#And I’m happy for them but also struggling with my own stagnating career

[everythingthemoontouches]

💙Hi there! , First of all i want to tell you that i love your blog! And i love how your posts are so accurate!💙 If its okay with you could you please do me a favor by describing how others see me,my appearance or more specifically the vibe I radiate to others! It would mean alot to me if you you do that💙I'm a cancer sun,leo rising,Lilith sextile asc, Pluto trine asc, Uranus opposition asc, Moon opposition asc, mars sextile venus, mars opposition neptune, asteroid lilith conjunct mc and jupiter in the 1st house!💙

Hola!

Thank you that's really kind of you 💛💕

You know that quote that says Cinderella never asked for a prince. All she wanted was a night out and a dress. You kind of exude a similar vibe but with respect to leadership positions. 'I never asked to be Queen/King, but the people have spoken' kind of an energy. You would be equally happy to be by yourself, learning about the subconscious mind, higher realms and other esoteric science.

For more on Jupiter in LEO I'd recommend watching Astrofinesse.

For jupiter in the first there's KRS.

🌻As a Leo rising you come across as someone outgoing, with a playful energy but you're also somehow someone people would expect to see in a position of authority. You're drawn to people who stimulate you intellectually and love to exchange ideas.

😬If you have an Aquarius saturn you could be having some challenges in your relationships since December 2020 as saturn transits your 7th house. I'd suggest practicing discernment in this area as well as signing contracts with people until it passes( early 2023) ..

😇12th house sun could take on other people's energy. I feel like you need some time away, by yourself, preferably at the beach / pool/ shower to declutter, clear your head and replenish your sense of Self. You could be highly intuitive. If this resonates, I'd urge you to look up empath drain and how to protect yourself from energy vampires.

Ruler of the ascendant in the 12th :

spirituality could be a huge part of your life. For some people this could show a father (figure) who was convicted or worked in a prison / asylum. They could also have a really remote job. Since the sun is also your own personal identity, you could profit off these themes. Working in a mental health facility, overseas, in esoteric crafts.

🌛With your moon in the 7th house, you probably attract a lot of older women, (queen of swords) nurturing energies . Your mom could have a major influence on any business partnerships that you enter.

In relationships you could have a here today gone tomorrow kind of a presence. This is because as the moon waxes and wanes so does your attraction / attachment to specific people?

♒Aquarius moon : it could be really hard for you to express your feelings. So Instead of asking for a hug there could be a tendency to say something like ' ew imagine asking for one?' you leave a place better than you found it. If you watch hindi movies, 3 Idiots could be a movie you really resonate with. ( I pretty much spent the day looking up the lead actor, who has major aquarius placements and his films have always been disruptive with a really nice social message that left people talking for years after they were released. I tell you this because he shares 2 of your big 3 - aquarius and cancer.)

Going off on this tangent you could be a well respected teacher / writer / entertainer. Jupiter in LEO could help with this.

I do feel like you need a certain amount of inventiveness in your relationships. The people you're with are people who introduce you to new hobbies / ideas / technologies. You need to feel like you guys learn something new or create something that matters together. This is enhanced by uranus in the 7th house. You could come across really cold because you always give people the naked honest truth when asked. You do this from a place of love. I'm reminded of the Queen of Swords card in the rider Waite tarot. Not everyone has the maturity to take it. Or maybe they've just had a bad day. It is what it is. Perhaps try to not be so incisive if this is something you struggle with.

In the same vein, if I asked you to write down how you were feeling how long would it take for you to identify the right emotion. How honest are you with yourself?

Moon and Uranus being in the same house could show that stagnation could really hurt your mental health / happiness / satisfaction levels.

With a saturn ruled moon I feel like I need to remind you to not be so hard on yourself. Like. The world won't crumble to dust if you allow yourself to take care of you once in a while.there's only so much you can do.

All those coffee mugs will catch up. There's no such thing as extra hours in the day. A lack of sleep manifests as early signs of aging. No hate for the elderly but arthritis is not a fun ailment to have. Do you wanna be 60 with 80 year old nervous system problems? I rest my case.

Uranus and moon aspect your ascendant so you could have a slightly plump look?

Jupiter in the first house people usually have prominent thighs. I had a friend with this placement and when we were growing up she used to complain of chafed thighs a lot?

Mars sextile venus you could be your own type? The way you act and the way you want your future partners to express love could be quite similar which is good for healthy relationships.

There could be a tendency to spend impulsively.

With Mars sextiling venus you could be someone who earns more the more active their lifestyle is? Like, you may need to be an agile learner to keep money flowing in .

Jupiter in LEO in a woman's chart usually shows they'd have a financially well off spouse so money may not be a huge concern. He could be a sailor or earn via exports/ navy. It's hard to say without knowing where your Saturn is.

The image you project to the world could be a lot more outgoing than how you actually feel. You're more private than people think.

With a fire rising, water sun and air moon you could either be a really balanced person or just have a number of clashing ideas on who to be, what to do and achieve.

Descendant : The people that hate on you could attack your need to stand out /try to dim your time in the spotlight. Think aquarius themes of standing out to improve community clashing with Leo's need to stand out solely because it helps their ego. Like your confidence could trigger the part if them that felt judged negatively for expressing their individuality.

Do you feel like you thrive in chaos? I'm guessing you're atleast in your late 20s if not older, so you might have gotten better at dealing with people acting unexpectedly. Your mom could have been unpredictable. Really intelligent, but forgets to eat ..

🥤🦀As a cancer sun, you could be the friend your friends come to for advice. There could be a tendency to be a little too selfless. I think your aqua moon really serves as a shield to those who try to take advantage of your caring nature. Have you considered a career in psychic medium ship? Or any spiritual art/ past life regression / you get the drift..

Is there a family craft or hobby that you could monetize? Jupiter in LEO could signify ancestral gains.

Lilith and Pluto aspects to ascendant can make you come across really sexy / a bit unapproachable because people feel like you have some kind of power that places you above them?

Due to this, people with Pluto / Lilith aspects can feel some kind of hurt around people clearing up the path around them if that makes sense.

Jupiter opposite moon : there could be a clash between you want to do VS what you feel you should be doing.

Jupiter in the first house : you could have been born rich? Or people just perceive you that way. They also see you as someone wordly wise and lucky in general. You could know a lot about a wide variety of things. Specially on topics related to appearance, personal development, image consciousness etc. Since the ruler of the first is in the 12th I feel like some of your wisdom comes from a divine source. Like you're tapping into some kind of a collective reservoir of knowledge. In starseed terminology we would refer to this as downloads.

Jupiter rules the 8th house and 5th house.

So love, romance, games, early education may have been a bit of a breeze for you.

Jupiter is usually a bit of a celibate spiritual person. So, while it may make you really wise with respect to things like the occult / tarot / other 8th house themes, I'm not sure how it would impact your sex life with a spouse. Sex could be either a deeply spiritual experience for you or take on more neptunian traits. Addiction / alcoholism / drug use the works. Jupiter expands the themes of the house it rules so a word of caution there.

Travelling could bring you luck. Or even love.

Did I hear Mars opposite Neptune?

This could be a literal battlefield. You could feel like you need to work for love.if Neptune is unconditional love and Mars is your drive, then you could literally match to get to taht elusive unconditional sense of belonging /love / acceptance. But what are you marching towards really? A mirage? With this aspect I'd really be on the guard against addiction of any kind. Neptune is enticing, alluring, mocking Mars for its need to conquer. It could lend a really nice swagger to your walk. A runway model could benefit from thus placement. At uts best this aspect imbues you with creativity, inspiration, otherworldly imagination and the energy required to turn your abstract ideas of art into something tangible.

Here's a source for more on this placement. Sometimes I find that the comments really help me make sense of my own placements

Toodles

Before I sign off, I just have to say this :please try to restrict asks to 2-3 placements. You can send in multiple asks if you'd like, but answering them all in one ask can get a bit cluttered and I'd hate to miss out on something 😊

Hope this helped 💕as always, I'd really appreciate your feedback on this take on how these placements affect you.

[skullsandwineglasses]

My Best Friend’s Story (2020) Final Review

I’ve written two first impressions of this drama here (first episode impression) and here (episodes 1-7 impression). Beyond the first 7 episodes, I continued to enjoy the drama until episode 24 or so. But when Jiang Nansun returned from Italy, that’s when the drama started to go downhill for me. One good thing that I appreciated in this drama is that the personalities of the characters stayed relatively consistent, which is an accomplishment for cdramas. However, my gripe was with how the ambitions of the characters changed. Even though the plot was quite simplistic in the first half of the drama, it felt like Nansun and Suosuo were actively moving the plot forward. They had agency over their own growth. But in the second half, they were striving for things they didn’t want. Rather, they were coping with life stressors and making compromises. It might sound like a realistic depiction of the unpredictability of life struggles, but what was frustrating about the plot progression was that both Nansun and Suosuo made things harder than they had to be. 

Jiang Nansun

I actually really liked Nansun’s character development. She didn’t just grow for the sake of growing, but we see her potential of becoming someone competent and independent early on. This means that sooner or later, she would become a mature woman over time, but her father’s suicide triggered this growth sooner than expected. 

Despite having an opposite upbringing from Suosuo, Nansun and Suosuo are actually quite similar in terms of their outlook on life and their judgments of people. That’s why they’ve managed to stay best friends for so many years. What’s different between them is that Suosuo has had to stand up and protect herself more often. This means that she’s used to being confrontation. 

Nansun is a bit more reserved. She does things more underhandedly. She’s more of a schemer. When you see how she handled things with Yuan Yuan, we see how she’s not above lying and bribery to safekeep her sense of security. Even Suosuo was shocked about how cleverly and calmly Nansun was able to figure out the truth of her boyfriend’s past with Yuan Yuan. 

But, we also see that Nansun is also capable of being just as spoken as Suosuo. She openly bickers with Wang Yongzeng. She never hesitates to stand up to her dad. When you look at the women in Nansun’s life, you can see where she gets her gumption from. Her aunt is a level-headed, well-traveled business woman. Her mom is a self-aware but oppressed housewife. Her grandmother is an overbearing traditionalist. All three women are resilient, if flawed. Nansun may have had a privileged upbringing, but she’s capable of facing adversity and adapting to changing circumstances. It’s also because of these three women that forced Nansun to have to think for herself.  

I think what a lot of people had issue with is how Nansun handled her father’s outstanding debts. She kept it a secret, refusing to tell anyone about it because she was afraid of burdening them. So, she took it all on herself. As a result, her aunt and her boyfriend misunderstood her and was disappointed that she would choose earning fast money over pursuing her passion. I’m still trying to figure out whether this decision makes sense for her character. Nansun justifies the decision by saying that she doesn’t want to worry and burden her loved ones like her father did. Nansun also said that telling Wang Yongzeng about her problems would just ruin his current passionate and carefree approach to life. 

But one of the reasons why she broke up with Zhang Anren was because he refused to help her in her time of need because he didn’t want to be associated with her dad’s gambling habits. You would think that after having such as a selfish and unreliable boyfriend, she would expect her next boyfriend to be more supportive and compassionate. They writers even set up WYZ to be more compassionate. When he heard the news that Nansun’s dad came to the university to ask Zhang Anren for money, he called all the way from Italy to ask if he could help. So I thought that WYZ would be more involved when Nansun encounters another problem. But no. Instead, Nansun doesn’t even give him a chance to help her because she wanted to protect him from her reality and her struggles. 

We then see a third love interest appear: Li yifan. He’s like a more genuine version of Zhang Anren. He plans everything to the T. He has a clear plan for the future. He’s reliable, dependable, and will guarantee a sense of security. He sees marriage as a contractual partnership, and romantic gestures are superficial. They’re just fantasies that you dreams about when you’re young, but they’re hollow and unsustainable. You know that if you marry him, you won’t have to worry about him being unfaithful and that you’ll always be provided for. He’s direct, transparent, to-the-point, and no nonsense. His ex-wife tells Nansun it’s important to find a man who’s is emotional calm and stable. He seems like a perfect marriage partner. I’ve seen lot of comments saying that he’s better suited for Nansun than WYZ is. 

The thing is, while you can’t go wrong if you chose Li yifan, he doesn’t offer anything that Nansun can’t provide for herself. Back in grad school, Nansun liked Zhang Anren because he pampered her, and love and attention was something that she lacked from her family at home. But now, Nansun has learned to love herself and provide for herself. She’s able to give herself a sense of security, and she no longer needs a man to provide it for her. Instead, she wants a partner who is able to emotionally and intellectually stimulate her, and WYZ can provide this. He’s able to show her a different side of life. She’s able to have fun with him. He helps her grow and draws her out of her comfort zone. 

Nansun likes WYZ not because of what he can give her, but because of who he is. That’s why even though he doesn’t help her overcome her obstacles (because she didn’t let him), she still loves him. She likes his personality, his values, his free spirit, his humour. She’s able to provide her own noodles, but he offers the spice. 

The conversation that Nansun has with her aunt also becomes important. Her aunt says that marriage is just a confirmational contract, but it’s not the foundation of a relationship. That’s why her aunt doesn’t feel a need to remarry and is perfectly happy with just dating. 

So in the voiceover during the final scene, Nansun says that she and Susuo continued to live together for the next 5-6 years, implying that she and WYZ didn’t get married. WYZ also mentioned a few episodes ago that marriage and starting a family wasn’t on his agenda. So we as the audience are left to assume that Nansun is following in her aunt’s footsteps and isn’t in a rush to get married or start a family. Just as long as she’s happy spending time with the one she loves, that’s all that matters. She’s finally broken out of her family’s traditionalist values after all and is career-driven. 

Another note is that the library scene during Nansun and WYZ’s reconciliation in the finale was pretty romantic. In fact, I thought their whole relationship arc was cute and really enjoyed seeing it unfold. The chemistry just wasn’t quite there, but most couples in this drama lacked chemistry. 

Zhu Suosuo

Suosuo had an anticlimactic character arc, but she was a pitiful character and arguably the emotional core of the drama. 

She starts off ambitious, headstrong, but naive. She’s the Cinderella character: she’s stuck in her uncle’s judgmental home, dreaming of one day moving out and having her own family and being independent and successful. She’s tricked by a man, but it’s a blessing in disguise because it also puts her on the path of entering the Jinyan company. She finds quick (but shortlived) success as a real estate agent, and gains a reputation at the company. We see her gain momentum as she climbs up the ladder, getting closer to realizing her dream. But it all stagnates when she’s re-assigned to be Jinyan’s assistant. 

She’s no longer running from client to client to try to recruit sales. Instead, she’s now stuck at the office, slowly falling in love with her boss who’s old enough to be her father. She doesn’t really do anything anymore but swoon over Ye Jinyan. And it gets cringey because she begins to assume that he likes her back and begins to act out of line, like questioning his decisions for the company and for his employees. When he scolds her for thinking too highly of herself and her influence in the company when she’s nothing more than just an assistant, she quits. 

This points to a larger problem of the drama. What kind of lesson is the drama peddling? So far, for both Nansun and Suosuo’s storylines, it seems as though the drama is saying that as long as you’re young, pretty, and have rich connections, you’ll be fine. Most of Nansun and Suosuo’s problems have been solved by someone rich (usually Ye Jinyan). It’s unrealistic how fortunate and privileged they are. They knows so many influential people who are ready and eager to help them. 

Another problem is how the drama villainizes people from the country and depicts people from the city as being morally superior. The prime example is Yuan Yuan. She’s portrayed as the greedy, scheming, love rival who wants to get in the way of all of Nansun’s relationships. At first, I was annoyed at how lazy it was to bring her back to try to steal WYZ. But on second thought, it was interesting to see how differently Nansun reacts to Yuan Yuan compared to a year ago, and how uninterested WYZ is in her compared to Zhang Anren. It shows that Nansun has matured. She’s no longer jealous of Yuan Yuan because she’s confident and secure in her relationship with WYZ, and she trusts him in a way that she couldn’t trust Zhang Anren. And that’s because WYZ’s behaviour makes him worthy of being trusted. 

Yuan Yuan’s appearance also gives Suosuo a chance to show her rage and protective side. It was really satisfying seeing Suosuo call out Yuan Yuan’s intentions. 

I lost interest in watching Suosuo’s relationship with Jinyan. By that point in the drama, Suosuo seemed to have lost her drive to further her career. So while she’s still as headstrong, outspoken, and flirty as ever, her ambitions have changed. I’m also trying to understand why Suosuo fell for Jinyan. Is it the idea of being liked by the most powerful man in the company? Is it because he’s aloof hard to get? She wants a home and family, things that he is unlikely to give. And yet, she’s drawn to him. Not Yang Ke who’s smart and not Xie hong zu who worships her. 

