Personal statement.

This is how I would like to live, how I think I do live but often find myself repeating old patterns and falling into traps of the past. This is who I am, compiled from words I wrote as a teenager, sometime in my 20s, in my 30s, and consolidated now somewhere around halfway through life. This is how I think, view the world, and what you can expect from me.

Values, principles, words. Disappointment and hardships.

Be honest with yourself about how you’re feeling. Name the feeling. Accept what you’re feeling. Explore the feeling, and then, once you understand the feeling, regulate it. The next time you’re confronted with that feeling, listen to your second or third thought, and then respond. It’s hard to stop yourself from reacting immediately, but once you understand the feeling it’ll come easier.

When it becomes too much, ask for help. Don’t be ashamed if you need to pay someone to take care of it for you. You grew up in a context that taught you to take care of yourself and not lean on others, but community is important, not just for what you can do for them but what they can do for you, too.

Opportunities and risk-taking.

Take opportunities that make sense in the current time/place of your life. Every opportunity is an open door to a different path, but sometimes you are happy with the direction that you are going already.

Let yourself have a little bit of anxiety to help process, then journal the rest. Weigh your options and allow impulsivity only when there’s no great financial impact.

Failures and mistakes.

You are not perfect, and holding yourself to perfect standards is folly. Accept this and apologize sincerely to whoever was hurt (including yourself). Confront the shame of failure, then read the thing above about disappointments and hardships.

Analyze and understand your setbacks - find something to learn. Do you want or need to try again? Find something else to learn that will help you on that path. Once you’ve found three things to learn from this experience, find some way to share it so that others can learn too.

Interaction and community.

Measure your response to the world, regardless of how much interaction it wants with you. Be kind but not too kind. Don’t lose yourself because you don’t have enough to give that much.

Read the thing below about putting on your own mask first.

How you treat your body.

My body carries me through the world. It’s not a sacred vessel; it’s simply skin and meat and bones, carrying my essence (or soul or whatever). My body gives me form and allows me to show up and be present physically. Take care of that shell for fuller and better experiences.

Accept that it is what it is, whatever happens. Tremor, disability, exhaustion, energy, restlessness, pain. My body doesn’t control my experience, it only controls how I move. Respect and embrace the joy of walking when it’s available to me. Embrace the joy of resting when it's not.

How you spend your money.

Meaningfully, not categorically.
Thoughtfully, not impulsively.
To save me, to save others, and to save the world (in that order).

Convenience is a lie.

Inconvenience is intimacy. Inconvenience is a love story. Struggle is inherently human. Don’t give it all up just because others are, just because a new tool or trick can help with everything, just because you’re lazy, or just because. Stay human.

Read the thing below about technology.

Stillness is necessary for creativity to thrive.

People will say “boredom” is necessary, but it’s not boredom, it’s stillness. It’s lack of interaction, lack of input. It’s the simple act of existing. Creativity follows the tension of chaos and stillness, purpose and numbness. Creativity follows confusion as much as it follows great happiness.

Your pace is everything.

Respect your pace because no one else will. Learn to communicate your boundaries and learn to stick to them.

Novelty seeking is part of a cycle.

You seek novelty because you’ve already gone through the cycle and gotten to the novelty stage. It doesn’t come out of “nowhere” and you don’t require novelty outside of the cycle.

Seek novelty -> get too much input/stimulus -> pull back into the comfortable familiar -> seek quiet stillness ->

If you seek novelty when you need something else, the impacts are devastating. Don’t restart the cycle just for more dopamine. You also get those good feelings from the other stages in the cycle.

Technology is not the answer.

Technology will not save your day/life/year. It might provide the right tool that you can then utilize to save your day/life/year, but technology is not your savior.

Your efforts and motivation and output are the answer.

Put your mask on before helping anyone else with theirs.

Other people may be here to jump in front of a moving bus to save a kid, but that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to support myself and learn how to support others. I’m here to learn how to keep my mask on so that I can help others put theirs on without losing my breath.

Your connections are a garden.

Your connections are a garden and you are a gardener of limited resources in a land that doesn’t rain. Each day, week, month, season, or year, you might have more resources than the last, but you’re a gardener, you’re not Mother Earth.

Gardeners often have preferred plants; they generally don’t grow literally everything. It’s okay to limit your connections to what you have space and expertise/desire to grow.

Gardens include a variety of living things to nurture and grow, all with different needs. Don’t put all your resources into one, and don’t overflow one while others are waiting. Find a compromise (perhaps those plants can have other gardeners to help).

Find your sense of security and seek it out.

Predicted silence and stillness are essential for me to feel secure. Once I learned that, I decided to make it a goal to live alone. There are other trade-offs and sacrifices living alone, but nothing is more important than feeling safe.

Take a measured approach.

Be iterative in your growth. Change in cycles.
Respect and trust the process.

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