May 20th with 21,243 notesErnest Hemingway (Source: elliptical)
May 19th with 97,603 notesDavid Cain, “Procrastination Is Not Laziness” (Source: pawneeparksdepartment)
It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.
But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.
”everytime i see you in the world, you always step to my girl
May 9th with 66 notes& 166 plays
In my ongoing quest for the perfect framework for understanding haters, I created The Disapproval Matrix**. (With a deep bow to its inspiration.) This is one way to separate haterade from productive feedback. Here’s how the quadrants break down:
Critics: These are smart people who know something about your field. They are taking a hard look at your work and are not loving it. You’ll probably want to listen to what they have to say, and make some adjustments to your work based on their thoughtful comments.
Lovers: These people are invested in you and are also giving you negative but rational feedback because they want you to improve. Listen to them, too.
Frenemies: Ooooh, this quadrant is tricky. These people really know how to hurt you, because they know you personally or know your work pretty well. But at the end of the day, their criticism is not actually about your work—it’s about you personally. And they aren’t actually interested in a productive conversation that will result in you becoming better at what you do. They just wanna undermine you. Dishonorable mention goes to The Hater Within, aka the irrational voice inside you that says you suck, which usually falls into this quadrant. Tell all of these fools to sit down and shut up.
Haters: This is your garden-variety, often anonymous troll who wants to tear down everything about you for no rational reason. Folks in this quadrant are easy to write off because they’re counterproductive and you don’t even know them. Ignore! Engaging won’t make you any better at what you do. And then rest easy, because having haters is proof your work is finding a wide audience and is sparking conversation. Own it.
The general rule of thumb? When you receive negative feedback that falls into one of the top two quadrants—from experts or people who care about you who are engaging with and rationally critiquing your work—you should probably take their comments to heart. When you receive negative feedback that falls into the bottom two quadrants, you should just let it roll off your back and just keep doin’ you. If you need to amp yourself up about it, may I suggest this #BYEHATER playlist on Spotify? You’re welcome.
** I presented The Disapproval Matrix to the fine folks at MoxieCon in Chicago yesterday, and they seemed to find it useful, so I figured I’d share with the class. It was originally inspired by a question my friend Channing Kennedy submitted to my #Realtalk column at the Columbia Journalism Review.
“Frenemies: These people really know how to hurt you, because they know you personally or know your work pretty well. But at the end of the day, their criticism is not actually about your work—it’s about you personally. And they aren’t actually interested in a productive conversation that will result in you becoming better at what you do. They just wanna undermine you.”
I do this sometimes to people I love; semi-consciously undermine them, so that they’ll continue to need me, and stick by my side. Selfish love becoming harmful.
lol so I wake up and (it’s one) I start loudly playing Vivaldi (my roommate is out of town for the first time ever) and all the windows are open in my apartment
all of a sudden, this huge (fucking chicken-sized) pigeon warbles onto the railing of my balcony (no, seriously)
and then another smaller one
and I’m like oh my God the power of nature and music, and these two pigeons (I’m not lying) start globbing their heads to the music
(not lying)
And I’m just stunned, these pigeons, one big, one smaller (medium sized) are pretty much amazing, and I’m brushing my teeth in the kitchen and I just freeze, try not to scare them, but they’re just chilling, moving around the balcony, literally in synch with the music.
And then all of a sudden, (all of sudden), they start like puffin up and chazing each other around, and I’m like “ohhhh they’re mating, and they just wanted some (appropriate?) baroque-ass dramatic music to get down to” right?
nooooo.
Lol, after chasing each other around for a bit, the larger one (male?) jives around to the corner of the patio, sticks his (giant, chicken) butt up in the air, and enclosed by the two walls of the corner, warbles away. Hugged. The little one just hangs around, sometimes dancing in front of his/her face.
and it’s been like…30, 45 minutes, the pigeon is just warbling away, in the corner, butt up, head down, upside down, just gorble gorbling away, unafraid of human presence or loud music of all genres. Hahaha
Please. I don’t owe my sex to anyone. Not to [——] when I’m about to be on my period and my body hurts and it wouldn’t feel good for me, because I’d be bloated and sore. Not even because he didn’t come the other night.
Not to [——] because it’s expected after all those dates.
Not to people around my school because I dress exposingly.
Not [——] to Mike.
I don’t even owe it to myself to have sex with anyone. Ever, or any time in the near future.
I don’t owe it to society to fulfill some quota of people fucked, numbers, varieties and time-periods.
I owe nothing to anyone. It’s a choice; when I feel it (if I ever feel it), I will fuck someone. And I will stop myself if they have a girlfriend (lol, because I haaaave to). But if I don’t feel attracted to anyone in particular or anyone at all, that’s okay. I’m so tired of feeling guilty (so fucking tired) of more-or-less forcing myself to have these feelings which I am supposed to have to him (or at least to her, right?). No, not right. Sexuality is fluid and I don’t understand mine and I don’t know why it happens but it can’t be legislated and there’s never an instance when I’m “supposed” to feel attracted to someone. Or “supposed” to like them back because they’re a good catch and nice and they treat me well and they’re more handsome than I am pretty. I am so sick of feeling guilty.
But my feelings are only my own and no one can step into that sphere. I have to tell myself these things, because otherwise I will forget and go right back to being a vessel for someone else’s expectations, like I have done (more or less) all my life.