What’s more curious is Jinyan’s side of the relationship. At first it’s ambiguous. He cares for her, but doesn’t show it outright. You then learn that it’s because Suosuo has the exact same birthday as his daughter who committed suicide, and he still blames himself for being an absent father. So he’s trying to repent by doing his best to protect and love Suosuo, whom he treats as a stand-on for his deceased daughter. But then there are moments that make you question that line of reasoning. He reminisces the time he spends with Suosuo. He accidentally calls his secretary by her name. He drinks to try to numb the pain of her absence. He’s enraged when she quits. He cries when gets she married (and it’s not the kind of happy crying that a parent would have, but it looks like a kind of regretful crying where he turns his back to the camera, takes off his sunglasses, and blinks the tears away). Or maybe it is a kind of worried parental crying because he knows that she won’t have a happy marriage with Xie hong zhu. It’s all very hard to tell. Does he love her platonically is romantically? Maybe a bit of both. He’s probably unsure himself. 

Suosuo seemed to jump into marriage with Xie hong zhu too quickly. She admits that it’s partly out of spite from being rejected by Jinyan, but it’s also because she realizes that Xie hong zhu is probably her best choice now. Suosuo and Nansun’s lives seemed to have switched: at the beginning of the drama, Nansun was the one who dreamed of romance and marriage, while Suosuo dreamed of freedom of success. Now, Suosuo is the one who’s eager to find a romantic partner, while Nansun is trying to find a foothold in her profession. But when you think about it, that’s who’ve they been all along. Even though Suosuo said that romance is a lie and an unreliable fantasy, a part of her still hopes to find happiness with someone who truly loves her. Nansun starts off having a seemingly devoted boyfriend, so romance was never something she thought she lacked, which was why in the end, she was able to figure out what she really wanted out of her love live. My mom always tells me to find someone who loves me more than I love them. Suosuo seemed to have taken this route. I think that you should love someone because of who they are, even if they might not love you back. Nansun was lucky to have found someone she loves who loves her back. Suosuo wasn’t as lucky. 

After a long and bumpy road, Suosuo finally returned to basics and is working in sales again. But I was just disappointed at how they stunted her career growth just as she was rising. 

Nansun and Suosuo’s relationship

My initial criticism was that they weren’t really involved in each other’s lives. But that changed when Suosuo leaves her uncle’s place and is taken in by Nansun’s family. And then Nansun’s family falls into financial ruin and Suosuo takes them in her new place. And then Nansun’s father dies and her mother leaves, leaving only Nansun and her grandmother, whom Suosuo treats as her own grandmother. And they get even closer when Suosuo has a baby. So we see how they get closer and closer through all the problems they face together. But it’s obvious and predictable how devoted they are to each other. So whenever one makes a sacrifice for the other, it’s never a surprise. It’s very sweet and comforting to watch though, and the drama is worth watching for their friendship dynamic alone.

A lot of people criticize Liu Shishi’s acting, and while I also don’t find her to be a strong actor, I think she has good chemistry with Ni Ni. They balance each other out. They both have so much grace and composure. I also really like how evenly split their storylines were. Soulmate and Last Romance seemed to be biased towards the bubbly character more (i.e., Zhou dongyu and Cherrie Chung respectively), but in this drama, no lead had more screen time or priority than the other. 

The male leads

Nothing needs to be said about Chen Dao Ming. He’s untouchable. I’m not even qualified to talk about him. Dong Zi Yan did the best with the script he was given. He was childish, immature, lovesick, hurt, conflicted, remorseful. You felt sorry for him even though he was an unlikable character. Tony Yang had a flat character, so he wasn’t given much to work with, but his Taiwanese accent was distracting, and I’m not even a fluent mandarin speaker, I’m cantonese. So it must have been more annoying for native speaker. A lot of people complained about him, but I think he looks good in modern day clothes, and he fits the role of a casual, laid back, handsome architect well. He looked terrible and sleazy in The Rebel Princess though. 

Supporting characters

Fan Jin Gang, Yang ke, and Xia Qian (the aunt) are definitely people you want to have in your life. They are infinitely wise and compassionate, but very blunt. Yuan Quan definitely embodies the worldly aunt stereotype. You wish you could be her when you grow up. 

Overall, I would say that this is a good drama. Probably a 7.5/10. It’s really slow, but I didn’t skip any scenes. I started watching it for Liu Shishi and Ni Ni, and then I watched it for the relationships, and then I watched it for the conversations that the characters had. There are a lot of good life advice in this drama, and it makes you reflect on your own relationships with friends and family. It’s a thoughtful story. 

The OST was great, the cinematography tried too hard to be nostalgic, and the outfits were fashionable. When they went to “Italy” you could tell that they just chose a European-style neighbourhood in China and then put in clips from Europe.  The drama used the long, overhead drone shot that slowly pans out in the last scene of the finale. It’s such an overused shot. Off the top of my head, I remember that Lost Romance does this, and so does Ashes of Love, The Rebel Princess, and My Girlfriend is an Alien. While cheesy, I do find these drone shots pretty impressive, especially when you wonder where the rest of the crew is hiding. But I feel like this drama would have been better off ending with a montage of their lives 5 years later. After all, this is a drama about personal growth and the passage of time, so it only makes sense to see how much has changed in 5 years instead of being told in a voiceover. I know they wanted the last shot to be of Nansun and Suosuo standing together, but I think it might be more impactful to see them separated, but still staying strong despite the distance. 

I could probably go on and an about this drama. You could go into a deep dive analysis about every character. 

Ni Ni outfit appreciation:

Here are the brands of some of the outfits. 

[queerchoicesblog]

Lawrence was a pleasure to see again, and thanks God he was there to talk some sense into Zetta ! "Sometimes our secrets are what makes our lives worth living. No matter with what high cost they come attached” What power in that sentence. What I also loved was that Zetta was honest with Richard. She has always been a straight shooter and it's interesting to see a dynamic where she would have much to lose from it but chooses to be (somewhat) honest anyway. With him. With herself. /6 (I think ?)

Part 2 of my response, sweet Nonny!

Let me start saying that:

1. You do not have to apologise for your English because it's brilliant and I'm Italian so no pressure!

2. I absolutely love your talkative mood and because of the kind words you reserved to my writing, I swear! I almost wish we would be sharing a table at a cafe (let's make it a patisserie: I'm a sweet tooth and you have decadent desserts up there!) and chatting about Zetta, Adele and a bit of everything 😊

Giving a voice to wlw characters is my main mission so thank YOU! I'm glad I could make fellow members of our community happy with my stories. I write them for free because it sounds like the right thing in these dark times when many face new personal budget struggles. Maybe one day, if I build enough confidence, I will try to get some works published but today's not that day.

Back to Titanic, I'm particularly glad you appreciate your compatriot Sabine (who will get a scene in the next chapter) and Lawrence. They were minor characters but gosh, how I love them. I tried to add more depths and give them a bit more space in the series since they only appeared from time to time in the original book.

I find the friendship between Lawrence and Zetta quite interesting and a bit endearing. At the Turkish Baths, Zetta described it in these terms:

Of course, it refers to the fact that they're both gay and they can understand each other better than anyone else. But these lines and the affability they showed when he joined Zetta's table for dinner in first class made me picture the two of them as that kind of friends who aren't close as they don't keep in touch or hang out together all the time but whenever they find each other, it's as though they never parted. As many of us feel today about their fellow gay/bi/trans and so on friends, they rely on each other for a support they cannot find elsewhere so they can chat of nothing and everything, laugh but also have deep conversations out of nowhere without needing explanation or excuses. They simply understand the need to talk of certain parts of their lives: finest historical mlm/wlw solidarity. I cannot bring myself to imagine, for instance Lawrence talking of Felix with other gentlemen but Zetta would surely ask him how he's doing. Vice versa I can see the only one Zetta would truly speak of Adele being him.

"Sometimes our secrets are what make our lives worth living. No matter with what high cost they come attached"

I must admit I am quite proud of that sentence 😅

I just thought the story needed something that could explain why Zetta eventually decides to "fight for Adele" in her own way, writing her that note begging to come to the party after months of silence, but also Adele's change of heart about secrecy. We know that Adele has been stagnating for some time after the sinking and the abandonment, dealing with trauma, loss and starting anew in a new country...or at least that's how I picture her? Hileni says she's hardly leaving the shop, she looks afraid to live in full survivor sense of guilt and suffering from the sudden disappearance of her love. Through those months she changes and I reckon this change includes the shift from this (in my playthrough)

To this:

Back on the Titanic Adele seemed almost unapologetic about showing her affection as if "pushing boundaries". True, she's an outcast unlike Zetta and the adeline pumped high in the aftermath of the collision but she was the lesbian hero everyone dreamed in the moment: proclaiming her love for Zetta and kissing her passionately in the crowd. Quite a shock for super closet lesbian like Zetta! Then, months later she no longer says "I don't care who's watching" but is the one proposing a secret romance, accepting to live her love behind closed doors and putting up a mask in public if that's what it takes to be with Zetta. I think she came to the same conclusion Lawrence stated. And I think it's interesting how the change in Zetta is somehow symmetrical: from freezing on the l word to realising she doesn't want to part from Adele - and kissing her on the deck uncaring of the crowd - to make it happen after her own stagnation.

As for the Richard discourse, I believe that what Mateo said was for once true:

Adele and her conscience, her courage inspired her to be a better version of herself while her compassion softened a bit Adele. At the beginning of the story, Zetta is bitter, sarcastic, utterly gorgeous but not so pleasant to have around, for her own decision: her guard is up and she's unhappy. Through the story, she shows a new side of her, compassionate, protective, smart and gentle that was there but Adele rekindled. In the next chapter I will give a hint of other ways in which I believe Adele inspired her to action.

But a change I picture being a tail end of this is being (somewhat) honest with Richard. Adele put her freedom at risk for her and I want to believe that gesture impressed Zetta more than she admitted to herself maybe. She praised her conscience and courage...now it was her time to be brave. Zetta not saying a thing after what happened made little sense to me, if she suffers so much as we get to understand. Complete honesty is not a safe route or at least one she is not willing to go for but she pushes herself as far as she feels comortable stating the truth: is he convinced to marry her even knowing that she cannot love him like he does? Seems like an honest and merciful warning: Zetta cares for her career but she is not a heart of stone and I headcanon she likes Richard even if not romantically.

Richard doesn't get the true meaning behind her confession but as you said, could she? Zetta is closeted and very careful not to draw the slightest suspicion on her. He couldn't possibly imagine the truth but I cannot bring myself to see it as completely dumb either. We cannot read a person's heart with Suisse precision but we can perceive coldness or when our feelings are not fully reciprocated. He probably knew already that Zetta didn't love him "like he loves her" and it explained it to himself as stemming from her independence, her being a lady who can't be entirely tamed. Which is not a lie, just one part of the truth.

Sorry, I went down a tangent here and ended up flooding you with words!

Hope to hear from you soon! Stay safe and healthy ❤

[narastories]

Happy 291st Birthday, Lord John Grey! - A Natal Chart Reading for our dearest English Lord

This is very different from what I usually share here. By now you are all aware that we are celebrating the 291st birthday of Lord John Grey of Outlander.

For this occasion I took it upon myself to do a natal chart reading for him.

This is astrology applied to a fictional character, you have been warned. Continue at your own discretion.

Disclaimers:

I am not an astrologer

This is made in the spirit of appreciation of this character and his story. The purpose of this is pure fun on my part and hopefully to entertain some of you as well. Plus, maybe to provide some character-study-style insight or inspiration.

The character of Lord John Grey belongs to Diana Gabaldon - duh 

John’s birth date is canon. The time has been arbitrarily chosen by me. Yes, it is important, because there are a lot of moving parts to a natal chart. I have literally cycled through the day by the hour, compared charts and decided on the one that I’ve found most fitting to his character. Which, is by the way best practice, when you do not know your or someone else’s exact birth time, but are somewhat familiar with their character. And considering that even if our dearest Lord John were an actual historical figure, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have his exact birth time from 1729, so I don’t feel bad about my process.

The examples I may give here are both from the books and the show, but nothing too specific that would be considered spoiler.

Lastly, this is all my interpretation both about the astrological meanings and of his character. Feel free to disagree with me. Politely, if you please.

So, in good Outlander time-travelling fashion let’s transport ourselves back to the day Lord John Grey was born and look up to the sky to see what it has to tell us.

Sun in Gemini

Lord John is a Gemini, which makes him clever and witty. He takes pride in his intellect and uses it to reach his goals. He is extremely adaptable, and instantly finds his footing in the most various settings, whether that’s London’s high society, a remote village in Scotland, or a two week fishing trip in the wilderness of the Colonies.

As someone born under the sign of the Twins there is a natural duality to his personality, that we can observe many times. He is capable of great tenderness, yet he can also be extremely fierce. Brutal is perhaps not the right word, but as much as he is a gentleman, we do see him engaged in physical fight, where he is by no means unskilled. You can’t say it’s always self-defense either.

He often has an internal conflict between heart and mind, between duty and emotion.

Geminis make good actors, and Lord John is exceptional in that too. He has to be as a gay man in the 18th century, which creates another duality between the life he’s supposed to live as a solider and as a Lord, a respected member of high-society and all the things he craves but has to hide.

As a Gemini he is a great communicator. Good with people, small talk comes easy for him, but engaging in a deep intellectual conversation is what really fires him up (Shakespear, anyone? :P) He is pleasant to be around and has a good sense of humour. His skills are diverse and he makes friends easily as he moves from one adventure to the other.

Geminis are prone to restlessness, which Lord John demonstrates beautifully by fidgeting with every little knick-knack that accidentally lands between his well-manicured hands. (Why does he stash them away in his pockets? I’m afraid astrology has no answer for his accidental kleptomania.)

His Sun is in the Ninth House of mental and physical explorations. Long journeys of the mind and the body are prominent in his life and essential to his personality. He speaks multiple languages and uses them to express himself on a very personal and natural level - aka swearing in the language most appropriate to the level of shit he’s gotten himself into this time.

Libra Rising

His rising sign is Libra, which sheds light on how he presents himself and what he wants to be known for. People with Libra Ascendant have natural grace and a good style. Lord John has all of that and finds himself often in the spotlight for it. He doesn’t have to struggle to be successful, but more than anything he wants to be known as a kind and loving person, and I would argue he succeeds in that.

His rising sign is important, because his natal chart is ruled by Venus, the planet of love and beauty. He has a romantic nature, and has the ability to connect with anyone, anywhere at any given time.

Libra rising people are said to be very attractive and compatible with almost anyone and as we say around here Lord John Grey would have chemistry with a lamppost.

This doesn’t just extend to romantic partners, although he is the happiest when in a romantic relationship. He puts others at ease and is genuinely likeable.

He feels obligated to balance the situations he finds himself in, therefore he is a natural diplomat always striving to harmonize and negotiate. It also makes him a good listener.

He has a great sense of fairness and injustice angers him. He is social, has a generally positive outlook on life and is inspired by nature and art.

Moon in Aquarius

The moon sign represents the hidden side of someone’s personality, their emotions, their needs. It is also jokingly referred to as the “drunk you”, so let’s see who Lord John is after a few glasses of good Scottish whiskey.

At first glance there is nothing scandalous here, Aquarius is the most favorable sign for the Moon to be in. This gives him sensitivity and good perception. He tries to understand others’ perspective, and is rather idealistic.

However, people with the Moon in Aquarius are prone to sudden outbursts. How many times does he put his foot in his mouth and gets punched or called out to a duel for it? Yeah…

He can also push other’s over the edge emotionally, exactly because he is so perceptive, which actually does happen when he is drunk. This is not out of malice, but either out of pure authenticity or just because he knows it will get the other person out of a place of stagnation.

He hides a rebellious, progressive and unconventional soul under that well-tailored waistcoat of his and it does come out sometimes.

Ideally he needs to have a healthy outlet for this, a partner who appreciates his sometimes idiosyncratic nature and occasional eccentricities. In turn he won't flinch in the midst of the most challenging situations, because he’s not afraid of chaos.

He wants to find solutions that work for everyone and can neglect his own needs in the process.

If that wasn’t enough air for you, he also has a-

Grand Fucking Trine in the air signs

Which is a pretty big deal. (Moon in Aquarius - Pluto in Libra - Neptune and Mars in Gemini)

These influences all help and strengthen each other. He has a brilliant mind, his Intellect is exceptional, he has a deep concern for law and duty, and an unusually sharp sixth sense of unearthing shocking revelations.

He has a magnetic personality, great ability to express himself, and therefore leaves a lasting impression on others. He is able to inspire and lead others and his need for harmony and cooperation makes him a great negotiator.

Lots and lots of air influence, which also means that in the battle of the mind and the heart unfortunately the mind wins and he lets his heart break instead.

Let’s get back to Venus and love for a sec.

With this much air in the chart for him everything starts in the mind. He experiences desire in the mind first. He must have a great intellectual connection with someone, before their relationship could blossom into a romance (Venus in Gemini). His entry point to sex is also through words (Mars in Gemini). Think about all the witty foreplay and low-key dirty talk in the LJG books. And also, khm chess games...

Where does that occasional intensity and dominance come from, you ask?

Well, he does have Uranus in Scorpio (semisquare Venus in Gemini, semisquare his Sun in Gemini) which would explain why he is not always displaying the lighthearted, fun, fleeting ways of a Venus-in-Gemini lover. He does have a lot of sexual partners. But then we’ve already established that he would have chemistry with a lamppost.

