1. Love yourself, even if you do it out of rebellion. It’s not an easy feat, but, in time and with mindful practice, I don’t believe it to be impossible. After all, your best friend, your romantic love, and everything you think, feel, say, and do, everything that you are, comes from you. You are the source, and it deserves to be adored. You deserve to love yourself even if you don’t think you do. Loving yourself includes self-care, self-improvement, and self-acceptance as you walk your own path.

2. Try to not idealize people in your life. It’s so easy to mix what we perceive with what we hear in order to put together a picture of who we think people are, but in reality, no one knows everything that makes another person up. Given that we only give so much of ourselves to others, the same works for them. It is impossible to give or receive everything to or from someone else. Learn to accept the things we see and hear at their value, rather than reading into them too much. There is a fine line between trying to understand and overthinking into distortion of reality.

3. Labels are a complex and should be seen both objectively and subjectively. On one hand, there are people, like me, who do not subscribe to them, and yet, society, in general, tends to label everything and everyone. I see it as divisive. It’s like a child trying to fit a star shaped block into a triangular shaped opening on a toy. It just doesn’t work. I can’t speak for everyone, but I just don’t find myself in labels or their definitions, we do not match up exactly. Likewise, labels provide others with a sense of identity, a sense of belonging. Others find labels unifying in the respect of belonging to a group of similar people/lifestyles. In being able to label themselves, people find a sense of knowing who they are, and that’s beautiful in its own way.

4. Even if it hurts, never give up on your passion(s). It’s complicated to explain how I finally arrived to that conclusion, but I know now that if I let it go, it would probably kill me. If it aligns your spirit, heart, mind, and body, if it makes your heart react, if it makes your eyes water in awe, if it comforts you, if it challenges you in a way that excites you, and if it makes you feel alive, then no matter what, never let the source of that go.

5. Pay close attention to yourself as much as you do with others, and vice versa.

6. Doing what is good for you is not selfish. The moment someone calls you selfish for doing what is right for your life is when they show you how selfish they are. People who truly love and support you will not try to deter you from a life change that works in your favor, even if it goes against their favor, expectations, or beliefs.

7. Live your life, don’t try to live other people’s lives. Comparing your life to someone else’s is a recipe for disaster, rather than envying or being jealous of what they have that you don’t, work to build your own garden. You might feel like a failure or that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but, chances are they might feel that way too.