You are no one's project. Regard anyone who sees you as such with deep skepticism.
Writing is for me meditative. I know more for doing it. Am better for the time spent in the thick of it. People will lie to protect themselves. And occasionally, the more obviously in the wrong they are, the harder they'll fight.
The bad and good rush in together.
Get comfortable with facts. Speak rationally.
There will be whole stretches of time when everything feels unnerving and terrifying and deeply unsettling. But you must keep going. You must show up. You must pace yourself. And when given the chance to say hello, you must take it.
When it's time to jettison the furniture, jettison the furniture.
Give thanks for your strong Walden sensibilities--not everyone has them.
Surround yourself with people smarter than you.
You gotta keep going. Moving in a specific direction. And you gotta have faith. Because the landscape will shift when you least expect it. But as there's not predicting when, or how, it's often a long and lonely trek. But there are good blind curves. Good things do happen. And the terrain does transform. And it means more for the wait. You may not actually believe the change will actually come. But you must act--which is to say, actively do things--as though you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it will.
Just because you can't see the bed bugs doesn't mean they don't exist (good. life. metaphor).
Someone who has lived in New York for ten years, knows things that a person who has only been here several months just hasn't figured out yet. Like how a slamming a door echoes through the building, affecting the neighbors both above and below. We live in an interconnected a world. It is our responsibility to pay a sort of homage to that.
Smile. Tell the truth. Say the things you're most afraid to say.
And take the life raft. When someone offers you a life raft, take it. And give thanks.