His chart is heavy on the 9th and 10th houses of long distance travel, career and public standing, and these are probably the most important aspects of his life. He is a comparatively lucky person, with a lively social life, charming personality and strong morality (Jupiter in Cancer).

His great trauma lies in what squares Neptune and Mars in the 9th house. There is an opposition between his sexuality and dreams, and what ideas he is allowed to express publicly. He is sensitive to what others think (Mercury in Cancer), picks up signals very well and is therefore acutely aware of what he can and cannot say.

Here lies the greatest disappointment and loss in his life (Saturn in Pisces). He chooses to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of others.

His Chiron is in the 7th house of partnership and marriage, which I also find interesting. This minor planet get’s called the Wounded Healer. It makes me think about what Claire and Jamie says about wounds and Lord John. And it also makes me think about his marriage.

Well, if that doesn’t make for an interesting personality, I don’t know what does. I hope this has been at least half as fun to read as it was to write. Let me know what you think.

[lukethewitt]

Angel on the Underground - Chapter 1

I check the graffiti for updates every morning on my commute. Any wall in an area where people spend limited amounts of time is a target for anonymous artists, and it seems tube stations are a good place for the craft. Most of the graffiti I see recommends mononymous teenagers are experts in various vulgarities, with occasional third-person declarations of people’s sexuality provided in conjunction.

However, some graffiti is artistic, and while I would never dream of defacing public property in such a way, I couldn’t help but admire the dedication that went into some pieces. Some of them were detailed, some provocative and some dangerous. There was one vivid portrait which took up a full wall in a tunnel. That is to say that it hadn’t been scrawled on the tiles of an underground station, but rather someone had waited until the trains had stopped and run along the tracks with the sole purpose of creating a striking image which would only ever be seen through the window of an underground train rushing by.

I hoped that the artist had snuck in after the lines had closed, illegal though it may have been, because the alternative was either a construction worker vandalising the lines they were meant to be repairing, or that somebody was stupid and speedy enough to run along the tracks in the limited minutes between one train leaving and another one arriving. Either way, the graffitto’s perpetrator was clearly misinformed about how fast trains move, since nobody could see anything more than a grey blur as the train rushed by in less than a second.

One of the few perks of tube stations was the access to free newspapers. Copies of the Underground magazine were placed in stands at every station in London. They would often be taken quickly, and were mostly adverts, but it was common to see them strewn and abandoned on train seats, meaning practically every commuter had instant access to the same information. A second-hand paper was fine if all the new ones had run out, the only downside being the likelihood of scribbles and drawings of glasses, wings and occasionally genitalia on every picture of a person in a paper.

I read a news story about the ruins of the school I used to teach at. The school had burnt down in the years since I left and there was a plan to demolish the ruins and replace them with a shopping mall. It was a tragedy that the building was gone, but I’d always hoped they would rebuild on the existing plans. There were some fire-damaged walls still standing. If they weren’t stable, they could at least be replaced by new materials for the same structure. Replacing one of Britain’s remaining beautiful buildings (or the ruins of one) with another bland shopping centre was a sin.

Still, I didn’t know how much to believe. Underground was notorious for being rife with mistakes and puff pieces. Even in the short article about my former workplace, they’d incorrectly given the location as Oxfordshire instead of Cambridgeshire. Still, the fact that it was outside London and was being reported in the London press was evidence of how desperate they were for something to write about.

When I got off the tube, I had time for a sweeping glance at the graffiti in Borough Station before turning the corner to my office on Angel Place. The charity I worked for had picked that street in particular as it was a good area - loads of charities had their offices in the same few streets around Borough Station, so it meant any opportunities for joint fundraisers could be organised efficiently and quickly without the need to send people all over the city. The street’s name itself had connotations they liked. Lots of people who faced abuse from loved and trusted people credited their survival to their faith, and the charity saw themselves as saviours more than willing to accept the title of ‘angels’.

I personally rejected this label, as I felt it was wrong for a charity to brag about the good work they were doing, and instead felt we should be focussed on helping people and improving the work we do. If a charity existed solely to call themselves angels, it was nothing more than a vanity project.

They were called Reduce Abuse, and worked to raise awareness of and protect victims of abuse in all its varieties. I had been employed to deal with social media, specifically protecting those who had faced cyber bullying, which Reduce Abuse identified as the biggest growing threat, particularly amongst under-18s. A lot of my work involved responding to Facebook and Twitter messages, as well as emails and occasional phone calls. That is to say, messages from victims of abuse, not the abusive messages themselves. I’d been trained on the right advice to give, how to comfort and provide practical solutions. I liked to think I was doing good, but dealing with the business side of charity could make you cynical.

I spent the morning thinking about angels, about what makes someone good. Good and evil could be tricky things to define, but sometimes you met people who seemed like they could do no wrong. You could never be sure, as even the most trustworthy person could turn and stab you in the back. I liked to think I was good. Anywhere I saw a flaw in myself, I addressed it immediately. Anything I ever did wrong I apologised for, and I did anything I could to make amends.

In art and literature, angels were always depicted as having big wings like an albatross, and eyes as blue as azure. They dressed in white sheets and had halos over their heads. I suppose it was mostly religious symbolism, but I couldn’t see how the blue eyes fit into anything. They were just aesthetic features which seemed trusting. Someone with light blue eyes could never appear sinister. Both my ex-girlfriends had blue eyes. It fit, because they were both very nice people, and I believe we ended things on amicable terms.

I’m not entirely sure why I’d been given the role of Social Media Officer. I applied for any jobs that were going, and they assigned me to that one. I was really just looking for anything that could help me. I think they must have figured I was down to earth and understood young people, what with my previous experience working as a teacher. Whatever the reason, it suited me when I got it. As time went on and I got a great deal of experience, I also realised I became good at my job and was ideal at helping struggling youths. And then as more time passed, I became too good. I didn’t enjoy the work anymore. It was the same thing, day-in, day-out. I was bored, supremely bored.

Today was my annual review. Two years I’d been here. I would bemoan that I was stuck in the same job, but it was my own choosing, so there could be nobody to blame but myself. Besides, I never liked the blame game.

I liked my old job, but teaching was exhausting work. It was draining to watch children grow and learn and then to wave them goodbye and hope they went off into the big, bad world with all the preparation they needed to survive Earth. Evidently they didn’t, because I could swear half the people who called me up or messaged me at Reduce Abuse were former students.

‘In advance of this review, I asked you to fill in a form and mark up how well you think you’re doing,’ my boss told me. I had no idea why he told me this. We both knew he’d emailed me the form the previous day and I’d filled it in and emailed it back to him. Why did he need to begin by repeating himself?

He was a strange man. He had thin grey hair and was somewhat rotund, and insisted on making smalltalk to people who didn’t like him and had no wish to have any talk with him, regardless of length.

My boss at Reduce Abuse reminded me of my boss and mentor when I worked at the Moore Academy, an elderly man named Tristan Scimitar. They were both grey-haired and authoritative, although Tristan was more Henry V, while the man in front of me was more The Great Dictator. The other reason the man reminded me of Tristan was that he reminded me just how much I missed working under a competent manager.

As my current boss scanned over the form on his screen, he quietly trumpeted with his mouth and scowled, as if reviewing an alarming piece of medical research rather than a tedious piece of bureaucracy. ‘Hmm,’ he said, if that can indeed be called talking. ‘Very interesting.’

This was a lie. I’d answered ‘satisfactory’ to all the questions. Literally just gone down the sheet and ticked the middle box on all of them. When he reached the end of the document, he said, ‘I see for the first question, “How have you been working as part of a team?” you gave the answer…’ He scrolled up to the top of the page to read what answer I’d given, although this was purely for show, as we both knew I’d given the same answer for everything. ‘“Satisfactory”. Three out of five. I think we can bump that up to an “Exceeds Expectations”, don’t you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, the rest of the team seem to like you.’

‘They chuck things at me all day,’ I calmly pointed out.

‘They throw things to you, Trev. And they all checked to see that you could catch before having a throw-about.’

I said nothing.

‘If there were a question here about throwing and catching, I’d definitely put “Exceeds Expectations”. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. But you do have quite a remarkable rapport with the rest of the staff.’

I supposed that was true, but it didn’t make me happy. Lately the job was making me wonder why I ever quit teaching. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Teaching was something I was passionate about, but it was draining. This job was one I wasn’t passionate about, and it was equally draining. Still, somewhere towards the end of my teaching career, my then-girlfriend and I had this ambition of moving to London and having a new start at a new stage of our lives. We lived in constant fear of stagnation. Now I was single and stagnant in a different pond.

‘“Are you able to prioritise and manage your workload?”’ he read. ‘Again, you’ve put “Satisfactory”. Again, I’ll put “Exceeds Expectations”.’

I wasn’t really sure that the answers quite corresponded to the question, but there was no room for deviation from the tick box regime.

‘Next question…’

I could sense we would be here for some time and I could already feel my eyes drooping as we reached the third question. By the time we were approaching the end, it felt as though I’d been trapped in the same dark office for a week. Still, I supposed that it was decent preparation for dealing with victims of abuse and their concerns if the staff subjected us to a rudimentary form of pscyhological torture ourselves.

‘“Would you say you conform—”’

Without warning, my boss picked up a pen and threw it over my head, and I instinctively caught it without even realising it had been thrown. He didn’t look up, but kept reading as if nothing had happened.

‘“—to standard rules of etiquette when dealing with callers on the phone?’ You’ve only put “Satisfactory”, but I’ll have to change that to “Exceeds Expectations”.’

Here he looked up at me for confirmation I agreed with his verdict, as well as to look at my hand, still raised above my head, grasping the pen he'd thrown. I lowered my arm and handed the pen back to him.

‘Extraordinary. You’ve got cat-like reflexes. Did you never think about doing something with them?’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m not saying you’re wasting your time here – obviously the work you do is important and you do it very well.’ He gestured towards the changes he’d made on the screen, despite me being sat opposite and unable to see a screen that was facing away from me. ‘But you could be a professional baseball player or something.’

‘Do you know of any professional baseball players in London?’

‘Do you know of any professional charity workers in London?’ he said back to me, evidently a failed attempt at a snappy comeback. When I started to list the names of other people who worked in our office, he clearly wasn’t amused and carried on through the evaluation form.

In the end, he changed all my “Satisfactory”s to “Exceeds Expectations”s. He had no comments. No feedback. No improvements. Nthing. Just to stay exactly the same forever. He sighed deeply. ‘Um, is there anything you want to say to me?’ he asked out of contractual obligation.

‘No. Is there anything you want to say to me?’

He frowned. Never one to pass up the opportunity to engage in the tedious exchanging of sound, he said, ‘I saw your old school is getting knocked down.’

I wasn’t really sure what to say to that. He must have been reading Underground today as well. Were we all just passing the time by checking the same filler stories in the same free magazine? That’s the trouble with taking the tube. There’s not really enough time to take out a book and read, but it’s a long enough journey to get bored.

‘That was your former school, wasn’t it? The Moore Academy? The school you taught at, I mean, not your school.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I didn’t know it burnt down.’

‘Me neither.’ I guess I really was out of the loop. When I lived and worked out in Cambridgeshire, at the Moore Academy, my sphere of influence revolved around small-town drama. We always hated London for the way people lived in their own little bubble and ignored the rest of us, as though the United Kingdom ended when you reached the M25.

Now I was one of those Londoners, or at least a London-liver, I was part of that bubble and out of necessity I’d lost contact with the old bubble that was the Moore Academy. I couldn’t even tell you who still worked there. I suppose it’s probably a consequence of having both my ex-girlfriends working at the same school that I no longer followed their goings-on closely.

But had it really burnt down without even a whiff of the event making its way over to me? I once knew everyone in the area, now 100 km away, and now it was as though they were dead or in another country. I had become one of the ignorant.

Still, they had their own geographic pitfalls. If you ask something there about the lines and stations on the London Underground, they might have a vague idea, but those of us who live here know it intimately. Those tunnels are the veins and arteries transporting people through the city. More vital, perhaps. I know how to get from South Kenton to Stepney Green in the quickest possible time with the fewest changes, but I don’t actually know my own blood type.

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How much is still standing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, if there’s any of the original structure it would be a shame to demolish it for the sake of yet another shopping centre. It was a beautiful building.’

‘It really was.’

‘They never give you a lot of detail in the Underground, do they? And they said it was in Oxfordshire, not Cambridgeshire. Do they not have proofreaders anymore?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘It’s full of eye-grabbing headlines and tat, really. No proper journalism. I once saw an article in there about a seagull stealing a chihuahua.’

‘A chihuahua? What happened to it?’

‘The chihuahua? No idea. Oh, actually I think they said the seagull got tired and dropped it over a bridge.’

‘Over a bridge?’ My heart sank. ‘As in, over the edge of a bridge? Or on top? Was it…?’

He racked his brain. ‘They didn’t give a lot of details. Just enough to gather your interest and pick up the paper. But no depth. Anyway, let’s hope someone caught it.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

He grinned inappropriately. ‘It’s a shame you weren’t there. You would have caught it.’

‘I’m sure I would have.’

I took the tube back home at the end of the day, checking the graffiti at the station as I went, before shovelling down my dinner, crawling into bed and falling asleep in preparation for the same thing again tomorrow.

[voidingintotheshout]

I am just going to rant.

Note: I will not edit this until tomorrow. All mistakes are phonetic and easily rectified.

I am Muslim, but I am drunk. My best friend‘s mother just died and he was drunk and it shocked me because he never drinks. He tends to have an addictive personality and so it freaked me out that my friend who hasn’t drank any alcohol at all in five years is slurry and stumbling around his deceased mother‘s trailer in South Carolina trying to keep it together.

I am worried about my friend, but more worried, like the rideshare driver that I am about being a good steward to people and reminding him to set his alarm now so that he doesn’t oversleep for the appointment with the funeral director tomorrow. I have the high holy day Muslim prayer tomorrow at the mosque and it is very difficult and or unlikely for me to get there on time. I’m feeling very guilty because I haven’t drank almost anything in nearly a year and yet I am drinking tonight, in the wee hours of the morning before the holy Muslim prayer of Jumah; now, I sit here with my head moving further than my body does, feeling out of it and disoriented after my second large glass of Arak. 

It’s been such a strange day, I sit here feeling drunk. I woke up and I had a car with a nearly flat tire and a dead battery. The kindness of a stranger helped jumpstart my battery and give me some very good advice. I pushed back my physical therapy appointment for my bad shoulder and drove across the city to the one reputable used tire place to refill my tire. Now, I have a car with a working battery and a tire that is not leaking air and, after doing my laundry I call my friend, expecting it to be more of the same with his mother, circling the drain having more days of sleeplessness only to be thrown out of my universe and be told that no, she’s dead. She died this morning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I knew you would call. Some thing that I almost forgot to do.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t care. Only three people will ever fucking re-blog this. No one will even read this far. Anyway, I was in a completely different headspace for most of his hour and a half call. I wanted to crack jokes and cheer him up but how do you crack jokes about someone having their mother die in his arms? How do you make a funny joke about a woman peeing herself and then having hospice rush her to the funeral home? What witty one-liners do you use for that? How do you feel of use in a situation where you were 600 miles away from someone and you can’t do any goddamn thing to actually help them other than just feel impotent and powerless on the other end of a phone line. What the fuck do you do? Seeing your friend who has always struggled with addictions get drunk off of a concoction of very delicious sounding margaritas in the trailer that had here too for been occupied by his mother, the last surviving parent. Now here I am dealing with the fact that he is living some thing I will have to live through very soon enough when my second biological parent dies and I am left with virtually no family outside of an aunt who I talk to once every two or three years. I feel like he is living my future. His future is filled with drunkenly stumbling around a trailer that is not his, feeling impotent and powerless trying to focus on anything else other than the fact that his mother is never going to have a conversation with him again. I am trying to have a conversation with him try not to remind myself that I will once again have to prepare myself for some thing that no one can prepare themselves for: the death of someone you truly love. In this case, my mom. He starts getting drunk, and so do I. I just want to feel numb.

I don’t want to think about how I needed to get new clothes yesterday because I got too fat for most of my T-shirts. I don’t want to think about the fact that the people at the physical therapy place think I’m weird because I like obscure Russian movies and I don’t have anything in common with normal people. I don’t wanna think about the fact that my friends think that I am irritating every once in a while because I have ADHD and severe depression and anxiety which are comorbidities with ADHD. I don’t wanna think of myself as a burden to my friends. I don’t like thinking about myself as an annoyance to people who I love, but that haunting Spectre in the back of my brain reminds me that that may be exactly what it is. I may be ultimately just a burden who stays a burden, alone, and then dies. That may be all I accomplish, outside of worthless posts on here that few people will ever read, like this one.

