August 14, 2017
5 Times To Stop & Think Before You Act
As you may have noticed, I write “be thoughtful” at the end of all my posts. When I started writing regularly I wanted to think of something to end with. Something short, that I genuinely wanted readers to leave w/every day. I thought about “be nice” or “be kind” because there’s nothing better than a nice person, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you shouldn’t be nice. You should be strong. You should be loud & badass & stick up for yourself, which might not be nice. I might actually suggest “be mean”.
I came up with “be thoughtful”. If you slow down & you’re thoughtful of the people you’re interacting with, you’ll know whether to be nice or to be mean. No one knows what’s going on w/the people they interact with every day and no one knows you.
I think this really amplified itself for me a year ago when I was dealing w/bad anxiety. I feel like I looked normal but was going through such a tough time in my head. I was trying to take things slow & gentle while I worked through my anxiety, and I felt fragile. But people didn’t know that.
One issue I had was driving anxiety. American’s driving is the single thing I HATE the most about America. It’s also one of the only times I use the word hate. Moms, dads, young people, old people, men, women, they all drive like a tasmanian devil. It’s crazy to me! We have these huge machines we’re plowing recklessly through traffic with and have no worry? And where are we always rushing to? Why are we rushing? We’re a product of our environment, American’s are glued to time. My advice is to say fuck it & leave work early, take your time to your kids soccer game, so you can show up alive.