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one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

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finally decided to draw again, hopefully I'll have some more to share

here is a halloween painting I made for someone

happy late halloween & spooky season

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Masks are kind of hot actually

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favorite genre of posts

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Sometimes we get so frustrated that life isn't giving us what we want, what we are constantly looking for. It can sound like an empty thing, but I am coming to accept that the real way to happiness is not to seek but to give, continuously give.

Nothing is ever guaranteed for us, but we can create a consistent path to meaning and fulfilment when we give without expecting in return.

Don't put yourself or stay in dangerous and draining situations, but treat all with kindness, deserving or not. Trust that good things will come back to you because the universe, because God, because whatever you choose to believe in has got your back. That there is someone out there who cares or will care about you too.

Remember that you are your home, and that on the days where life seems to have abandoned you and you feel run dry, that you have all that you need and all you will ever need right where you are, at home.

Life isn't fair, and the best thing you can do for yourself is to fight against the compelling despair, stop seeking, start creating. No one has ever made a change by doing what everyone else was already doing. Be brave, step out, be different. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Life is scary, but you'll be okay. You're not alone in your journey.

Keep your mind open, your wants dear, but allow no one to be an excuse not to let your light shine. Brighten someone else's day even when you can't see your own path ahead. It will come back to you in time.

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Never!!!!!!!!!!!!!

biggest april fool’s scare of my fucking life

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okay yes but can I have his number tho 👀👉👈

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This is a bold thing to admit here, maybe unwise thing to admit. But few people here know me and few people follow me in the first place, and of those who do, few get online. And so I needed to get this out. Might delete it some day, iunno.

But last night and going into this morning is the first time in my life that all doubt has been dispelled as to whether my my mother is a narcissist or not. I don't like to call people evil, but I have no doubt about it anymore. She is literally a manipulative, deranged narcissist, imagining problems and twisting reality to fit some narrative to protect her fragile ego, and projecting that, exactly that, onto everybody else.

And I can't stand it anymore.

Is fine to point out that everyone else in the house has low self-esteem and swears that we all just want her to step down from her high moral ground to come and join us?? Completely detached from the fact that she created an environment where nothing was ever good enough without her intervention in some way—not even from my father. That failure to read her mind to take into account the littlest things was deserving of anger. But we're all the problem. And we should thank God someone in the house is here to show us how not to be weak.

Fails to understand that because I don't feel comfortable coming to her to talk about difficult things because of the way she acts when I do doesn't mean that I don't respect and appreciate her as a mother, and literally took it as a personal hit of "disrespect". "Disrespect." And I'm 19. All that mattered was that I'm a scheming little liar who hides things because I have no respect.

The scariest part about it all? There's no longer anyone I can trust to tell me if I'm deranged and imagining things, and I have no idea what being around her has made me into. But at least I can see and admit that I have a problem and that's one step farther in fixing it than some people can get. And I'd like to think that I'm sane enough to realise that something here isn't right, something doesn't add up.

There are, at this point, far too many things I just can't believe I heard. I think I love her, and I think she can change, but I'm not sure it's happening any time soon, and I'm just in complete disbelief. It's really starting to sink in, hard. I need therapy, not because I feel sorry for myself, but because I don't want to be my own worst nightmare.

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just keep looking lmao

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"Leaked Alternate Ending to "Lars and the Cool Kids"

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Tips for following and managing deadlines in college and as an adult? I didn’t realize adulthood requires so much paperwork

Adulthood does require a lot of paperwork (as does my specific job), and I have also sometimes struggled to keep up with it at times! I have ADHD that I manage without medication, and that has required me to come up with a lot of creative strategies for managing deadlines and responsibilities. If you’re struggling, I recommend:

Use the technology that’s available. There are a lot of apps and programs out there to help you keep track of things, and many of them are free. Ideally, look for apps that you can sync across multiple devices. I personally relied on Google Calendar to get me through graduate school - you can enter deadlines and tasks, and set up reminders for yourself to jog your memory. It also gives you a visual look at your schedule, so you can see where you have space to slot extra tasks into your day. In addition to Google Calendar, I recommend checking out Any.Do, Habitica, Bear, EverNote, and 24Me. You can also use the built-in reminder app on your phone, and if remembering to jot things down is a struggle for you, iPhone users can verbally tell Siri to set a reminder for them - I use this function of Siri several times per day. There is no shame in being dependent on technology to manage your life; there are great programs out there, and it’s okay to use the tools that are available. It doesn’t matter which app you choose, or how many apps you choose - it’s about finding a system that works for you.

Try bullet journalling or using an organizer. If technology just doesn’t work for you, you can also try using pen-and-paper methods to keep your life on track. You can find pre-made organizers and agendas at any bookstore, complete with calendars, to-do lists and daily agendas. If you want more control over format, you can also look into starting a bullet journal. It may take a while to set up your bullet journal and get the hang of using it, but when you’re done, you have a fully customized organizational system that can help you track whatever needs tracking in your life. I personally use a bullet journal, and I find it immensely helpful. 