I’m laying on my bed at 2:40 in the morning and one of the bits of clothing I got yesterday today. A new T-shirt that ironically says kindness matters but, what can I say? I’ve always been a person who felt like that slogan was about how I should treat other people but I could never figure out how to treat myself that way. With other people I can always give them the benefit of the doubt that they have their own shit to work through and that they are doing their best but I know myself too well. I know I’m not doing my best. Might be kind someone who is ultimately not trying hard enough to do their best? It seems like a waste of time to try to support someone who you know is going to fail. Someone who you know isn’t giving everything they have. Someone who is in hustling enough to actually reach the finish line. You feel like you’re just pumping someone up that you know he’s not gonna actually make it. Someone who you know you’re gonna have to be there telling them that they tried their best. Again. That’s how I feel like it is like to cheer myself up to pep myself up. I know it’s just proceeding telling myself that I’m gonna get them next time. Next time my story will be published. Next time I’ll have enough confidence to actually set up the profile on the dating app. Next time, the date with a nice guy is going to be a reality instead of just some kind of daydream fantasy that I entertain myself with while I shuttle people around who could care less about my existence.

Here I am, at nearly 3 o’clock in the morning with a phone that is nearly dead, my friend is probably getting ready for bed, too drunk to really think much about his mother who is going to need to make funeral plans at the funeral parlor tomorrow. My life will be completely uneventful. It is always uneventful. That is a blessing, I realize, but it is the stagnation that makes me feel like what is the pointing going on living when I am just going to spend it in nothingness? Why bother doing anything when it’s just gonna end up being made siphoning resources away from the poor and taking up space until eventually I just disappear and nothingness, forgotten buried somewhere, wherever.

What is life but just a waystation on the way to death, trying to build up enough supporters and memories and accomplishments so that the sting of death doesn’t hurt as much. It’s like running for class president. You’re trying, in the limited time you have to garner as much accomplishments and support as you can before you run out of time and you’ll be judged as either good enough or not good enough. That’s life. At least that’s how it seems to me at nearly 3 o’clock in the morning right before I’m supposed to do Muslim prayer, and I still have a little bit left on my second glass of Arak.

What am I even doing? I’m a gay Muslim. Why even bother? I feel so pathetic every single time I find another Muslim. Like I found a Muslim lady in my building from the United Arab Emirates. She seems so nice! She like to read! Something in common! I didn’t even bother to tell her where I lived or to introduce myself because I knew, but I didn’t know, but I assumed, that when she found out I was gay she would think of me is disgusting and an idiot for ever thinking I belong at the Muslim table and that I should just stop wasting my time trying to appeal to a God who I would never be good enough for. I like writing this year because I know that most of the people reading this are either non-religious, non-Muslims, or gay and so all of you reading this also think I’m stupid for ever trying to appeal to a God who I believe in but who probably will never be satisfied with me. Some of you reading this will probably feel, rightly so, that it is hubris for me to imply that I know the will of God and therefore I should just try to be the best version of myself that I can. That is probably the helpful advice. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like helpful advice right now.

That’s the problem. I feel like I want to punish myself for the piss poor excuse for life I have created even though, I don’t know what I was expecting? I guess I was expecting to have it all. I wanted to be surrounded by friends and a gorgeous caring boyfriend and a wildly successful riding career. I wanted my ADHD to not be an issue so that I could’ve accomplished all of those things with all of the silent work in the background that those goals actually require. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be satisfied. I wanted to be able to throw my money around buying useless garbage like expensive meals that I could’ve made at home and not even thought about how much they cost. I wanted to have enough money to be one of those wasteful gay people they can throw their money on garbage on Etsy that they don’t really need, expensive bespoke clothes that they could get cheaper elsewhere, and restaurant quality meals that are going to provide fleeting joy and are ultimately just expensive fuel for the body. I want to be that kind of a person. I want to be someone wasteful. Burns the money that could feed the poor on their on alter to themselves. I want to be that kind of person, but I have always somehow fucked it up. I want to be that type of person, who can create this world about making themselves the best and most beautiful and amazing thing in the world and insisting that everyone else treat them as this beautiful jewel even though they’re really just some random fucking asshole who will live, and then die. I could never do it. I mean there are people Who devote their entire lives to helping the poor. People who Sean the television and the Internet and spend their free time writing because they are actually writers and they love writing, even if they never publish anything and their contribution to the world is thousands of pages of glorious fanfiction on AO3. They are more writers than I will ever be with my stories that no one reads. The pain of being jealous of a couple in what is clearly an unhappy marriage because at least they were in love once, some thing I can never claim.

I take another sip of the alcohol, almost wishing that I could be videotaped and have this monologue in this pathetic scene where a 40 year old fat lonely man records a drunken monologue in his studio apartment at 3 AM. I wish they could show that at the mosque right before I arrive so everyone would be able to see that I am unworthy. Why do I want this? Is it sadism? Masochism? No. It’s a more toxic reason. I want everyone else to know so I can justify my own feelings of self hatred that are ultimately self created. It’s easier for me to imagine that the whole world sees me as terrible and pathetic than to imagine and except the terrible, terrible truth that I am actually a really great guy who is accomplished a lot. The terrible truth that I am totally fine and accomplishing a lot I just have depression that doesn’t let me see it. It’s so much more horrible to know that all of those negative self feelings are just in your head, you know? It’s so much harder to except that they are all in your head then to except that they are true. You almost want all of those negative self feelings to be true so it’s not just you being cruel to yourself for no goddamn reason. That’s the motherfucking horrible thing about being alive sometimes. Being a person with all of the advantages in a prosperous society like America and still having the nerve to not be happy. It’s like an insult to all of the people in the world that are struggling with not enough. 

[bookofsul]

So this is probably really odd to ask but whatever. I got accepted into an art school and i've been going there since 4 weeks. So far so good. But i get really bad anxiety if i am not able to do somethig right/ as good as anyone else :/ of course im jealous if someone is better than me but i thik i could handle that (if it'd JUST that) i have anxiety abt almost anything and it really depresses me when i feel like im not good in enough in sth i normally love doning :( So.. do you have any advice?

Yes I do. Stop listening to the BS that comes from the part of your genes that keeps you rather in ‘shitty but safe’ stagnation than let you fail. (They are mean and don’t consider winning!)

In short, don’t stress too much on it, things will be just fine as long as you keep going! A bit longer below the cut.

My art school career started with “I was the second to last accepted” to high school. I knew that I could draw ‘better’ than the other kids in my elementary school class simply because I had an interest and I was drawing almost every day, but it still put me on the end of the scale in an open competition. When I got in I felt like I hit the jackpot and I will be surrounded with similar minded folks and how awesome it will be. The truth is, I had a couple of friends and the others I can’t even remember the name of but things were great. Until you start to struggle for whatever reason, it’s more often than not that you’ll get a mean comment on ‘how bad x is on your drawing’. And from those friends, that hurt. It’s not the constructive criticism kind of deal, but the one that is aimed to break down your self confidence and faith in yourself in order to make themselves feel better. After a while I figured that I’m not interested in their opinion, so I politely asked them not to give me feedback, since I’m my worst critic. I knew that some of them were in my level or above, but that just put me into a competitive mindset that I can do better. And so I did. Talent is nothing but hard work. When you think that other people’s work is intimidating, then you are getting a mental block via your genes that I have described above. But if you keep trying, you can get to awesomeness! 

After high school (all of those above) I went to an other art based institute to become a teacher whom is able to instruct and communicate trough their thoughts due to the fact that our teacher was an artist who was an egotistic asshole, forcing his shit on people without letting you develop. I thought that in the university it will be different, but guess what, all the people there were the same kind of deal. I feel like I learned nothing aside of the teaching part. They assigned me to do things I was not interested in at all and trying to crush my beliefs that “digital art is no true art and has no value”. We got homework which you could interpret as you liked, and let me tell you, they did freak me out. I’m not saying that you don’t need to do things you don’t like, but the amount is very questionable and opinionated. I hated drawing. It was a forced thing and I saw that the output I was doing was crap because I couldn’t even motivate myself to care. It was still good enough to keep a B+ average, and where I felt like I’m not learning, I stopped trying to challenge myself to try being better. I usually had at least one figure whom I wanted to impress, and I put all my creative efforts into that particular class. The rest I kinda “survived”.

And, let me tell you a story related specifically to your problem. I had a class where we had to “solve painter’s problems”. Whatever the fuck that meant. We had to paint a figure and environment in the mandatory classes which was utterly boring (same 60yo lady over the 5 years I had there). Same pose, same lights, I could paint it from my memory from various angles. it was some new level of boring. But we had this “solve a painter’s problem” deal and I had no fucking idea what did the teacher meant and the explanations made NO SENSE to me or my friend. The others started bringing in sketches and loose works to ask the teacher’s opinion, and they were so far away from anything I’d call art that I started freaking out. I can’t do this shit. I can’t purposely, by force, paint metaphysical images by the number of 30 mini (A6), 15 small (A4) 10 medium (A3) and 4 large (A2) by the end of the semester. I had two weeks left, and I had NO IDEA what the hell to do. I was very frustrated, I wanted to quit, I wanted to fuck it all, because everyone else’s modern junk was looking so abstract and I CANNOT do that! I was sitting over the canvas and out of sheer frustration I started hammering it with random colors I had on my brush (it was rather small, like the back of a pencil), and I was crying and I was ready to give up. And from beyond my tears, the images looked kind of…Interesting. So I blew my nose and I kept doing this, first trying to make a shape or a form and afterwards not even giving a damn. I just had to make something and fuck me if it’s not going to be good enough. I tried my best. If it’s not enough, it’s just ONE person’s opinion anyway from 6 billion so WHY should I CARE. (Yes, even if they are professionals or teachers or whatever)So I bring in the images and I’m so nervous I nearly pass out. Long story short the teacher nearly passed out too, but from euphoria, how amazing my shit was. He was legit pissed that my works from the class were medicore but THOSE WERE SO GOOD IT WAS PREPOSTEROUS. I got an A, and my friend who watched from the door nearly pissed herself from trying not to laugh. (she also asked me to bring some to an other class to an other teacher and that guy also got his mind blown).

Now some can say that I had to get to a mindset that made me do this (and we should listen to the advices blaady bladyy blaaa). But frankly, I don’t want to be stressed about creating art, I want to enjoy it. People don’t like it? Why should I care as long as I’m having fun and developing to my liking? Art supposed to be self expression, not forced upon anyone by any means. When I make commissions, I’m trying to please ONE person, and that’s the commissioner. If anyone else is happy too, that’s a bonus. My best art pieces were gifts, because I wanted to give with them, and they were driven by love/joy/unicorn fart rather than pressure. Love makes everything better!

You’ll never be able to please everyone. It’s impossible. Start with believing in yourself and look for the themes/materials that MAKE YOU HAPPY. That make you grow and leaves you feeling productive. If it’s drawing, painting, writing, making music, cooking food, sewing, fixing up shit, BRINGING OUT THE TRASH, whatever floats your boat. Aim for the little things that make you happy. There is no point to compare yourself to others, and trust me when I say this, the more your skill grows the less intimidating they will be, because you’ll have the eyes to see the flaws that everyone does. The images we like the most are made with little accidents. If you feel like crap about your art, listen some Bob Ross and follow his work. Surround yourself with the material that makes you feel good, or things you want to aim for. If you have a particular picture you think it’s just the best shit, put it to your desktop til you find something that is even more awesome. Your eyes will remember the details that you can recall any time. Out of your comfort zone? DO NOT TAKE IT TOO SERIOUS. I mean it’s obviously gonna be crap in the first dozen times. But You’ll get there, just keep going, and don’t give up! Be your own worst critiq and don’t let anyone make you feel bad about your work. You have to accept the fact that you won’t make a masterpiece with every single stroke you make, and that’s fine. Aim for perfection, but don’t be a perfectionist.

My personal mantra is: “I cannot please everyone with my work, but I do my best anyway, and my aim is personal growth trough things that make me happy.”I’m honestly very honored that you people think my opinion is worth asking for. The fun fact is that my most common advice is “don’t give a shit about other people’s opinion”. :’D No, ofc you should care a bit, but only just an itty bitty tiiny wiiny bit. As long as you stay happy!

[theparaminds]

Evident with every passing day, much of our daily purpose exists within the pursuit of a purpose itself, seeking answers to universal misunderstandings. While Neil MacLeod is in pursuit of such truths, he realizes it is just as important to seek the beauty which exists between the confusions. In that sense, he attains to brighten our existences through creation and through developing ideologies. He is seeking to fill the gaps with positivity instead of stagnation and fear.

Residing in New Zealand and born in the UK, MacLeod is no stranger to the whimsy an inspiration can have upon an artist. He grasps the hauntingly gorgeous emotions of daily beauty, the ever overwhelming success in daily life’s ability to stun us all. And through that understanding, he creates a mirror of what he experiences. He shares the feeling in forms consumable and resonating, free to share and to grow a life of their own.

In truth, Neil’s pursuit is one of an even balance between selflessness and personal fulfillment. It’s a precarious tightrope of knowing how much to give and how much to take from the artistic world. But as he stands high above, balancing and creating, he’s able to stand sure he won’t fall. He won’t fall as there is balance and beauty. He is able to stand tall because he contributes to the beauty he loves daily, leaving it stronger for the next walker of that precarious tightrope.

Our first question as always, how’s your days going and how are you as of late?

My day has gone really well, my girlfriend’s sisters, and parents were here over the last couple of days so I actually took a little time off from making music for once. It was actually quite nice to spend some time being sociable with people who aren’t concerned with music. Today’s my day of getting back into things. Lately, things have really just been generally positive, a lot of exciting things getting planned.

To really begin by taking it back to start, how did your environment look growing up and how did it put you upon the path of being an artist and did early experiences in that time help with that?

It’s interesting because I’ve tried to analyze that before. I’ve read a lot of biographies and listened to a lot of podcasts about musicians. It seems like a lot of musicians grew up fully immersed in music since day one. And truthfully that wasn’t my experience. Neither of my parents are particularly musical, instrumentally, but they love music endlessly and exposed it to me as a kid. It was never a focus in my early life though. My parents just pushed me to be expressive and creative, allowing me to go down any lane I wanted to. They encouraged my artistic lifestyle. I think the reason I dared to chase a musical career was due to their open-mindedness. A lot of young people are told that being an artist isn’t a job, and I was fortunate enough to grow up believing that it could be. That probably pushed me more than anything. It was just by chance I chose music, I loved painting just as much and right up to leaving home, I thought I’d be a painter. But in the end, I never found a medium that quite connected me to other people or myself more than music, so I pursued that.

When you first got into the musical space, what were the early influences, not just in music, and how do you compare them to your current inspirations?

They’re really different. My very first love was choral music. I was in a choir as a young boy. I remember how inspiring the sound of a group of voices traveling across a church was. I liked the social aspect of it and the spiritual aspect of it, too. That was how I developed a voice I suppose. And from there it was folk music. I really connected with the idea of storytelling through music. It stimulated me, those stories formed great pictures in my head when I listened to them. As time passed I started getting exposed to electronic music coming from the UK and it took over. Eventually, I found a happy space between the two worlds.

In your eyes, what was the vision of that early artist you used to be and what was the purpose of pursing of the project?

Well, I never really thought anyone was ever gonna give a damn about what I did. I never put out music expecting people to listen to it, so it was really surprising to me when people started responding positively. My early intentions were personal; to tell my stories to those who’d listen and to self-heal in the process. It’s not like that anymore, but that was how it started.

Through that process of growing and coming into your own, what were some of your best memories that stick from it?

I have two I think that really stick. I was born in England and I have family there and in Scotland. My Grandma has this beautiful 100 plus year-old house. I remember visiting this property when I was about 7 and walking around the destroyed outskirts of the place. That was beautiful, I felt as if I’d entered another world. Secondly, I grew up in a place called Christchurch in New Zealand and we experienced some pretty awful earthquakes when I was younger that took a lot of lives. That wasn’t beautiful, but in the aftermath, many buildings became what’s called ‘red zoned’ which meant they were unsafe to enter. Of course, my friends and I went exploring them straight away. There’s a river that runs across Christchurch called the Avon, so we got on a kayak visit these run-down places. It was really spooky but also exciting, it felt kind of like that movie Stand By Me. That thrill of being young and on an adventure. That sensation was beautiful.

To move into that idea of exploring yourself, with this new project it’s all about unfolding, and you’ve just unfolded childhood, but how have you taken up that process and what does it mean to you to unfold as a whole?

One thing I’d like to make clear is that I’d gone through this ‘unfolding’ process before finishing the record. For me, making the record was a way to solidify my understanding of things that had happened during that time. The ‘unfolding process’ itself allowed me to grow as a person. I was facing internal and external issues at the time, which required serious personal development in order to get through them. I let old parts of myself die, and made room for new, brighter ones. It felt like I unfolding myself, hence the title of the EP, ‘To Unfold’. My music had been very dark prior to this record and I was getting tired of that. I didn’t want to be defined by negativity. To be emotionally vulnerable on the record was still important to me, but I’d learned new ways of doing that, without only indulging in the dark moments. I decided to make an emotional record, but one that left listeners with a feeling of hope, not of sorrow.

