took me like 7-9 months of refusing to shame or coerce myself into doing things (ie exercise when I didnโt feel like it) before I truly grokked this in my bones โ discipline can be one of the highest forms of self love
so actually the ppl in my friend group who are consistently the happiest is this group of dudes who do little/no inner work but have a vibrant group chat, hang out nearly every wkd, and randomly passive FaceTime each other for hours everyday and idk they might be onto something
my theory for why certain activities (taking a walk, weightlifting, chatting w a friend, etc) have such a drastic impact on mental state โ we're so digitally disembodied 90% of our waking hours that anything that reminds us we're a human inside a body feels incredibly resonant,
never underestimate the power of a good flailing period; when i quit corporate in 2020 i spent many months moseying about, staring into the void, trying new things/failing, etc. the lessons i learned in that time period were invaluable. doing nothing is not doing nothing
one of the most important dating/compatibility traits to look for imo is desired rate of growth; even if you start out in similar places + have similar values, if one person's picking things up way faster than the other it creates an inevitable delta that can be hard to overcome
i read somewhere that one of the biggest psychological pitfalls is that we unconsciously interpret discomfort as "i'm doing something wrong" when the truth may be that you're simply doing something *new*
i rly think that one of the most useful prompts to understand the state of nearly anything in your life (whether career/romantic relationship or a conversation you're having) is as simple as: Am i still having fun?
girls just want one thing, and itโs an interdependent multigenerational village built on mutual trust and respect where the kids run free, the food fully nourishes, and the people care deeply for the earth, each other, themselves
to be clear, this is not a dunk whatsoever on inner work. i think it's incredibly important and am hugely passionate about it
this is more a call to zoom out and remember that friendship is often one of the the most potent psychotechnologies of all :)
my hot take of the day is that existing frameworks and theories around attachment lag far, far behind how relationships have evolved in the digital age
for me, anxious/avoidant/fearful no longer capture the intricacies of how tech has upended how we relate to others