Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise. — Frank Ocean

You cannot live alone on the fantasies you feed to your mind, eventually you have to touch your life for real, assess and analyze your habits, understand your character, try not to hate yourself for your character as it was shaped when you were very young by circumstances outside of you, and begin learning how to cope with your character, how to build habits that work for you, finish small projects, finish big projects, expose yourself to more uncomfortable situations, assess why you want to leave that friendship before you leave it, raise your anxiety levels on purpose, so that you can grow, raise your work load on purpose, so that you can grow, so that you can build resilience, so that your life expands, and can be experienced by you in full and in reality.

I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it. — Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1964

romanticize your life. i cannot stress this enough. use scented shower gel and shampoo, so you look forward to showers. go on walks and see how pretty the sky looks. notice the wildflowers on the roadside as you drive. light a candle when you get home to make your room smell good. notice & appreciate the little things in life. it won't cure your mental illness, but it'll make it easier to exist in this world.

most of the time, your embarrassing moments were long forgotten. you’re less awkward than you really feel. people project their bad day onto you, it’s not personal. no one is judging you badly, let alone as badly as you judge yourself. most of the time, negative & anxious thoughts aren’t true, and you're more loved than you feel.

Stop worrying about normal ass nothing people judging your cool weird ass.

“Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.” — Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims