I’ve always loved this quote by Lao Tzu.
It’s so true. You become what you think. Your thoughts form every aspect of your life. You must be intentional about your thoughts.
“You can’t drift to a desired destination.”
It takes intentional focus on what & who you want to become.
You can control your Effort, Attitude and FOCUS!!
Like, the night is fireworks and noise and group chats and “this is our year.” Then you wake up on a mattress with stale air, glitter in weird places, half a glass of flat something by the bed, and it���s just… you. Your tongue feels weird. Your room smells like fabric and old decisions. The clock says 10:23. The year changed while you were drunk or half scrolling or pretending to be excited, and now the universe wants to know:
Ok. Who are you going to be today
Not in the cinematic way. In the stupid little ways.
You check your phone. There it is. That micro decision. Do you open the app that always leaves you feeling a bit worse. Do you answer the message from the person who keeps your nervous system on edge. Do you read the news before you’ve even fully entered your own body. No trumpet sound. No narrator. Just a thumb hover and a choice.
This is what nobody tells you about “becoming a better person.” It doesn’t arrive in some glowing moment where you finally “figure yourself out.” It arrives in boring, almost invisible movements.
Do you put your feet on the floor when your brain says “five more minutes.” Do you drink water before coffee. Do you let that ugly thought about yourself run wild, or do you catch it mid sentence and go, no, we’re not doing that today. Do you rewatch your favorite self-hating memory for the thousandth time, or do you get up and take a shower before your brain has a chance to open the archive.
The ethic you have about yourself is not what you say in captions.
It’s how you treat yourself when nobody will ever know.
version where you are “kind” to everyone else and ruthless to your own mind. You show up for friends, you listen, you advise, you say “take care of yourself” in the most sincere voice. Then you go home and talk to yourself like you’re something stuck to the bottom of a shoe. You call that honesty. You call that standards. You call that keeping it real.
But the real ethic shows up when you’re sitting on the edge of your bed at 01:07 after everyone has stopped texting and the only voice left is yours
Do you say “you embarrassed yourself tonight, of course nobody really likes you.”
Or do you say “you were a bit awkward, sure, but you went, you tried, you’re allowed to be a person.”
Tiny difference. Microscopic. You could miss it. Repeat it a thousand times and it will turn you into two completely different humans.
Every gesture repeats like that.
The way you end conversations. Do you send the extra “sorry for bothering you” even when you did not. The way you eat. Is it punishment or fuel. The way you look into mirrors. Are you scanning for flaws like a security guard or checking in like a friend. The way you handle a mistake. Do you immediately mentally pack your bags and exile yourself from your own life, or do you fix what you can and let the rest be ugly and unfinished.
You don’t become cold all at once. You don’t become gentle all at once.
You drift there in 5 degree shifts, one decision at a time.
Light a cigarette instead of feeling something. Open a bottle instead of having a hard talk. Ghost someone instead of saying “I’m not in a place for this.” Pretend you’re fine instead of saying “that hurt.” Check their story instead of unfollowing. Say “it doesn’t matter” when it clearly does. Each one feels small. None of them kill you. But they stack.
then one day you wake up and realize you’ve built an entire personality out of avoiding yourself.
The good news is brutal, which also makes it honest: the way back is made of the same size pieces.
You don’t have to reinvent your life tomorrow morning. You do have to catch one moment where you usually abandon yourself and choose not to. Just one.
The moment you’d usually stay up and doom scroll until your eyes burn, you plug your phone in far away and let yourself be bored in the dark for ten minutes. That’s a new ethic.
the moment you’d usually say “yeah sure, I can do that” with resentment chewing holes in your chest, you take a breath and say “I actually can’t this week.” That’s a new ethic.
The moment you’d usually tear yourself apart in the mirror for looking tired, you just say “no wonder” and move on without commentary. That’s a new ethic.
It won’t feel deep. It’ll feel almost too small to matter.
nothing you do to yourself is neutral when you repeat it.
“This doesn’t count” is the biggest lie you tell about your own behavior. It all counts. Every joke at your own expense. Every time you dismiss your need. Every time you choose chaos because peace feels unfamiliar. Every apology you use to erase your own boundaries. They are all little votes for the kind of person you believe you are allowed to be.
The thing about “you are always free to change” is that it sounds cheesy until life kicks you hard enough that staying the same feels more painful than trying.
You don’t have to earn the right to change. You don’t have to wait for January. You don’t have to wait for rock bottom. You don’t have to wait until you’ve “figured out the lesson.” You can literally wake up on a random Wednesday at 09:32, stare at the ceiling, and decide, from now on, I will not answer messages from people who talk to me like I’m replaceable.
You will break that rule. Of course. You’re human. You’re trained. You have muscle memory. That doesn’t mean the decision was fake. It means you are changing in real time, and real time is messy.
There is no version where you decide once and never slip. There is only: notice, adjust, repeat.
That’s the annoying part of freedom. It isn’t one big door you walk through. It’s ten small doors every day, some of which are invisible unless you pause for half a second.
Do I talk about myself like I’m a lost cause or like I’m still in progress.
Do I judge my whole character by my worst day or give myself an average.
Do I let one bad hour ruin the evening or reset at 18:00 and make soup anyway.
“Be good” doesn’t mean be nice. It doesn’t mean perform purity. It doesn’t mean become some saint version of yourself who never snaps or lies or flinches.
It means, pick the kind of person you want to be in private, and then back that with stupid, repeatable actions until your nervous system starts to believe you.
You can be someone who apologizes. Someone who follows through. Someone who answers texts slower but with real attention. Someone who doesn’t talk shit about themselves as a party trick. Someone who rests before they collapse. Someone who honors small promises to their own body.
None of that will show up in a photo.
But that’s the ethic that actually holds you on the days when the year is new and you feel exactly like the old you sitting in a slightly different light.
Happy new year, sure.
More importantly: happy next decision
at a certain point you just get tired of your own shit. you have to force yourself to meditate, workout, eat mindfully and read the books to form a routine that gives you a sense of happiness within yourself again. it's exhausting i know, but you gotta keep fighting for yourself because no one will take care and love you the way you can for own being. this life is not something to go bout so casually, everyday is your first and last time to embrace this moment. this life was gifted to you with a planet to explore and souls to experience. so show up for yourself.