And on top of yourself what changes did you make to your process in production and writing the actual songs differently in your approach?

I used to be so private and would never show anyone my music until it was finished. I was very guarded and secretive until I met this amazing guy named Devin Abrams, a prolific New Zealand producer. We just clicked with one another. He sacrificed his time to help me make this project, and working with him was a learning process in itself. Before recording this EP, I’d never really sung in front of somebody, just one on one. After we finished the project, I felt like a better artist and human. I felt this new confidence in myself and as a writer, singer, and collaborator. In New Zealand, there’s a slightly unhealthy romanticism attached to the DIY attitude. I think I’d absorbed some of that because up until making this record, I felt that I was a cheat if I asked for help. Devin really helped me break that down and recognize the beauty in collaboration in order to make something better.

Would you say that this process to you as an artist has been a realization of who you are and has it been a complete shift in your artistic ideals?

I’ve realized a lot of things, and some of my ideas have shifted. Life is complex and I struggle to completely sum up any of my experiences fully. This ‘unfolding process’ has meant growth as a human being and as an artist, both of which I could talk about forever. Catharsis is a good word for what I went through - and I’m still going through it, especially when performing the songs live. It’s one thing for two people to work on some songs in private. It’s another thing entirely, to be in front of a live audience, it requires an intense amount of vulnerability. It’s often quite hard to revisit those darker songs, but there’s power in it, and new things are revealed to me each time I do so.

In your process of creating music, do you feel a need to make your own wave and shift the norms of today’s sounds or are you happy joining in on ongoing ideas?

I don’t want to make ‘my own wave’ as such. I know that I’m standing on the shoulders of giants at all times. I’ve been informed by so many incredible artists. I hope to make music that’s unique but I’m never upset by comparisons as it’s just an honor that anyone gives my music the time of day. I’m grateful for any categorization. If there’s any ‘wave’ I’m trying to form, it’s concerned with getting everyday people into music that challenges them - both in terms of emotion but also production and songwriting. I want people to see that conventions can break in a good way.

So then, what do you feel is the next building block for you as an artist and what avenues are necessary to go down in the coming future?

I have to think of that all the time because it’s hard to get by as an artist, it’s not the easiest route in terms of making a living so I’m always thinking about how I’m going to build on where I’m at. My current estimation is that I need to go traveling. I want to take this music and present it to other cultures and meet more people and experiment more with my sound through collaboration. On the business side of things I’m still trying things out, It’d be great to capture label attention, but that comes with time. My main priority is to make fresh and beautiful music, so as long as I can do that, I’m on the right track.

In terms of that live experience you mentioned earlier, what does it look like to you and what does it truly mean to share your vulnerability in that space?

I think there are two sides to that coin, there’s the personal and the shared experience. I think live music is one of the most powerful forces we’ve got. Being surrounded by strangers all engaged in one moment is very special and I think right now people need nothing more than connection to one another. Performance has an important social function and I try to consider that. On the personal side of things, I need to live up to my own standards. It’s possible to over-rehearse. I’m cautious of that because I don’t want to be on stage singing about something intimate and not feel intimately connected with it. I work really hard on staying well rehearsed, whilst remaining emotionally connected with the music.

If one is to go to your show, what feelings and experience do you want them to be able to go home with? Is it simply the ringing in their ears or is there more to it?

I never want to limit anyone's experience by outlining what they should feel. That said, I think there’s a lot of darkness floating around in the world and that it is worthwhile to contrast that with beauty. I want the audience to feel they’ve experienced something beautiful.

Then what is beauty to you in a live setting and how does it feel to an individual?

I use the word beauty loosely. In my eyes, it’s anything that has a positive effect on people. Beautiful experiences, inspire and connect people. I’d like my live show to do the same.

What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever experienced?

I remember being on a plane at some young age, going back to the UK and I was traveling by myself. There was this small child, just old enough that they could walk. They came over to me and began sharing toys, playing, and trying to talk with me. Most people just ignored the child, but I embraced that moment. It left me with this tingling feeling of connection. The beauty of that moment was due to how rare it was. It’s not often you interact with someone who has no ulterior motive and just aims to share a moment in time with you, no strings attached, consumed by the joy of your company.

To you, is part of vulnerability also being youthful or are you trying to be mature and put that aside?

I think that there’s something to be said to that point, I think vulnerability can look like a youthful return. As you’ll see with any really small child they are not insecure like us ‘adults’ and they do not come with an agenda, they’re just themselves. There is something to be learned from that. I think being mature and going through adolescence is important… we all need to ‘grow up’ - but there are moments where we could all embrace that inner child.

Do you feel as of right now you’re happy with how vulnerable you are and how you present yourself even though you’re still looking for the last pieces of yourself?

I don’t think I’ll know who I am until I’m about to leave. I think that the fun of life is to go through the process of figuring it out. I want remain open to constant changes. I’m happy with how open I am. I think the best interviews are when artists are straight up and honest about how they feel. I think it’s a good way to be, for all people.

And as a final thought, and maybe the most vulnerable of all, what do you want when you leave the mark to be and what do you want the remembrance of you to be?

It’s a hard question. Legacy doesn’t matter much to me. It’s not what I’m working towards. I care more about how people feel about me now. My hope is that I do no harm, make beautiful things and make people’s lives better. I try to be there for my family and friends and the wider community. I would love to be a teacher at some point. I just want to go down as someone who worked really hard and did it for the sake of good.

Is there anyone you want to shoutout or anything you want to know you’ve said?

I have a tour coming up which I am proud of and excited for, (more info on my socials). In terms of people to shout out, there are just too many names to count. So to anyone who has helped me get here, I can’t thank you enough. And to all those who’ve yet to enter my life, I look forward to meeting you.

Follow Neil on Instagram and Facebook

Check out the ‘To Unfold’ Tour 

Listen on Spotify and Soundcloud

Words and Interview by Guy Mizrahi

[quotesthatsayitall]

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

New Post has been published on https://journeytoselfawakening.com/achieve-anything-in-life-with-4-steps/

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

How to achieve anything in life

This post looks at 4 steps to achieve ANYTHING in life. The steps in this article come from Tony Robbins. We have laid out the tips below. Having the right mindset will help you achieve anything in life.

1) Patterns make people achieve anything in life or feel negative

Before we talk about mindset, tips or where you should focus when trying to do something, we need to understand how our perception plays a role in how we approach something. The world is made up of patterns and by understanding those patterns, we take control of our lives in the areas we want to.

So let’s take Warren Buffet as an example. Here is a man who understands financial patterns and specific patterns in investing that has allowed him to build his fortune. There’s a consistent strategy that he’s used in his life. Buffet made his money by repeating successful steps over and over again to get consistent results.

This isn’t just the case in the financial world, it works in all parts of life. Those who follow soccer know Cristiano Ronaldo. He is widely regarded as one of the best soccer players of all time and recognized for his work ethic. Now if you ever watch Ronaldo take a freekick, he goes through a routine. He repeats the same steps and strategy that works for him. He places the ball with purpose, steps back three to four paces and stands legs wide apart and straight up. He’ll also take the same run-up, roughly the same number of steps and runs at the ball at the same angle before finally kicking it.

The point is, he’s worked out a strategy that works for him taking free kicks, just as Warren Buffet uses the same strategy to assess possible investments. What works is repeated and usually when the same process is repeated, if the variables in play are relatively consistent, the results will be too. So how does this relate to the state of achieving anything in life? Well, you see what Warren Buffet and Cristiano Ronaldo do is they effectively prime themselves before they take action. They set themselves up for success by repeating the patterns that have worked for them.

Now let’s look at how you apply this. Think of a time when you were successful in life. What was your mindset at the time before you took action and were successful? My guess is you had belief and conviction you would do what you had to right? Now think of failure and do the same again. What was your mindset? This time, I’m guessing there were doubts and hesitation. Those moments you believed it would work out and it didn’t, you can point to specific moments that led to failure.

What you want to do is identify what worked and repeat the steps. If it was that you spent 10 minutes meditating at the start of the day to help you clear your mind, do it. If it was that you pumped yourself up by listening to motivating music, do it! The point is, repeat the steps of success and you can repeat the results. But from there, you also need to follow some key steps that will help you deal with any situation and approach it in a way that allows you to achieve success in the end.

2) Be yourself and live life on your terms to achieve anything in life

It’s important to note you have to live life on YOUR terms. Take ownership and be the leader of your life. If you fully believe and commit to what you want to do on your terms, then chances are they will be successful.

So own your life and then follow this strategy to achieve anything in life, which is:

1) See it as it is, not worse than it is. See the truth when you look at the situation, then be honest with yourself. What does this mean, see the situation for what it is and not for how you feel about it. That means, see what it is you want to solve then work towards that goal. Don’t make a change to something you aren’t satisfied with. See it for what it is! There may be something you want to change but don’t because it’s stressful and emotional. You see it as something bad when in reality it’s something that can be changed if you focus on what you want, not the perceived problem.

So let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a bad relationship with someone you care about. It might be a relationship that is irreparable. That might be the case but people don’t want the emotional stress of a bad relationship hanging over them. It feels like a massive weight on their shoulders. You might not be able to completely save this relationship if the other person doesn’t want the same.

At the very least, you can find a resolution or some form of closure on the relationship to move forward in life. It’s a case of acknowledging the truth, which is there might be a big issue. Acknowledge the reality that there could be ways to at least manage things to give both parties some closure and move on without the weight and stress in their lives.

2) See it better than it is to achieve anything in your life (set your standard)

The next step of the tips to achieve success in life is to see things better than they are. What does this mean? If we take our relationship example, I described the situation might be you have a bad relationship that you’re not sure is reparable. But at the very least there could be room for closure. That in itself would better than things staying as they are right? At least you get to move forward and not stay stuck under this emotional weight. However, let’s take it a step further, perhaps you can see the possibility of things in this relationship being repaired.

In this instance, if you want to repair the relationship, you have to have the vision to see what kind of relationship you want to make a reality. As with all goal setting, your vision has to be believed with absolute certainty. Believe it’s not only a possibility but an inevitability. So once you look at the problem and you have the vision of making it better, what’s next?

3) Make it better (resourceful, not resourcefulness)

It’s time to take action and make it better to achieve anything in life. Now at this point, some will say they haven’t got time, money or something else. However, here’s the truth, to quote Tony Robbins, it’s not a lack of resources, but a lack of resourcefulness. Think about it, how many people have come from impossible odds to achieve one’s goals. One of the best examples is Oprah. She was born in bad circumstances like poverty, abuse, and rape. She lost a baby at the age of 13. She had no links, no relationships or money and yet overcame all odds to be one of the most influential and richest women in the world today.

How? Because she had the mindset she could achieve anything in her life. Her vision was life beyond what she experienced as a child and one of abundance. So in the case of our example with a bad relationship, perhaps the person you wish to improve the relationship with isn’t willing to communicate at this particular moment. That is possibly the most important aspect of any relationship, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

If direct contact isn’t possible, indirect contact through mutual friends and acts of kindness are still possible. The point isn’t just to do these things and the situation will be resolved. There are always options available to you to make progress in fulfilling your vision.

4) Continue to make progress to be happy

Finally, not specifically a step Tony Robbins says as part of his tips, but one I’m adding because it’s something that’s important to feel happiness and satisfaction in life. That is, always continue to make progress with what you’ve begun. You see, in the case of our relationship example, if you repair a relationship but then don’t continue to grow and evolve that relationship, it will stagnate and end again.

Warren Buffet has had continued success because he’s progressed with the times and with his growth during the years that have passed. Cristiano Ronaldo continues to be one of the best in the world as he’s made small steps to improve his free kicks so that they aren’t too predictable and opposing teams continue to struggle to stop them despite studying his technique.

So to reiterate the strategy: 1) See things as they are 2) See things better than they are 3) Make things better than they are 4) Make Progress

Now, go out into the world, take action and follow these steps to achieve anything in life! So for today’s question of the day, I want to know what is the next thing you want to take ownership of, whether it’s your career, relationships, fitness, and health. Let me know in the comments section below.

Check out this post on changing your vibration.

As found on YouTube

[butchmakoto]

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

New Post has been published on https://journeytoselfawakening.com/achieve-anything-in-life-with-4-steps/

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

How to achieve anything in life

This post looks at 4 steps to achieve ANYTHING in life. The steps in this article come from Tony Robbins. We have laid out the tips below. Having the right mindset will help you achieve anything in life.

1) Patterns make people achieve anything in life or feel negative

Before we talk about mindset, tips or where you should focus when trying to do something, we need to understand how our perception plays a role in how we approach something. The world is made up of patterns and by understanding those patterns, we take control of our lives in the areas we want to.

So let’s take Warren Buffet as an example. Here is a man who understands financial patterns and specific patterns in investing that has allowed him to build his fortune. There’s a consistent strategy that he’s used in his life. Buffet made his money by repeating successful steps over and over again to get consistent results.

This isn’t just the case in the financial world, it works in all parts of life. Those who follow soccer know Cristiano Ronaldo. He is widely regarded as one of the best soccer players of all time and recognized for his work ethic. Now if you ever watch Ronaldo take a freekick, he goes through a routine. He repeats the same steps and strategy that works for him. He places the ball with purpose, steps back three to four paces and stands legs wide apart and straight up. He’ll also take the same run-up, roughly the same number of steps and runs at the ball at the same angle before finally kicking it.

The point is, he’s worked out a strategy that works for him taking free kicks, just as Warren Buffet uses the same strategy to assess possible investments. What works is repeated and usually when the same process is repeated, if the variables in play are relatively consistent, the results will be too. So how does this relate to the state of achieving anything in life? Well, you see what Warren Buffet and Cristiano Ronaldo do is they effectively prime themselves before they take action. They set themselves up for success by repeating the patterns that have worked for them.

Now let’s look at how you apply this. Think of a time when you were successful in life. What was your mindset at the time before you took action and were successful? My guess is you had belief and conviction you would do what you had to right? Now think of failure and do the same again. What was your mindset? This time, I’m guessing there were doubts and hesitation. Those moments you believed it would work out and it didn’t, you can point to specific moments that led to failure.

What you want to do is identify what worked and repeat the steps. If it was that you spent 10 minutes meditating at the start of the day to help you clear your mind, do it. If it was that you pumped yourself up by listening to motivating music, do it! The point is, repeat the steps of success and you can repeat the results. But from there, you also need to follow some key steps that will help you deal with any situation and approach it in a way that allows you to achieve success in the end.

2) Be yourself and live life on your terms to achieve anything in life

It’s important to note you have to live life on YOUR terms. Take ownership and be the leader of your life. If you fully believe and commit to what you want to do on your terms, then chances are they will be successful.

So own your life and then follow this strategy to achieve anything in life, which is:

1) See it as it is, not worse than it is. See the truth when you look at the situation, then be honest with yourself. What does this mean, see the situation for what it is and not for how you feel about it. That means, see what it is you want to solve then work towards that goal. Don’t make a change to something you aren’t satisfied with. See it for what it is! There may be something you want to change but don’t because it’s stressful and emotional. You see it as something bad when in reality it’s something that can be changed if you focus on what you want, not the perceived problem.

So let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a bad relationship with someone you care about. It might be a relationship that is irreparable. That might be the case but people don’t want the emotional stress of a bad relationship hanging over them. It feels like a massive weight on their shoulders. You might not be able to completely save this relationship if the other person doesn’t want the same.

At the very least, you can find a resolution or some form of closure on the relationship to move forward in life. It’s a case of acknowledging the truth, which is there might be a big issue. Acknowledge the reality that there could be ways to at least manage things to give both parties some closure and move on without the weight and stress in their lives.

2) See it better than it is to achieve anything in your life (set your standard)

The next step of the tips to achieve success in life is to see things better than they are. What does this mean? If we take our relationship example, I described the situation might be you have a bad relationship that you’re not sure is reparable. But at the very least there could be room for closure. That in itself would better than things staying as they are right? At least you get to move forward and not stay stuck under this emotional weight. However, let’s take it a step further, perhaps you can see the possibility of things in this relationship being repaired.

In this instance, if you want to repair the relationship, you have to have the vision to see what kind of relationship you want to make a reality. As with all goal setting, your vision has to be believed with absolute certainty. Believe it’s not only a possibility but an inevitability. So once you look at the problem and you have the vision of making it better, what’s next?

3) Make it better (resourceful, not resourcefulness)

It’s time to take action and make it better to achieve anything in life. Now at this point, some will say they haven’t got time, money or something else. However, here’s the truth, to quote Tony Robbins, it’s not a lack of resources, but a lack of resourcefulness. Think about it, how many people have come from impossible odds to achieve one’s goals. One of the best examples is Oprah. She was born in bad circumstances like poverty, abuse, and rape. She lost a baby at the age of 13. She had no links, no relationships or money and yet overcame all odds to be one of the most influential and richest women in the world today.