Invest in a filing cabinet. Shoving important documents into random drawers and cupboards is an excellent way to not be able to find those documents when you need them. Invest in a small filing cabinet, and take an afternoon to sort and label your important papers. All your essential ID documents, school paperwork, financial paperwork, etc, should be properly sorted and labelled so that you know exactly what documents are where. The time that you spend creating and setting up this system will save you a lot of panicked hours digging through random piles of paperwork you shoved into a drawer in the future. 

Automate whatever tasks you can. If your bill payments can be automated, do it. If you have products that you regularly use, set up an automatic order of them on Amazon. If you’re going on vacation and don’t want to waste hours emailing everyone to let them know, set up an automatic reply that lets people know when you’ll be back. If it can be automated, automate it. The best way to keep track of deadlines is to minimize the number of deadlines you need to keep track of. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and stress.

Write everything down. The easiest way to miss a deadline is to forget to write it down. Never assume that you are going to remember something just because you promised yourself you would. If you have something you need to remember, jot it down, enter it into whatever organizational tool you are using, and make sure you set a reminder. Seeing all your tasks written out can help you figure out which deadlines are coming up first, and plan your time accordingly.

Do chores on a schedule. Trying to wing your deadlines and household chores is a really awesome way to find yourself frantically doing laundry at 2 in the morning because you have a big presentation in the morning and you’re totally out of clean clothes. Figure out a regular weekly schedule for your chores, and enter them into your calendar. Not only will this help you visualize how much time your chores take up every week, but doing chores regularly saves you a lot of time and energy - it’s much better to spend 10 minutes per week wiping down the shower stall, rather than spending 3 hours trying sandblast a month’s worth of soap scum off the tub.

Break large projects down into small, manageable chunks. Let’s say you have a huge term paper due three months from now at the end of the semester. Your grades and sanity both depend on you not waiting until the last minute to write that paper. But when you think about how much work needs to be done to write that paper - thinking of a topic, researching, outlining, writing, proofreading, citing, formatting, etc - it’s easy to get completely overwhelmed, and procrastinate working on the paper until the 11th hour. Instead of having an all-out, last-minute panic, start by breaking large projects down into tasks that don’t seem so daunting. If you need to write a 20-page paper with at least 10 cited sources, start by giving yourself 2 weeks to find 5 good sources to cite. Then in the next two weeks, find 5 more sources to cite. Then in the two weeks after that, write the outline. You get the picture. When tasks are broken down, it becomes a lot less overwhelming to do them, and you make much better progress. 

Learn to prioritize. There are two things you need to think about when you’re trying to prioritize a task - how urgent it is, and how important it is. An urgent task is one that has to be done soon; an important task is one that has a very important outcome for you. All the tasks in your life fall somewhere on the urgent-important spectrum. If tax deadline is in three days and you haven’t filed yet, filing your taxes is both urgent and important. Taking the garbage out when the can is full is urgent, but not important - nothing in your life will go terribly wrong if you don’t do it. If you want to be a writer someday, working on your writing is important, but not urgent - there’s no deadline, but your life will be hugely negatively impacted if you don’t do it. In general, when you’re prioritizing, tasks should be done in the following order: important + urgent > urgent but not important > important but not urgent > neither important nor urgent. Sometimes, prioritizing means letting things slide if they aren’t worth the time and effort to do them. When you’re a student, this often means taking a hard look at how important something is. If you have a pop quiz tomorrow that’s worth 2% of your grade, and a midterm in two days worth 25% that you are completely unprepared for, your best bet is to take a quick skim of your pop quiz notes and spend the bulk of your time studying for the midterm, even if it means getting a mediocre grade on the quiz.

Overestimate how much time you’ll need to complete a project. How much time do you think it’s going to take you to finish that homework assignment that’s due next week? Think about all the contingencies - assume that you get stuck a couple times and have to scour the internet for answers, or call up your friend who took the class last semester. Maybe you estimate that the assignment should take 4 hours total to complete. Perfect - now schedule yourself 6-8 hours to actually get it done. People tend to dramatically overestimate their own efficiency, and underestimate the time it takes them to actually finish important tasks. If you don’t want to be scrambling all the time, the best thing you can do is intentionally overestimate how much time you need. 

Do a regular “life audit”. Every 1-2 weeks, block out some time to sit down and take stock of everything that’s going on in your life. How did the previous week go? Did you get everything done that you needed to? Is there anything you need to catch up on? What are the things that are coming up in your life? What needs to get done this week?  Are you making progress toward your goals? How’s the household chore situation? What do you need to prioritize for the week ahead? Is there anything that you’re wasting too much time on? Are there any papers or files that you need to put away in your filing cabinet before they get lost? Checking in with yourself regularly gives you a chance to catch small issues before they can snowball into enormous problems. 

Staying on top of deadlines is a skill, and it’s easy to mess up every now and then. We all do it. The key is to keep trying, and to keep striving for improvement. 

Best of luck to you!

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idk I just personally think that getting chills from music is the best part of being alive. like when a song is so good you can feel it in your whole body. that's why I'm here.

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Miles Johnston

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my sibling in christ it is not sufficient that you log off of your computer: you must also log off in your heart

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vagueposting about people but in approval

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sometimes someone isn’t “toxic,” they’re just “abrasive.” or “mutagenic” or “highly flammable,” and you should always check their material safety data sheet to be sure

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I have been listening to this same thing for several days straight (just the ones I like really) I will literally obsess over this until I can't anymore