How to be unique in a world that favors the ordinary.
My high school experience was a shitshow. All the good teachers had already left to work at the school across town when I started attending, so all that was left were incompetent teachers with an even smaller understanding of who their students needed them to be.
Without the responsibility and loyalty of qualified teachers, teenagers were spreading rumors daily and getting into countless fights, arguments, and the habit of bullying. No one was there to stop the power-hungry, attention-craving teenagers, so there were no repercussions for their actions.
The bystanders didn’t seem to have the courage to stand up for…
Hint: follow your dreams and learn to accept uncertainty.
We all learn as kids not to touch fire, not to talk to strangers, and avoid unnecessary risks. We grow up with the knowledge that there’s potential danger hiding behind every corner, and as a result, we become afraid to live.
Consequently, we stick to what’s safe. Tried and true methods, traditional life paths. Go to school, get an education, find a well-paying job, settle down and build a family. But living this mainstream idealism of a ‘perfect life’ while fighting an internal battle about what we truly want to be doing with our lives isn’t an uncommon situation.
On self-acceptance and overcoming insecurities.
I used to feel insanely insecure about anything I did and everything I saw when I looked into the mirror. Being in my early teens with only one friend and a newly resurfaced anxiety disorder, my mind pulled everything about me into one category — ‘dislike’.
A question that frequently pops into an insecure person’s mind is “what if…” What if I had hair like her? What if I had abs like him? What if I didn’t make that decision? What if I had just been good at something?
Insecure people search for reasons to dislike themselves to avoid other…
The real reason people give up.
“Happiness requires struggle. It grows from problems”
— Mark Manson
Our identity is always changing — it solidifies with age. Until we take our very last breath, our ideals, values, goals, and dreams are constantly and unexpectedly changing.
When we’re young with no real-life experience, all we’ve got to guide us in the direction of any semblance of happiness are our childhood dreams drawn from storybooks and stereotypes.
People, experiences, and values shape us into who we are. During our hunt for clarity, the only guarantee we can hold onto is death. We might never reach our goals or discover…
The confusing and mysterious world of negativity explained.
Pain and suffering can range from a complex mix of unexplainable emotions that feel insurmountable, to straightforward and uncomplicated annoyances generated from simple misunderstandings.
Acknowledging the wide range of emotions and coping mechanisms that vary from individual to individual requires a basic understanding of where emotions come from and how to process them.
Unbearable loss and a sibling’s theft of the last biscuit undeniably create a whirlwind of different emotions with varying intensity, both of which are unpleasant. Both can feel like hell on earth to different people with different personalities, values, experiences, and ages.
However, we don’t have to…
On standing up for yourself and accepting that not everyone is worth your time
“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” says psychology professor James Uleman, Ph.D. “In spite of the congeniality of many professional gatherings, judgments are being made, and impressions formed all the time.”
We have no control over what opinion first impressions create, and maybe that’s a reason why we think someone dislikes us without cause — perhaps they just got the wrong impression. Their body language, facial expression, greetings, and looks can make us feel unwelcome and sometimes even despised.
If our friendship with a coworker seems one-sided or lukewarm, it might mean that their friendliness…
How to find value in pain and realize how restricting regret is.
To some extent, we all hold on to the past. I know I have memories I would rather forget. But the thing about memories is that they become blurry with time. We lose focus on the truth and subconsciously change the narrative.
I’ve even tried to convince myself that my negative memories were just nightmares, something I made up, something I could forget about. But in the back of my mind, I always knew the memories weren’t fictional. And I’ve come to learn that that’s not a bad thing. It’s an incredible thing.
Instead of trying to rewrite history, we…
How planning every detail will set you back instead of launching you forward.
I told myself I couldn’t become a writer online because I didn’t know where to start. I convinced myself that I needed someone to tell me what to do and guide me in the right direction.
But in my search for answers to all the unanswered questions I had piled up in my mind, my stress levels were following the same pattern. Everything was stacking up, and I wasn’t getting any wiser. So I decided to step away from my problem and take a break from my diligent searching.
That was when I stumbled across a book called Relentless: From…
What to think about when writing an article, and why it matters
There is no secret to forming a skilfully written first sentence. The pressure to combine a few words to create a captivating, engaging, and unique opening sentence can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Because of this stress, I often save my opening sentence till last, unless I already have the perfect one in mind. As long as we keep our readers in mind, focus on what we are writing and the approach we want to take, we can rarely go wrong.
All writers are familiar with the fact that the title is the most crucial part of any article or blog post…
I stopped being a perfectionist when I realised perfection doesn’t exist.
We’ve all made questionable choices in our life. I used to be the type of person searching for ‘perfection’ rather than settling for ‘good enough’.
Our decisions are often a reflection of our personality, and there are two roads to choose from. Perfectionists like being challenged by their options. They strive to find superior solutions to their previous ideas. They refuse to settle for their first choice and aim for the best results, no matter what it takes to get there.
The rest of us prefer the comfortable, straight-forward road that often includes our first ideas. We don’t like over-complicating…
Ella Pearson
Thinker of thoughts, dreamer of dreams, writer of words. Passionate about personal development and kindness. Doing what I can to help and inspire others.
