Everything is hard; it’s just a matter of what you think is worth the effort. - Brianna Wiest

infrequently you feel anything “bad” because you’ve developed the discipline and wisdom “not to.” It’s not how easily you choose what you think, how you let it affect you, or how placidly you react to any given situation. Real emotional maturity is how thoroughly you let yourself feel anything. Everything. Whatever comes. It is simply the knowing that the worst thing that could ever happen…is just a feeling at the end of the day. That’s it! A feeling. Imagine the very worst, the only thing bad about it is…how you would feel about it.

Maybe part of the reason that love becomes such a volatile force in our lives when it’s supposed to be so still and beautiful is that we keep reaching for that forever love. We can’t just let it be what it is. We try to make feelings and interest sustain themselves for years and years when they just don’t have that kind of staying power. But how much of it is a result of our own changing and how much is the fact that forever love comes with so many expectations and too much pressure? What if it’s really that nobody is to blame, other than whoever instilled in us the idea that “forever” was the ultimate kind of love? Because what if we stopped expecting and started just being. I think that’s what scares people. I think they choose to not love someone because of what it means for the long-term instead of having any interspersed bits of love. But those bits might be all we ever have. It’s out of them that the rest grows.

The greatest act of self-love is to no longer accept a life you are unhappy with. It is to be able to state the problem plainly and in a straightforward manner.