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\n<\/div>\n1. Accept that there will be whole swaths of you that will always seem like a mystery. There will be things that may never make sense. There will be questions that may always go unanswered. Despite this, you must stop questioning the steady sense of knowing your body somehow delivers to you anyway. Even when logic would seem to defeat it, and your mind is combatting it furiously. That knowing is your truth. That knowing is what you have to act on without sound reason. We call this the leap of faith. Learn to take it.
\n2. Learn what it means to have radical empathy. Realize that underneath it all we are the same. We have all suffered. We have all known loss, heartbreak, grief, sadness, tragedy and misfortune, all in the uniqueness of our own experiences. You may not know what someone\u2019s story is but you do know what it feels like to have a knife going through you when you lose someone you love. What it\u2019s like to be completely alone and thwarted from society. You always have the ability to understand people at that very raw, human level. It\u2019s only a matter of how much you\u2019re willing to see yourself in them.
\n3. If you love someone, freaking tell them. Write it on notes next to their bed and in journals that they\u2019ll one day find and interrupt their sentences with it if you have to. There is nothing more important than being vocal about loving someone. You want to know the truth? We are all starving for love and acceptance and if you love someone you need to tell them that without being afraid that they don\u2019t love you as much, or at all. That\u2019s not love. That\u2019s greed. That\u2019s neediness. That\u2019s the desire for affirmation and attention. Love, in it\u2019s purest, untapped form, does not hinge on the requirement that they\u2019ll love you in return.
\n4. Let loving someone or not loving someone be enough in deciding whether or not you want to be with them. The rest are augmentable details. But that core is unchanging.
\n5. Have a verifiably effective plan for coping with emotional pain. Sometimes wicked anxiety crops up out of nowhere. Some days we\u2019ll be just going along our way and then all of a sudden all of the issues of our childhood come sweeping back through us like we never grew out of them and we panic and hold onto them because we don\u2019t know how to let go because it seems like doing so will give them the power to sneak up on us again. In these moments, you need a friend to call and a shoulder to lean on and a playlist to blast and a journal to write in. And somewhere in that journal, you need to have written: \u201cthis too shall pass.\u201d
\n6. Stop trying to convince people to love you. With what you wear, in sullied comments that dig for their appreciation, in how your interests have forcefully evolved to complement or mirror those of whom you are so desperately trying to win over. Stop doing things so you\u2019ll be regarded highly in other people\u2019s opinions. That won\u2019t make them love you more. It will only drive you farther away from yourself.
\n7. Learn to say sorry and mean it. Realize that what most wisdom stems from is forgiveness: for ourselves, for others, for what happened and for what\u2019s missing, for what\u2019s unstable and what\u2019s gone unacknowledged. Realize that you won\u2019t always receive an apology and you still may have to find forgiveness anyway. Realize that\u2019s the only way to understand just how powerful a genuine apology can be.
\n8. Write lists and make goals and always keep yourself moving toward something. Joy is in the moment, but hope is in tomorrow. It\u2019s a fine balance that takes lifetimes to perfect. Don\u2019t feel bad if you err toward one mindset or another. Just don\u2019t forget that when you do fall too deeply into focusing on today or tomorrow, that you always have the other option.
\n9. Accept that while most things end up okay, not everything does. Some things may dig themselves into you and you\u2019ll carry them through your whole life. Sometimes things go mysteriously unresolved. Sometimes you\u2019ll fight hard and lose. Sometimes you\u2019ll be so far in denial that acceptance isn\u2019t something you start to approach for years. It\u2019s important to be okay with not being okay. It\u2019s part of the human condition. It\u2019s very beautiful if you let it show you a deeper route into yourself.
\n10. Stand up for what\u2019s just. Stand up for love and stand up for equality and respect. Don\u2019t be a bystander in someone else\u2019s life but more importantly, don\u2019t be a bystander in your own.
\n11. Let yourself be useless sometimes. You can\u2019t spend your entire life reveling in achievement. In fact, you\u2019ll spend most of your days on your knees grappling with what you\u2019re most passionate about. You\u2019ll turn up on the other side eventually, but not without days upon days of climbing.
\n12. Say thank you even when you don\u2019t feel gratitude. It\u2019s not that you shouldn\u2019t feel it, but sometimes you just might not. But saying \u201cthank you\u201d is one of those rare things in which you do entirely for the other person. Saying thank you doesn\u2019t help you. It helps the other person want to give again. You won\u2019t understand what \u201cthank you\u201d means until it\u2019s given to you after you\u2019ve truly given to someone else. Foster that for other people and keep the cycle going. It will come back to you eventually.
\n13. Never go into anything thinking you are entitled to it because you are talented, because you have suffered for it or because it\u2019s time for the universe to cater to your needs just this once. This will never be the truth.
\n14. Buy a notebook. Write down what you want. Write down what hurts you. Show it to someone you love. Save it for your children. Burn it in your backyard. Either way, go to bed knowing that in some way, those things are out of you.
\n15.\u00a0Know the difference between the limits that withhold you and the limits that are crucial for you to obey. Draw your lines accordingly. Live your life around them.
\n16. Learn to comfort someone. Head nods and \u201cI understands\u201d won\u2019t mean jack shit when someone is really in the depths of something. If you love someone, know when it\u2019s time to order their favorite food and hold their hand the way they like and respond in the way they are looking to be responded to. Sometimes it\u2019s with empathy and understanding, sometimes it\u2019s with problem-solving mechanisms and jokes to lighten things. You won\u2019t know unless you know someone thoroughly. There are reasons people don\u2019t just look to anybody when they\u2019re really in need. These are them.
\n17. Learn to enjoy talking about something that doesn\u2019t come at the expense of someone else.
\n18. Realize how important it is to mourn properly. This means letting yourself be a whole big ball of effing mess now and again. Things and people will phase in and out as scheduled. You can\u2019t keep holding on for their return because most often, they won\u2019t come. But that withholding will shape you, and it will shape you through your own self-induced pain and suffering. If you don\u2019t want that to be your story, write it a different way. It starts with saying goodbye to what\u2019s not meant for us and what\u2019s left inexplicably. Your quality of life will completely depend on how well you embrace this. Choose wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OCT. 6, 2013 By\u00a0BRIANNA WIEST 1. Accept that there will be whole swaths of you that will always seem like a mystery. There will be things that may never make sense. There will be questions that may always go unanswered. Despite this, you must stop questioning the steady sense of knowing your body somehow delivers … <\/p>\n