Dear friend,

Have you seen the movie Eighth Grade? You should if you haven’t. The main character is a sweet, painfully shy, awkward eighth grade girl who keeps a vlog where she gives advice and commentary about the things relevant to her life. She then proceeds to repeatedly contradict her words with her behavior. “Being yourself, is like, not changing yourself to impress someone else,” she says, then is later shown changing herself to impress someone else. “I’m like really talkative,” she says, and is then given the award for “most quiet” at school. 

            I am exactly that eighth grade girl. I had plenty of pretty pieces of advice for you last week, which almost instantly proceeded to not follow. Most notable was my advice to:

“Rebel against the tyranny of the screens. Or at least, don’t make a digital screen the first or last thing you look at in a day” 

Well, I spent the first 30 minutes of the day today on Instagram watching highlight clips of other people playing video games. I don’t even play video games myself, but somehow I was able to waste half an hour watching strangers on the internet play. 

Hypocrisy at it’s finest. And yet I’m probably no different than most advice givers. It’s just far easier to give advice than to follow it. I’ve met enough therapists to know this is true. My current therapist is awesome but I bet she doesn’t follow her own advice all the time. I bet she gets off work and uses the same mindless coping mechanisms that we all do. And honestly, I think this is fine. 

            So I’m not going to attempt to give you any advice this week friend. I think you’re doing an excellent job already of being a human—weird, inconsistent, mindless, and beautiful all at the same time. 

Proceed.

Love,

Looshas