Don’t Study Because You Need To. Study Because Knowledge Is Power. Study Because They Can Never Take

Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.

C.S. Lewis (via beinchargeofyourlife)

Contrapoints, “Decrypting the Alt-right”

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

Cool Tip

If you are like me and always need to be working on something to keep your anxiety under control, during this quarentine why not helping scientists by looking at pictures of some neat penguins? or even galaxies?  There’s this site call Zooniverse, where you can help on scientific projects by analyzing pictures and data!  Right now my favorite project has returned, called Penguin Watch (where yeah, you get to watch penguins, it’s amazing)

you basically have to analyse photos looking for penguins, their chicks, eggs or even predators and human interaction But there are lots of interesting projects you can help in areas such as biology, physics, history or even art: 

Oh and the best part, some institutions even accept it as volunteering/service hour requirements for graduation and scholarships!! It’s helping me a lot during this time, so I thought it was worth sharing 

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

one day I woke up and realised all the waiting and yearning was actually me living my life and it’s happening right now and it’s still good even if it’s not perfect and there is no moment when all your dreams get fulfilled and everything makes sense. like… this is it. this is life. you’ll waste away your youth waiting for some imagined future if you don’t love life for what it is now and make the most of it

Tips for working with children?

1. Don't lie to them if you can avoid it. Water down truths at your discretion, but if you try to lie outright, a good number of them are probably going to pick up on your weird energy and figure you're hiding something. This will very likely come off as "adult who doesn't think we're real people", which is how you promote rebellion.

2. Listen to the problems they come to you with. Imagine they were your problems. If Brůnden at work stole all your pens and ignored your requests to leave you be, you'd be pretty pissed if your manager told you to "just use your nice words" or "let him get bored". Decide what you would want an adult to do, and form a reasonable response.

3. Let some of your weird (child appropriate) interests show. Odds are, when they see your passion, they'll take interest. I accidentally wound up teaching an intro to animal biology to a group of first graders in my after school program this way, and it became what they knew me for. Great for bonding, teaching, and bartering for completed chores.

4. Learn about things they're interested in, but don't force it into things. It'll help you understand what you overhear, and pitch in at the right moment.

5. Treats and stickers. They work on adults, and they work on kids. Make them take a little bit of effort to earn, but also pick special occasions where everyone gets one free. Once you get a better idea of their personalities, lives, strengths, and weaknesses, you can tailor this for personal growth.

6. Acknowledge their feelings. Verbally affirm that they are upset, they are frustrated, they are angry or sad, and encourage them to explain why, and work to find acceptable solutions. Staying perfectly calm and happy while they're angry might help to a point, but ignoring their obvious feelings will make them feel that you don't care or understand, which will make things worse. A lot of kids have a hard time figuring out how adults feel, and why, so empathy will need to be clearer.

7. Play with them on their own level. When you play a game they started on their own, follow their rules, and if you can't, explain why. Expect a few of them to try and mess with you. You're not as distant or alien if you can fall for the same things they do, or admit when you've been outsmarted or outclassed. Be aware that some rules may change at random, and don't go all out on winning.

8. Be honest in ways other adults won't be. When telling a personal story, mention offhand that you didn't like someone, or someone was mean for no reason, or another adult was rude or broke rules, they'll see that you think and feel in similar ways as them, and it can reinforce that yeah, sometimes life is unfair, no, growing up doesn't numb your personality, and no, you don't have to feel happy and positive and pleasant all the time. Sometimes things just suck, and you need to handle it maturely. It's acting on bad feelings that's bad, not the bad feelings themselves. And hey, sometimes adults ARE mean or rude or wrong! They're not crazy or dumb when they notice!

9. Literally just be yourself. Curb any cursing or inappropriate subject matter, but otherwise, they'll recognize that you're an individual with your own personality, and either they'll like you or they won't. Either way, they'll decide how to act from there. Kids are mostly just distilled adults with social restrictions, they can adapt to a lot.