How? Because she had the mindset she could achieve anything in her life. Her vision was life beyond what she experienced as a child and one of abundance. So in the case of our example with a bad relationship, perhaps the person you wish to improve the relationship with isn’t willing to communicate at this particular moment. That is possibly the most important aspect of any relationship, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

If direct contact isn’t possible, indirect contact through mutual friends and acts of kindness are still possible. The point isn’t just to do these things and the situation will be resolved. There are always options available to you to make progress in fulfilling your vision.

4) Continue to make progress to be happy

Finally, not specifically a step Tony Robbins says as part of his tips, but one I’m adding because it’s something that’s important to feel happiness and satisfaction in life. That is, always continue to make progress with what you’ve begun. You see, in the case of our relationship example, if you repair a relationship but then don’t continue to grow and evolve that relationship, it will stagnate and end again.

Warren Buffet has had continued success because he’s progressed with the times and with his growth during the years that have passed. Cristiano Ronaldo continues to be one of the best in the world as he’s made small steps to improve his free kicks so that they aren’t too predictable and opposing teams continue to struggle to stop them despite studying his technique.

So to reiterate the strategy: 1) See things as they are 2) See things better than they are 3) Make things better than they are 4) Make Progress

Now, go out into the world, take action and follow these steps to achieve anything in life! So for today’s question of the day, I want to know what is the next thing you want to take ownership of, whether it’s your career, relationships, fitness, and health. Let me know in the comments section below.

Check out this post on changing your vibration.

As found on YouTube

[be-gracious]

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

New Post has been published on https://journeytoselfawakening.com/achieve-anything-in-life-with-4-steps/

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

How to achieve anything in life

This post looks at 4 steps to achieve ANYTHING in life. The steps in this article come from Tony Robbins. We have laid out the tips below. Having the right mindset will help you achieve anything in life.

1) Patterns make people achieve anything in life or feel negative

Before we talk about mindset, tips or where you should focus when trying to do something, we need to understand how our perception plays a role in how we approach something. The world is made up of patterns and by understanding those patterns, we take control of our lives in the areas we want to.

So let’s take Warren Buffet as an example. Here is a man who understands financial patterns and specific patterns in investing that has allowed him to build his fortune. There’s a consistent strategy that he’s used in his life. Buffet made his money by repeating successful steps over and over again to get consistent results.

This isn’t just the case in the financial world, it works in all parts of life. Those who follow soccer know Cristiano Ronaldo. He is widely regarded as one of the best soccer players of all time and recognized for his work ethic. Now if you ever watch Ronaldo take a freekick, he goes through a routine. He repeats the same steps and strategy that works for him. He places the ball with purpose, steps back three to four paces and stands legs wide apart and straight up. He’ll also take the same run-up, roughly the same number of steps and runs at the ball at the same angle before finally kicking it.

The point is, he’s worked out a strategy that works for him taking free kicks, just as Warren Buffet uses the same strategy to assess possible investments. What works is repeated and usually when the same process is repeated, if the variables in play are relatively consistent, the results will be too. So how does this relate to the state of achieving anything in life? Well, you see what Warren Buffet and Cristiano Ronaldo do is they effectively prime themselves before they take action. They set themselves up for success by repeating the patterns that have worked for them.

Now let’s look at how you apply this. Think of a time when you were successful in life. What was your mindset at the time before you took action and were successful? My guess is you had belief and conviction you would do what you had to right? Now think of failure and do the same again. What was your mindset? This time, I’m guessing there were doubts and hesitation. Those moments you believed it would work out and it didn’t, you can point to specific moments that led to failure.

What you want to do is identify what worked and repeat the steps. If it was that you spent 10 minutes meditating at the start of the day to help you clear your mind, do it. If it was that you pumped yourself up by listening to motivating music, do it! The point is, repeat the steps of success and you can repeat the results. But from there, you also need to follow some key steps that will help you deal with any situation and approach it in a way that allows you to achieve success in the end.

2) Be yourself and live life on your terms to achieve anything in life

It’s important to note you have to live life on YOUR terms. Take ownership and be the leader of your life. If you fully believe and commit to what you want to do on your terms, then chances are they will be successful.

So own your life and then follow this strategy to achieve anything in life, which is:

1) See it as it is, not worse than it is. See the truth when you look at the situation, then be honest with yourself. What does this mean, see the situation for what it is and not for how you feel about it. That means, see what it is you want to solve then work towards that goal. Don’t make a change to something you aren’t satisfied with. See it for what it is! There may be something you want to change but don’t because it’s stressful and emotional. You see it as something bad when in reality it’s something that can be changed if you focus on what you want, not the perceived problem.

So let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a bad relationship with someone you care about. It might be a relationship that is irreparable. That might be the case but people don’t want the emotional stress of a bad relationship hanging over them. It feels like a massive weight on their shoulders. You might not be able to completely save this relationship if the other person doesn’t want the same.

At the very least, you can find a resolution or some form of closure on the relationship to move forward in life. It’s a case of acknowledging the truth, which is there might be a big issue. Acknowledge the reality that there could be ways to at least manage things to give both parties some closure and move on without the weight and stress in their lives.

2) See it better than it is to achieve anything in your life (set your standard)

The next step of the tips to achieve success in life is to see things better than they are. What does this mean? If we take our relationship example, I described the situation might be you have a bad relationship that you’re not sure is reparable. But at the very least there could be room for closure. That in itself would better than things staying as they are right? At least you get to move forward and not stay stuck under this emotional weight. However, let’s take it a step further, perhaps you can see the possibility of things in this relationship being repaired.

In this instance, if you want to repair the relationship, you have to have the vision to see what kind of relationship you want to make a reality. As with all goal setting, your vision has to be believed with absolute certainty. Believe it’s not only a possibility but an inevitability. So once you look at the problem and you have the vision of making it better, what’s next?

3) Make it better (resourceful, not resourcefulness)

It’s time to take action and make it better to achieve anything in life. Now at this point, some will say they haven’t got time, money or something else. However, here’s the truth, to quote Tony Robbins, it’s not a lack of resources, but a lack of resourcefulness. Think about it, how many people have come from impossible odds to achieve one’s goals. One of the best examples is Oprah. She was born in bad circumstances like poverty, abuse, and rape. She lost a baby at the age of 13. She had no links, no relationships or money and yet overcame all odds to be one of the most influential and richest women in the world today.

How? Because she had the mindset she could achieve anything in her life. Her vision was life beyond what she experienced as a child and one of abundance. So in the case of our example with a bad relationship, perhaps the person you wish to improve the relationship with isn’t willing to communicate at this particular moment. That is possibly the most important aspect of any relationship, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

If direct contact isn’t possible, indirect contact through mutual friends and acts of kindness are still possible. The point isn’t just to do these things and the situation will be resolved. There are always options available to you to make progress in fulfilling your vision.

4) Continue to make progress to be happy

Finally, not specifically a step Tony Robbins says as part of his tips, but one I’m adding because it’s something that’s important to feel happiness and satisfaction in life. That is, always continue to make progress with what you’ve begun. You see, in the case of our relationship example, if you repair a relationship but then don’t continue to grow and evolve that relationship, it will stagnate and end again.

Warren Buffet has had continued success because he’s progressed with the times and with his growth during the years that have passed. Cristiano Ronaldo continues to be one of the best in the world as he’s made small steps to improve his free kicks so that they aren’t too predictable and opposing teams continue to struggle to stop them despite studying his technique.

So to reiterate the strategy: 1) See things as they are 2) See things better than they are 3) Make things better than they are 4) Make Progress

Now, go out into the world, take action and follow these steps to achieve anything in life! So for today’s question of the day, I want to know what is the next thing you want to take ownership of, whether it’s your career, relationships, fitness, and health. Let me know in the comments section below.

Check out this post on changing your vibration.

As found on YouTube

[erbracelet]

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

New Post has been published on https://journeytoselfawakening.com/achieve-anything-in-life-with-4-steps/

Achieve Anything in Life with 4 Easy Steps

How to achieve anything in life

This post looks at 4 steps to achieve ANYTHING in life. The steps in this article come from Tony Robbins. We have laid out the tips below. Having the right mindset will help you achieve anything in life.

1) Patterns make people achieve anything in life or feel negative

Before we talk about mindset, tips or where you should focus when trying to do something, we need to understand how our perception plays a role in how we approach something. The world is made up of patterns and by understanding those patterns, we take control of our lives in the areas we want to.

So let’s take Warren Buffet as an example. Here is a man who understands financial patterns and specific patterns in investing that has allowed him to build his fortune. There’s a consistent strategy that he’s used in his life. Buffet made his money by repeating successful steps over and over again to get consistent results.

This isn’t just the case in the financial world, it works in all parts of life. Those who follow soccer know Cristiano Ronaldo. He is widely regarded as one of the best soccer players of all time and recognized for his work ethic. Now if you ever watch Ronaldo take a freekick, he goes through a routine. He repeats the same steps and strategy that works for him. He places the ball with purpose, steps back three to four paces and stands legs wide apart and straight up. He’ll also take the same run-up, roughly the same number of steps and runs at the ball at the same angle before finally kicking it.

The point is, he’s worked out a strategy that works for him taking free kicks, just as Warren Buffet uses the same strategy to assess possible investments. What works is repeated and usually when the same process is repeated, if the variables in play are relatively consistent, the results will be too. So how does this relate to the state of achieving anything in life? Well, you see what Warren Buffet and Cristiano Ronaldo do is they effectively prime themselves before they take action. They set themselves up for success by repeating the patterns that have worked for them.

Now let’s look at how you apply this. Think of a time when you were successful in life. What was your mindset at the time before you took action and were successful? My guess is you had belief and conviction you would do what you had to right? Now think of failure and do the same again. What was your mindset? This time, I’m guessing there were doubts and hesitation. Those moments you believed it would work out and it didn’t, you can point to specific moments that led to failure.

What you want to do is identify what worked and repeat the steps. If it was that you spent 10 minutes meditating at the start of the day to help you clear your mind, do it. If it was that you pumped yourself up by listening to motivating music, do it! The point is, repeat the steps of success and you can repeat the results. But from there, you also need to follow some key steps that will help you deal with any situation and approach it in a way that allows you to achieve success in the end.

2) Be yourself and live life on your terms to achieve anything in life

It’s important to note you have to live life on YOUR terms. Take ownership and be the leader of your life. If you fully believe and commit to what you want to do on your terms, then chances are they will be successful.

So own your life and then follow this strategy to achieve anything in life, which is:

1) See it as it is, not worse than it is. See the truth when you look at the situation, then be honest with yourself. What does this mean, see the situation for what it is and not for how you feel about it. That means, see what it is you want to solve then work towards that goal. Don’t make a change to something you aren’t satisfied with. See it for what it is! There may be something you want to change but don’t because it’s stressful and emotional. You see it as something bad when in reality it’s something that can be changed if you focus on what you want, not the perceived problem.

So let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a bad relationship with someone you care about. It might be a relationship that is irreparable. That might be the case but people don’t want the emotional stress of a bad relationship hanging over them. It feels like a massive weight on their shoulders. You might not be able to completely save this relationship if the other person doesn’t want the same.

At the very least, you can find a resolution or some form of closure on the relationship to move forward in life. It’s a case of acknowledging the truth, which is there might be a big issue. Acknowledge the reality that there could be ways to at least manage things to give both parties some closure and move on without the weight and stress in their lives.

2) See it better than it is to achieve anything in your life (set your standard)

The next step of the tips to achieve success in life is to see things better than they are. What does this mean? If we take our relationship example, I described the situation might be you have a bad relationship that you’re not sure is reparable. But at the very least there could be room for closure. That in itself would better than things staying as they are right? At least you get to move forward and not stay stuck under this emotional weight. However, let’s take it a step further, perhaps you can see the possibility of things in this relationship being repaired.

In this instance, if you want to repair the relationship, you have to have the vision to see what kind of relationship you want to make a reality. As with all goal setting, your vision has to be believed with absolute certainty. Believe it’s not only a possibility but an inevitability. So once you look at the problem and you have the vision of making it better, what’s next?

3) Make it better (resourceful, not resourcefulness)

It’s time to take action and make it better to achieve anything in life. Now at this point, some will say they haven’t got time, money or something else. However, here’s the truth, to quote Tony Robbins, it’s not a lack of resources, but a lack of resourcefulness. Think about it, how many people have come from impossible odds to achieve one’s goals. One of the best examples is Oprah. She was born in bad circumstances like poverty, abuse, and rape. She lost a baby at the age of 13. She had no links, no relationships or money and yet overcame all odds to be one of the most influential and richest women in the world today.

How? Because she had the mindset she could achieve anything in her life. Her vision was life beyond what she experienced as a child and one of abundance. So in the case of our example with a bad relationship, perhaps the person you wish to improve the relationship with isn’t willing to communicate at this particular moment. That is possibly the most important aspect of any relationship, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.

If direct contact isn’t possible, indirect contact through mutual friends and acts of kindness are still possible. The point isn’t just to do these things and the situation will be resolved. There are always options available to you to make progress in fulfilling your vision.

4) Continue to make progress to be happy

Finally, not specifically a step Tony Robbins says as part of his tips, but one I’m adding because it’s something that’s important to feel happiness and satisfaction in life. That is, always continue to make progress with what you’ve begun. You see, in the case of our relationship example, if you repair a relationship but then don’t continue to grow and evolve that relationship, it will stagnate and end again.

Warren Buffet has had continued success because he’s progressed with the times and with his growth during the years that have passed. Cristiano Ronaldo continues to be one of the best in the world as he’s made small steps to improve his free kicks so that they aren’t too predictable and opposing teams continue to struggle to stop them despite studying his technique.

So to reiterate the strategy: 1) See things as they are 2) See things better than they are 3) Make things better than they are 4) Make Progress

Now, go out into the world, take action and follow these steps to achieve anything in life! So for today’s question of the day, I want to know what is the next thing you want to take ownership of, whether it’s your career, relationships, fitness, and health. Let me know in the comments section below.

Check out this post on changing your vibration.

As found on YouTube

[cynthiajayusa]

Kelly Clarkson Talks Artistic Liberation, Confronting Anti-LGBT Parents

During her 15-year career as your friendly pop spirit-lifter, Kelly Clarkson has prescribed a cheap alternative to therapy: anthemic pick-me-ups like “Since U Been Gone” and “People Like Us,” songs that impel a transcendental, fist-raised state.

Late-night Facebook Live sessions are also her thing, and recently, the American Idol alum geeked out like she’d just won “Idol” all over again about her soulful rebirth, Meaning of Life, released on her new label, Atlantic Records. It was just Clarkson chillin’ on the couch with a glass of red wine that was much deserved, considering the artistic sacrifices she had to make post-“Idol,” when she felt creatively stagnate as a Top 40 machine for RCA Records. But aside from a fat glass of red, Clarkson has other strong urges too.

Due, in part, to her simply being so damn cool, Clarkson – who drowned the world in their own tears right along with her own as she was crowned the inaugural “Idol” winner in 2002 – tells me she feels so compelled to stick up for her LGBT besties she literally wants to go door-to-door and talk some sense into her friends’ homophobic parents.

Because her friends ask her not to, she doesn’t. But here, with the ever-outspoken and now-artistically-liberated Clarkson leaving almost no opinion unturned, the Texas native makes that point loud and clear. Before getting back to being a mom to River Rose, 3, and Remington Alexander, 1, as well as husband Brandon Blackstock’s kids Seth and Savannah from a previous relationship, Clarkson spoke like one. Even her simple “diva” request – a “pretty dress to sing in” – is enough to make you wish you were on that couch with her and a bottle of Pinot.

Mariah, P!NK, Kesha – so many female artists have gone through the creative struggles you have.

Oh, every artist. It’s so not unique in any way.

How good does it feel to finally be yourself artistically?

It just feels freeing to make an entire project and, in its entirety, I’m 100 percent excited about it. There wasn’t any compromise. It’s how I feel the creative industry should feel. There’s nothing like working on something you’re so proud of.

Please tell me you at least got a little sloppy at a gay club to celebrate the end of your contract with RCA.

(Laughs) Brother, I got four kids and a career, I ain’t got time to go to clubs! I’m rockin’ a 1-, 3-, 10- and 16 year-old, man. You know what club I go to? The club of playing board games with my family…which, actually, I love.

Plus, you have your farm just outside Nashville. You’ve got chickens to raise!

We’ve got our chickens, our honeybees, and our orchard. We love our farm.

Have you sent RCA Records head Clive Davis a copy of the album?

(Laughs) Be like, “This is what I was wanting to do this whole time!” Yeah, no. (Laughs) You know what’s so sad: I was so excited to work with him. You have no idea. He worked with so many of my favorites: Janis (Joplin), and he worked with Bruce Springsteen way back in the day. All these artists who were very innovative in their time, and I was so excited. That’s been one of the saddest points for me in this industry – just figuring out that someone I really look up to just was not what they seemed. That was a pretty big blow. I was pretty sad about that. Like, we don’t always need to meet our heroes.

In some ways, your story of artistic suppression is relatable to the LGBT community. As an ally, do you recognize that affinity?

