a beach bum, or quitting your career, or taking up or leaving a religion, or deciding to bicycle across the country, so be it; living means more chances, dying means everything stops and you don't get to see any more interesting things. As you have not yet seen all the things that can interest you, it is better to live.

It's a lot healthier to go for a daily walk than to sign up for a gym membership you won't be using because you hate that kind of exercise. It's a lot healthier to eat a frozen meal than to skip a meal because you were too tired to cook something healthy. It's a lot healthier to take a quick shower than to procrastinate an elaborate routine for days. Don't aim so high that you won't be hitting anything!

imperfect consistency rather than an all or nothing mentality

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

There’s a difference between parents who want you to be happy, and parents who want you to look happy.

 If your parents want you to be happy, they will be there for you when you need them, and help you with your struggles. They’ll take your pain seriously. They wont make fun of your problems when that hurts you. They’ll point out your good sides. They’ll let you know they hold you valuable and important no matter what the rest of the world says about you. They’ll make sure you know they’re on your side, here to protect and get you out of trouble, that if something happens you have backup, you have a safety to fall back on. They’ll make sure you have a place you belong to, place where you’re welcome and wanted. They’ll be a source of comfort, warmth and support.

If your parents want you to look happy, they’ll demand that you stuff down your emotions and play an act of a child who doesn’t need anything or anyone, who is just fine the way things are, no matter how bad things are for you. They’ll dictate what you’re allowed to think of them and how you’re supposed to react on anything and everything they do. They’ll demand you hide your pain, your symptoms, your anger, your fear, anything that makes them look like less than perfect parents has to go. They’ll let you know that they are important, you aren’t. Their emotions and needs and desires are important, yours aren’t. Their pain has to be paid back, yours has to be ignored and forgotten. Your life falls back on what is and isn’t convenient to them, every part of you is judged only by how much use they can have of it. And of course, they’ll tell you they did it all for your sake, because if they didn’t, who knows how awful you would turn out. 

If they say they want you to be happy, but their actions tell you that you need to look happy “or else”, they’re abusive parents, and they do not care about your happiness.

From the book Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD:

Putting a coat on the back of a chair by the door is fine, but if you prefer, use coat hooks and a large catch-all basket for dropping keys, hats, gloves.

Small bookcase end-table next to the couch to store craft projects, books, and other things being worked on for easy access.

Add a storage unit near the dining room table to transition between eating and working there.

Daily toiletry items should be stored in a basket that you can move easily

Extra toiletries and medicine cabinet items go in open shelf/basket storage so they can be seen and used easily. If items no longer fit, purge the excess. Don’t obscure the view!

If you disrobe in the bathroom, place a tall hamper in there.

Keep a set of cleaning supplies in each bathroom

bell hooks mentioned going through a time in her life where she was severely depressed and suicidal and how the only way she got through it was through changing her environment: She surrounded her home with buddhas of all colors, Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival facing her as she wakes up, and filling the space she saw everyday with reinforcing objects and meaningful books. She asks herself each day, “What are you going to do today to resist domination?” I also really liked it when she said that in order to move from pain to power, it is crucial to engage in “an active rewriting of our lives.”

the first day of my hand drafting class in my senior year of college, after the prof taught us how to frame up on the drafting table and went over how to use the tools we'd bought, he had us all take our pencils and make a mark on the top right corner of the vellum. then he walked us through the setup steps - the border, the title block, etc.

and he told us to erase the mark.

when someone - rosie, i think - asked what the mark was for he smiled.

"if you give a novice student an expensive, blank piece of paper, they panic. they think if i start using that i will ruin it. so the first thing i want all of you to do, any time you stare at a blank piece of paper, is to ruin it a little and take the pressure off yourself. pencil erases. anxiety has to be managed."

i hated that man for a myriad of reasons, but that was some of the best advice i've ever been given.

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

Regretting things is disrespecting your past self… you have to trust that you made the best decision otherwise you’re breaking down your relationship with yourself