Talking with my gay or lesbian friends over the years, I can’t imagine. I’ve always said I can’t imagine not being able to be myself in and out. And, yes, while I can relate a bit musically to feeling like you’re going over massive hurdles to try and get to a compromise that you’re happy with, that’s nothing in comparison to hearing my friends talk about (being gay), especially in the South where I grew up, and then the faith thing comes into play.

I had one friend wait, and this is the saddest thing ever: I don’t think she ever felt comfortable in her skin because her parents were older. So, they passed away and then she finally felt free. I thought, “What a horrible feeling to have to wait until people aren’t around to be yourself.” I could never ever relate to that. I feel horrible that anybody has to go through that. It’s almost like when people ask me about other artists who have all these shticks about them and I’m like, “Oh God that would weigh on me if I had to keep that up, if I had to keep doing shit to make everyone happy.”

Walking onto the stage in, like, a pretty dress to sing, that’s really the extent of my diva, or just my experience on the stage. I’ve always just been very simple. Even in situations, musically, where I really had to fight or jump through hoops, I still was able to be myself, which I think people didn’t like because I was very open. But I have to do that. I have to express myself. Literally, I would go in such a downward spiral of depression if I weren’t able to, and that’s why, honestly, a lot of friends, especially who are gay and lesbian, felt that way. I pray to God my children never have to feel that, that people around me don’t have to feel that. I always hope that I’m always the one person going, “If they’re upset about it, screw it. It’s your life. You can’t “not” be you. You can’t suffer just because you’re trying to make somebody else happy. That’s not a life.”

That sounds exactly like something Kelly Clarkson would say. And I wonder, as someone who has this large, far-reaching platform, what does it mean to you to be an LGBT ally, and when did you know you had the power to be one?

I always laugh at the concept that people are like, “We just love what you say; that’s why we love you,” and I’m like, “Why is everyone not like that?” That’s what boggles my mind. Why would you not say what you want to say?

(In our last interview you) asked me if my daughter or son, or any of the four, ended up being gay, how would I take that, and I’d be like, “Awesome!” Honestly, in a world that is so hateful sometimes, I don’t care where my kids find love. Hopefully with a loving and respectful and kind person, but I don’t care if they’re a boy or a girl. It just doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me.

I do want my children to fall in love with people who are loving, but I feel like our priorities are silly-ass backwards. Like, I want to go to my friends’ parents who just don’t want to talk about it. They know, but are like, “We just can’t talk about it,” which is so demeaning to their (children’s) existence. And I want to knock on their door – I don’t, because (my friends) ask me not to (laughs) – and be like, “Do you know you’re missing out on an exceptional human because you can’t get past your own ignorance? It’s just silly to me that you want to miss out.” I want to tell them, “I didn’t have a dad and it had nothing to do with me being gay – it had to do with, he was a shitty guy. And you have the opportunity now to not be that parent and embrace your child. That’s your DNA. You love your children. What’s wrong with you?” It just makes me so mad, more so than anything.

This past June, you helped two gay fans get engaged during one of your meet-and-greets.

Oh my gosh, it was exciting. But I was nervous! Like, what if he was gonna say no?! (Laughs)

How would you live that down?

Literally, before I was like, “Wait. I do not want to be put in this situation where this guy might say no. Are you sure he’s gonna say yes?” And he goes, “Well, I hope so!” He was nervous. I probably didn’t help any. (Laughs)

Do you hope gay couples just start routinely getting engaged in front of you?

I was like, “I need to get ordained!”

For the sake of gay couples everywhere, why are you not?

I don’t know if that would be authenticated! I don’t know if people would question that! One of our friends – my husband also manages Blake Shelton – was like, “I wanna marry y’all” and I was like, “I want it to be, like, credible. You don’t actually have a following, or a church!

I have a feeling people would go to the Church of KC. 

Oh, Lord, that would be a funny church.

So, as much as I love talking about music, it’s hard not to acknowledge the screwy state of the world during interviews these days.

Yeah, everything is obviously impacted by it.

How are you? I know you’ve always stood up for what you believe in, but in this politically divisive climate, do you feel an even greater responsibility to stand up for the things that are important to you?

The hard thing for me, specifically: I always hate when people bring up, “Oh, you’re a celebrity, you shouldn’t have an opinion.” The hard thing in that for me is, I’m not just that. I’m a mother, I’m a daughter, I’m a woman. And it took a long time and a lot of women to pioneer that way for me, to even have a voice. So, for me to not use that is so disrespectful to those before me who worked so hard for it. For me to not take advantage of that seems like a cruel irony.

Why would I not voice my opinion as a mother? Why can’t I say this is a really hard time to have a 10- and 16-year-old, guys? Because I don’t know what to tell them when they hear certain things on TV.  They’re smart enough to know what’s going on. I can’t hide them from that. So, it’s a very hard time to explain things away. It’s a very hard time to have the discussion about any kind of bigotry or racism or elitism. It’s a very hard time because a lot of things are happening that are making crazy, insane, irrational moments normal, and it’s a very hard time to raise kids in that environment. Forget me even being a celebrity. As a mother – just as a mother – it’s a very hard time.

I’m glad, at least, that everything is all coming to the forefront because it’s now pointing out – like, I had no idea we had white supremacists. I have never come across people like that. Not even as a child in a small town in the South, and even then, that town has blossomed and they’re more progressive now.

It’s 2017 – why are we still having these conversations? But we’re having them because they do exist, and it’s insane. It’s insane that somebody just doesn’t go, “Oh, I’m sorry, but yeah, we don’t want that here. You should go somewhere else. This is a country of many cultures, many faiths, and open-mindedness. That is why people came here.” It’s amazing to me that we just don’t have grown-ass men and women in the public eye of politics going, “Absolutely not. I’m not even having this conversation because that’s not even OK. There’s no way to validate what just happened.”

Reflecting on all your work for RCA: Which album are you most and least proud of?

The album I’m most proud of in that whole section is the Christmas album (2013’s Wrapped in Red), and that’s just because it was 100 percent me. It was Christmas and it was OK for me to make decisions (laughs). They let (producer) Greg (Kurstin) and I do whatever we wanted, so it was a lot easier to accomplish my goal with that album.

My least favorite? Man, I mean, maybe my least favorite was my first one (2003’s Thankful). I just say that because of the experience. I was very young and very excited about making a record. It was my first time doing all of that, and it was also my first time realizing, “This is gonna be really hard because there are so many cooks in the kitchen and they don’t care that you’re not allowed to be one.” It was my first experience in the industry going, “Oh, wait, this isn’t what I thought it was gonna be like.” So my ignorance led to that and me being young and excited, I guess. Not that I don’t love the album – it’s just that I didn’t love finding that out.

Do you ever get tired of singing your first single, 2002’s “A Moment Like This”?

I never sing it! Because the song wasn’t meant for me – it was meant for the winner. I never would’ve been like, “This is a great record” (laughs). I get the moment it was for. That was the perfect song for that moment. I totally address that, but that song doesn’t fit in my tour setlist.

It still takes me back every time I hear it.

Totally. The nostalgia. For me too. It was a beautiful moment. I’m very thankful and blessed for it. But it wasn’t a song that was meant for me. They just wrote it for whomever was gonna win, so that doesn’t make me feel special. (Laughs)

With Meaning of Life, your hair on the album cover is giving me some serious Mariah vibes.

That Drew Barrymore-to-the-side-’90s vibe, yeah – it’s completely calculated. (Laughs) I literally was like, “I want the hair for this album to be talking to God.” It fits with the record. It’s so sassy and confident and diva in the best sense, and so I really wanted that ’90s hair. All my inspiration photos were of ’90s hair. Whether it’s the artwork or the music, everything on this album is influenced by the ’90s, which was my favorite time in music.

From “Since U Been Gone” on through “People Like Us” and “I Have a Dream,” your anthems have been empowering to LGBT people. What song on this album do you hope becomes the next big gay anthem?

It’s always my gay boys who come up and go, “Oh my god, I love ‘Whole Lotta Woman.’” And it’s so funny, because I’m like, that is so ironic and amazing! (Laughs)

Based solely on the track’s name, not even the fact that it’s a celebratory anthem, you can’t possibly be that surprised.

(Laughs) Honestly, I didn’t think about it! But then we performed it impromptu at the “Today” show just for the audience there in New York – not for the televised show, just for the audience – and it was so funny because all the gay boys were dancing more than anyone, even more than the women! It was so fun. It’s such a fun audience that just loves sass and confidence, and I just love being surrounded by an audience with that kind of energy.

That song definitely shut downs, once and for all, your social-media shamers. What advice do you have for LGBT people who experience the bullying that you’ve experienced?

We have a 16-year-old girl and a grown-ass woman was being horrible to her. She was just being hateful and passive-aggressive online and I had to be real with (my daughter). I said, “This is gonna happen so often, so this would be a good time to learn to take the high road. Block them or whatever you want to do to not see it, if you don’t want to see it.”

Bullying is gonna happen, so we tell our kids, “That’s gonna happen. I can’t protect you from that. There’s nothing we can do about that. There are no bullying cops.” It’s an epidemic that’s horrible and it needs to be addressed, but at the same time, when you have kids coming to you, I just have to teach her to rise above it.

It’s one of those things I always describe to fans, too, in meet-and-greets because they always ask, “How are you so confident?” It’s because, at the end of the day, I really don’t care about anyone’s opinion but mine and the people I know who love me and really do want the best for me. You can’t base your entire existence and every decision off how people are gonna feel about it. That’s a giant check list; there’s a lot of us. (Laughs) So, just be happy with your decisions, and sometimes know you’re gonna be successful and sometimes you’re gonna fail. And whatever. At least you were steering your ship.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/11/30/kelly-clarkson-talks-artistic-liberation-confronting-anti-lgbt-parents/ from Hot Spots Magazine http://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2017/11/kelly-clarkson-talks-artistic.html

[thirteenthanda]

3 Mistakes NOT To Make In Your Morning Routine

Mary is a private coaching client of mine. She’s an ambitious, single mom who recently left her corporate job to launch a small business. She’s definitely in “startup mode.”

You can probably relate to Mary’s hopes and dreams of becoming financially free and living life on her terms, while building a business that helps people and supports her goal of traveling the world.

If you can, that means you probably also share one of her fatal flaws. Mary is a Type-A personality and she takes on too many commitments and responsibilities. She says “yes” to every opportunity that comes her way because she’s worried she might miss out on a connection, a breakthrough, or a deal.

Mary even takes this approach with her morning routine. She’s heard how important it is to do meditation, to take time for gratitude journaling, to exercise, to do yoga, to do free-form journaling (writing down all of her thoughts), and to watch a motivational video first thing in the morning.

As you can imagine, this morning routine takes a lot of time. Frustrated with this busy-ness, Mary recently emailed me.

“Craig,” she said, “I get up at 5 a.m. to get things done, and I still feel like I’m running behind by 7 a.m. when my daughter gets up. Once I get her breakfast and off to school, it’s nearly 9 a.m. and I don’t get through my email until nearly 10 a.m. By then I’m ready to go back to bed.”

Mary wasn’t making any progress on her routine, so I proposed a drastic solution.

“It’s time to put some of your morning routine on the chopping block,” I said.

Bruce Lee said, “It’s not about the daily increase but the daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

If you want to do GREAT things, you need to do FEWER things.

“Mary,” I said in my follow-up email to her, “Stop trying to do so much first thing in the morning. You can’t do meditation, gratitude journaling, a long workout, personal development reading, motivational video-watching, Instagramming, and yoga (or yoga while Instagramming!) all before breakfast. You need to cut some of these activities and focus on what matters, saving you time and stress.”

For example, I offered, here’s what I do in the morning to ensure that I move toward my big goals and dreams each day:

I wake up. I go to the bathroom. I splash water on my face, walk down the stairs, pet the dog for 30 seconds, and then sit down in front of my computer. I turn it on, put on my writing music (Chopin’s “Complete Nocturnes”), and open up a Word document with my most important daily writing task.

Then I sit there and do the work. Or as Brian Tracy says in his book of the same name, “I eat that frog.”

This is what Mary should do. This is what YOU should do.

If you are struggling to complete the most important tasks in your day—whether it’s writing a chapter for your book, doing your taxes, or preparing that PowerPoint presentation for the marketing team—you should wake up and get to work as soon as possible.

Some professionals, like authors Steven Pressfield and Stephen King, go through a non-work morning ritual before they sit down to work at 9 a.m. sharp. Pressfield, in his book, “The War of Art,” talks about going for a morning hike before returning to his house, putting on his writing uniform (his favorite sweatshirt), and sitting down at his computer to write. King also begins writing at 9 a.m. and sits there as long as it takes to complete his daily word allotment (2,000 words).

I don’t share the same routines as King and Pressfield (aside from writing in my favorite sweatshirt), but I do engage in morning rituals. As the owner of a coaching business—with many employees and clients to manage and connect with each day—my morning gets busy with phone calls and emails by 10 a.m. That’s why I must write before the sun—and civilization—rises.

If you want to do GREAT things, you need to do FEWER things.

Right now it’s nearly 5 a.m. and I’ve nearly eaten my frog. It wasn’t tasty—not at all. It was tough. My mind wandered, and my fingers wanted to dance over to the mousepad and open up the browser to check sports scores—a bad habit I picked up as a bored child on the farm.

Knowing my weaknesses, I designed a system to ensure my Perfect Mornings. When you control your morning, you own your day. When you own your day, you take big leaps toward success and creating your legacy, and that’s what “The Perfect Day Formula” is all about. (Click here to get a FREE copy of this life-changing book.)

But if you clutter your morning with the unessential—if your routine becomes about the daily increase rather than the daily decrease—you find frustration, struggles, and stagnation in your business, your career, and nearly every area of life.

This brings us back to Mary.

“Mary, you’re doing too much,” I said to her. “Just imagine what you could you do with an extra 15-20 minutes in the morning when you could focus on real work. We need to cut down on your morning self-care rituals. You just don’t have time for everything.”

So, I suggested these three things Mary could cut to ensure maximum productivity in her mornings (and they work for everyone):

First, don’t do redundant “New Age” activities.

Meditation, gratitude exercises, and journaling are all wonderful, helpful activities—in theory. But if they are taking up more than 20 minutes of your morning and you’re struggling to get other things done, then they are having the opposite of their intended effect.

My friend, business partner, and coaching client, Bedros Keuilian, recognized this. He tried to do meditation and gratitude journaling in the morning, and it just left him stressed. Neither felt natural to him. He decided that instead of forcing these activities into his schedule that he would simply get up, take his dog Cookie outside, and do a quick little gratitude exercise (one that he made up) while playing fetch with Cookie.

After 10 minutes, Bedros goes back inside, has a protein shake, and sits down to work on his biggest priority for the day. He usually has this completed before his kids wake up. Then his family has breakfast together and he sees them off before heading to the gym. He’s happy, productive, and grateful—not overextended like Mary.

Second, cut back on your morning exercise.

I made a career out of showing people they could get the same physical and mental benefits from short bursts of exercise as they can with long bouts of exercise. You don’t need a full hour in the gym. You can dramatically cut the length of your exercise routine, save time, and give those minutes to what matters in your business. I encourage you to start today. Instead of spending 60 minutes in the gym, cut back to 40 minutes. [Here are some helpful videos to get you started.]

Third, don’t do anything else until you’ve given 15 minutes of focused work to the number-one priority in your business.

For Mary, that means preparing for her daily sales calls. After taking my advice, she has been able to modify her sales scripts and practice her “close” out loud. This has quickly led to an increase in the number of converted prospects—without mad scrambles or jumbled sales calls.

Making these three changes eased the stress in Mary’s mind. She still felt inner peace and enjoyed good health from her self-care routine in the morning, but no longer felt rushed.

Hacking away at the unessential, and thus doing fewer things, allowed her to do GREAT things. Her business started growing faster. She was able to be present with her daughter during a leisurely breakfast rather than rushing her to get ready. Mary’s sales calls went smoother and her clients noticed a calmer demeanor in their interactions.

My challenge to you today is this: What is one activity that you could cut or stop in your morning routine that would save you 10-20 extra minutes and make a BIG difference in your life?

Put that on the chopping block.

Hack away so you can do greater things today.

by Craig 

[musingsofprogress]

The only way to end this is to end life

Everyone says family will always have your back and they will always support you.

But mine made my life miserable right from the start. When my parents made me pick a side whenever they fought (nearly everyday) and when they endlessly pit me against my brother and I'm deemed inferior for the gender I was born into. When they developed a blame culture where every single misfortune which happened to me was solely my fault and I deserved all of it.

I used to tell my mum everything but I stopped in primary school after I realised that confiding in her leads to a scolding about how I deserved everything that happened to me from betrayals from friends to being targeted by bullies. There was no comfort and I only felt worse afterwards.

After leaving him, I'm an emotional wreck and I have to put up a front of being fine even at home. I can't even grieve in peace in my own room. The parents practice a double standard where they respected my brother's privacy while utterly ignoring mine.

Today, I'm so tired after a long day at work and trying to be healthy through steady exercise. I just to lie down and work through my conflicting emotions still raging within me. My mother kept demanding that I show her the process of deleting items from the SD card even though I had patiently walked her through it numerous times before. I ended up running back and forth the computer room and doing the whole deletion myself.

It's like this every time. I spoonfeed her the information and she expects it without making an effort to learn. Then when I tell her that, she plays the baby boomer card where she passive-aggressively says her generation had a real life outside of technology.

I then went to my room to get quiet time. She barges in and pressures me to shut down the computer for her even though she has done it herself so many times before. She claims it's different this time around.

I suspect my mother is losing her cognitive ability after years of stagnation. She has been forgetting more and more things in recent years from how to spell simple words to shared memories. I did warn her about dementia before and why she needs to take care of her mind. She would either ignore it or say that it's a natural part of aging (dementia is not). Once I think I struck a nerve and age snapped at me, telling me not to bother as she wouldn't count on me to care for her in old age.

My father is a lost cause, being a misogynistic alcoholic who is also a spendthrift. Now that my brother, their pride and joy is married and has his own family now, the responsibility of caring for their dysfunction falls to me, the single second child.

Neither parent would heed my words due to my gender and my lack of academic achievements. I'm a degree holder, just like my brother, but I studied in a private overseas university locally while he studied overseas, courtesy of a local university. In my parents' eyes, he will always be better than me.

The future is bleak. I'm a long way from finding my passion career wise. I have no support at home. More often than not, my distress ends up compounded at home by my parents' toxic relationship. My friends all have their own lives to get with. They can only offer a few words of acknowledgement here and now via text. I'm struggling to pick up what's left of me after the boy I thought was my forever person turned out to be emotionally abusive.

I highly doubt I will meet someone who can love me as deeply I can love. Me, a plain, unfeminine person with no talents. If my own family cannot love what they made, who can? So I'm trying to change myself step by step.

I make time to learn new things everyday, to better myself. I'm trying to be positive. I want to get healthy, so I'm trying to lose weight and get fit. I want to be confident, to be less socially awkward. First impressions count, so I'm trying to dress better, to look better.

I'm trying to survive. To be stronger after this abusive relationship of lies and deceit. But all of this is exhausting. I'm running on fumes every day, on motivational quotes and the occasional generic encouragements "I know what you're going through, and it's normal" from friends.

No matter how dysfunctional an upbringing I had, I cannot abandon family. I will be their primary caretaker and provide for them financially as well, since the sole breadwinner is financially irresponsible. And I'll continue an unloved existence, nobody's first priority, because of how I am compared to everyone else.

I always thought that being an adult with your own money would open doors to achieving dreams. But it's all circumstantial.

I'm exhausted. I'm too weak to last the long way to happy. A destination I don't even know exists for me. I want to lie down and never wake up again. At least then, my death would enable my family to get some insurance money to live off. And the toil would end, along with this terrible agony of absent love and betrayal.

[drshackletonandthecity]

Choosing a Specialty: A Letter to a Medical Student

Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH

Part 1

Dear friend,

You asked whether you should consider psychiatry as a specialty, as opposed to another discipline of medicine. As I write to you, I think about my own children, and how I would answer a similar question from them, knowing that in just a few years, I will have to do so.

So, I have reflected on your question carefully.

When you ask me whether you should enter psychiatry, your question also becomes whether I would go into psychiatry once again, knowing what I know now. Most people will tell you to enter their profession for that reason. They are justifying their own decisions. Their reply to you is a means of reassuring themselves.

I'm not going to answer your question that way. I'm going to try give you the truth as I see it now, realizing that it isn't how I saw it 20 years ago when I entered this profession, and it may not be how I'll see it in 20 years when I leave.

Let's begin with a practical matter; let's be honest about it. Deciding on a profession, even medicine, isn't all about the ethics and ideals that we write in our medical school applications. A key factor is that the profession provides money: It allows you to make a living. There's nothing wrong with that motivation. The question to think about is how much that motivation matters.

Making a living is not a dishonorable reason to decide to go into a line of work. Most everyone has to make a living. Most everyone has to find a way to pay bills. There are two ways to pay bills: increase your income, or reduce your expenses. There is much to commend the latter approach. Emerson said of Thoreau: He made himself rich by making his wants few.

The problem with this Thoreauvian solution is that modern society will impose itself upon you at some point. It may be through a tax bill, or a nasty next-door denizen, or a lawsuit, or an illness. At some point, you will need to respond to an unfriendly world, and if you have money available to you, you will respond more effectively than if you don't.

So there is something to be said for making an income, and as much as you can make while still laying your head to sleep at night without massive worry.

You should ask yourself: Is your main purpose in choosing this line of work to make a living? If it is, then you should know it is, and don't put too much effort or care into worrying about the work. It isn't your main purpose in life. Your main purpose in life could be your marriage, or your children, or your larger family. Or it could be another activity other than your main paid work, such as writing, or art, or music, or faith.

I used to criticize the average psychiatrist for just making a living—I didn't see them motivated deeply in their work—until one of my friends pointed out that it doesn't make sense to criticize the average person for being average. I wanted the typical psychiatrist to practice above the standard, but then that average psychiatrist would be at a new standard. I realized that I was asking more of the typical human being than a typical human being can be.

But it's true that everyone needs a main purpose in life. Otherwise, it's hard for our lives—brief as they are, and with a definite beginning and end—to have any meaning. This purpose need not be a "great" thing; it isn't minor to have a good marriage relationship or a happy family. Those "simple" things in life aren't simply attained, nor are they even common.

This question of meaning is very important, and something to consider deeply. It matters perhaps more than any other consideration.

The other approach would be to make your work your main meaning in life—to unite your avocation and your vocation. This is where, in the case of medicine, Osler said that it's a "calling." The other major callings have always been law, the ministry, and teaching. Some are called to heal, some to teach, others to preach, or to implement just laws.

Many claim it, but few are called. You can tell the difference in two ways. When you are called, you don't choose. You just know. You don't have an option. Every fiber in your body tells you that you must do this work; you can't do any other. And when you're called, you don't change your mind; you don't compromise; in fact, you sacrifice. Many people claim to have a passion for a line of work—they want to contribute to scientific research, they want to publish, they want to teach—but at the first (or second or third) sign of the world's inevitable resistance, they give in, and return to the safer path of making a living.

Look deep inside yourself; meditate on it; interrogate your deepest yearnings. Are you deeply called to do this line of work? If you are, you'll know it. If you doubt it, either you aren't called, or you haven't gotten in touch with your deepest feelings.

You ask about psychiatry as opposed to another branch of medicine. Let me tell you a few things about psychiatry, which you may already know, or perhaps sense.

Psychiatry is the least medical of medical branches. Some celebrate this fact, others rue it; some deny it; many refuse to come to terms with it. It's acceptable in a way, if by "medicine" we mean biological aspects of physical diagnosis and treatment, because psychiatry deals sometimes with the mostly physical and sometimes with the mostly psychological.

But psychiatry is medical, in the sense of dealing with diseases (whether mental health professionals want to admit this reality or not). The problem with that medical aspect of psychiatry is that the field is ambivalent about it. The diagnoses found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) are created as social constructions, as preferences of the profession—not solely, or even primarily, as scientifically based definitions. For two decades, our profession has bound itself to these social constructions and pretended that they were scientific facts. This has been proven a lie, but we are unwilling to admit our self-deception.

This is nothing new. Before DSM's hegemony began in 1980, psychiatry had self-deceived itself with psychoanalytic orthodoxy for about half a century.

Do you want to enter a field that engages in such deep self-deception, and doesn't mind? Not just my career, but those of at least four prior generations, have passed this way. This process could easily continue for another generation or two at least. Are you willing to let your entire career pass under its sway?

You can fight it. You can make it your passion to try to raise psychiatry up and move it forward when all the influence of the status quo holds it back. Are you willing to spend your entire career fighting the powers that be? You may become a hero for future generations, if you succeed in the process of change in the long run, but that posthumous adulation will do nothing for your personal happiness in this life.

You may not care; perhaps you will ignore the larger profession's delusions, and practice well in your little corner of the world. Perhaps you'll do psychotherapy and enjoy helping people dealing with the basic struggles and stages of life. That's good work, and important. And if it's your calling, it's worth doing. But know that you'll be doing it in a larger context that's inimical to your purposes.

Society punishes those who improve it. Emerson observed this fact when he gave up a promising Christian ministry career to instead minister to all of mankind. Don't expect awards and accolades from the psychiatric profession for bettering it. The awards go to those who maintain the status quo, not to those who change it. Freud never won a Nobel prize; they gave it to the fellow who introduced frontal lobotomy.

The above dilemmas don't apply to the rest of medicine. There are no DSMs as diagnostic straightjackets in any medical specialty except psychiatry. There is no other discipline that has mostly thrown out what it believed for most of the past century. In other specialties, you can work with the mainstream, rather than constantly swim against it.

If you want to make a living, the other specialties will provide an easier life than psychiatry. If you have a calling, you may help psychiatry, but it still will make your life difficult.

Part 2

Let me give you a few anecdotes that will give some personal background for my thoughts.

When I was in medical school, I had an oncology fellow who took a liking to me. When he found out I planned to go into psychiatry, he became very upset. You're wasting your talents, he said. He was disgusted. I just assumed he was wrong, thinking that I could do even more good in a backward field such as psychiatry than I could in a more advanced field such as oncology.

Twenty-five years later, I think he may have been right. I thought I could just get into psychiatry, do good work, and join many others who wanted to push the field forward, and we would all progress together. I didn't realize that so many people work at cross-purposes—that much of the work I did would be resisted and negated by other colleagues working equally hard against me. We weren't working together; we worked against each other. So the field stagnated, and my own efforts produced much less fruit than I anticipated.

Another anecdote: I went to see a faculty member in my residency, a well-regarded researcher, who would later become a leader in a department, an endowed chair at Harvard. He was a success by all conventional standards. I remember asking him about his work. I realized that although he had published a great deal, nothing much was coming of his research in terms of any breakthrough or truly important outcome. He replied that his work still mattered because it was part of the larger efforts of many other people. Perhaps their results weren't major, but they added up in the larger process of science. In retrospect, I was thinking of Kuhn's revolutionary science, and he was referring to what Kuhn called "normal science," when small advances are made bit by bit. One spends a lifetime in research and achieves very little in fact, and yet is rewarded handsomely.

Awards and rewards aren't given for great achievements, as society claims, but for small ones. I've come to the conclusion that conventional success isn't real success, even on conventional grounds.

A final anecdote: In residency, my closest friend was devoted to research. He had a wife and small child, and worked long hours. He spent many hours in the library, in the old pre-Internet days, photocopying page after page of hundreds of journal articles, drawn from large heavy books on dusty stacks. He worked while he was on call, in between appointments during the day, and at night. He produced an incredible scientific article, a meta-analysis on outcomes in schizophrenia, that was on the cover of the American Journal of Psychiatry, our most prestigious journal. He was poised to continue such excellent work in a long career. He tried for about two decades, rising to become a department chair. But then he got brain cancer and passed away in his 40s, with three children. In the meantime, his research hadn't progressed much farther than when he had started.

I often wondered why progress was so slow. It took me two decades to realize that besides the conflicting ideologies of our field, there was the current ideology of the DSM, which is inherently unscientific. The DSM was and is a social construction, as I said, created by the profession for its own social purposes. When we make up our phenotypes for social, economic, and professional purposes, why should genetics, biology, neuroimaging, pharmacology, and even psychotherapies correlate with it?

I realized that the efforts of my friend and of the Harvard mentor, and my own efforts, all were doomed from the start because we were using DSM definitions that didn't correlate with reality. I thought I had made an important discovery, and that others would agree with me as soon as they understood it. To my surprise, my critique was resisted strongly and harshly by the leaders of our profession. I was saddened to come to the conclusion that most of our psychiatric leaders, including prominent researchers, didn't care. They would rather maintain the status quo than make changes that are needed if we really want to live up to our proclaimed ideals of scientific progress.

That's when I realized that maybe the oncology fellow was right. I hadn't realized that my efforts wouldn't combine smoothly with those of others to push our field forward, but rather that my work would be like flowing water, dispersed by large boulders of resistance, into small rivulets that turn sideways and end weakly in infertile soil.

Things look different in middle age than they do in earlier years and, I understand, than they look in later years. When you are starting out, around age 30, twenty years seems like a long time. And you expect to get important things done by age 50. A decade moves quickly, and then another, and then you are 50, with 20 years behind you reminding you of your goals of yesterday, and 20 years ahead of you reminding you that time will run out. At age 50, you will have mastered your work, you will know what is right and what is wrong in your profession, and you will have ideas about how to fix things. You just won't have much time.

Part 3

By the time you've mastered your profession and completed your lifelong education, you may find that your time has run out. So said the depressed Henry Adams. Maybe it's not as bad as he thought, but he had an insight.

That's how it all looks at middle age, but the optimism of youth has a twin in the optimism of old age, because once you get into the latter years of your career, you'll find that some of your younger colleagues will value you more. Your old enemies will have withered away, and the world will listen to what you have to say. You won't be able to storm the barricades yourself, but you'll direct the younger ones on where to go and what to do. The only final blow: You won't be there to see the victory. Like Moses, you may not make it to the Promised Land; only Joshua will.

This is what change in psychiatry feels like. It's glacially slow, if it happens at all.

All these comments are based on one assumption—that the past predicts the future, that the next 20 years will be like the last 20, and the next 50 years will be like the last 50. I think this is a fair assumption, because human nature doesn't change. But it is possible that other social or economic factors may drive changes in the psychiatric profession that are unpredictable. It may be that smartphones and new technology will speed up change, promoting new ways of thinking and an end to the old. But maybe not.

So there is psychiatry for you, riddled with ideologies for two centuries, stultified by the conservative instincts of human nature. People prefer the status quo to change. Our ideals are mouthed and empty. We don't really want scientific progress, or to discover the causes of mental illnesses, much less cure them. What we really want is for things to stay the same.

I realize that these criticisms apply outside of psychiatry; I'm sure they apply in obstetrics to some extent, and in cardiology, and in dermatology as well. I know they apply in other professions, and in society at large, certainly in our political life. Some will say that all professions are corrupt; this may be correct. I'm not singling out psychiatry as uniquely different in this regard, but there is a matter of more and less. Psychiatry is plagued deeply by its self-deception.

To put it another way, relevant to all professions and all of life, but especially to psychiatry:

It's an unjust world. How will you live in it?

You have three options. The first is passive acquiescence; this is what a normal, mentally healthy person does. Most of us conform to the world as we find it. Go along to get along. Join the mainstream. Accept the status quo. Kiss up, kick down. This is normal, because conformism is the virtue most rewarded by society. The world will leave you alone at worst, and applaud you at best. But you'll leave it as unjust as you found it.

The second option is violent resistance; by "violent," I don't mean just physical acts, but verbal and mental ones. You resist the world's unfairness, but you are angry and bitter. You defend the weak by hurting the strong, but you create enemies all around. You may do some good, but you'll die by the sword, and after you, your enemies' children will fight your children.

The third approach is nonviolent resistance; by "nonviolent," I mean that you fight your enemies, but you don't hate them. You're not angry, you're a "happy warrior;" you seek not to defeat, but to persuade; and if you can't persuade, to simply stop evil without harming the evildoer. You may not persuade your enemies, but their children and grandchildren will come around to your view. You'll leave the world a better place.

If you seek to take the hard road, I advise you to be careful, and learn the methods of nonviolent resistance. Study Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, not because their lives were happy (they weren't), but because they left a legacy of progress which millennia of history failed to provide. It's the same in the profession as in larger society: We've been fighting each other for centuries, without meaningful progress, because we've either been violent in mind and word, or we've been passively acquiescent. The third road is the hardest for the person, but the best for the world.

As for you, look into your soul. Don't be shy. Be honest. Be brutal.

I have thought that Nietzsche got it right: One way of understanding these matters is think of our task in life as becoming who we are. You are someone; it may take your life for that someone to unfold. You do well to become who you are, rather than to deny yourself, or distort yourself, or never to get to know yourself. You don't really know who you are right now, but you have an inkling. And over time, that inkling can grow until you are more and more confident in yourself.

Freud had another insight into it. He said that in decisions of great importance—such as choosing a career, or whom to marry—he found that it was best to go with one's inner instinct, with a sense of what's right that might be difficult to explain or defend. This intuitive approach is more accurate, he thought, than purely rational calculations, because it puts you in touch with your deepest needs. So as you look into your soul, pay closest attention to your intuitive feelings, even if you can't explain them.

It isn't a fault to want to live a quiet life. You don't need to be a hero. If you want to make a living, make a living in that field which will provide you the least daily hassle. Then follow your dreams outside of your profession. Make a living however you find most profitable, but find the passion of life elsewhere. Look into what gives you meaning, what you think will give your life its deepest meaning. Put your efforts there.

If you feel a deeper calling within the profession, follow it, but prepare yourself for the resistance of the world. Find your solace inside yourself, not outside. And know then that you are like the saints of old, but in a different era, doing God's work in a world where gods no longer are recognized.