1. YOU ARE NOT CRAZY.

Yes you have half the attention span and double the mood swings of everyone else you know – but these are both simply quirks of your personality that you’ll learn to manage with time. It’s also a product of being surrounded by people who perceive the world using an entirely different set of cognitive functions than you do – once you start meeting likeminded people and working at something you love, your moods will even out and your attention span will magically spring into existence. Funny how that works!

2. There are other people out there who feel things as strongly as you do.

The intense passion that you bring to everything you love is not unique to you. There are millions of people out there who experience the world with all of the depth, intensity and passion that you do. It’s just that very few of them live in your hometown. Don’t worry! You’re not alone!

3. The things you perceive to be your weaknesses will end up being your greatest strengths.

Your stubbornness, your restlessness and your tendency toward over-analysis are going to take you further in life than you could ever imagine. There is no sense in trying to tone down who you are. Be the strange, emotional, fiercely independent person that you are and learn from every waking second of it.

4. You’re not going to be this indecisive forever.

Your main function is a perceptive function, which means that in your younger years you’re going to just want to EXPLORE. DISCOVER. ADVENTURE. And you’re never going to want it to stop.

As you grow up, your decision-making functions (introverted feeling and extroverted thinking) are going to mature and suddenly you’re going to be this person who is capable of making decisions (I know. What?!). It’s going to be awesome. Until then, just enjoy the chaos. It’s a lot less stressful when you realize it’s not going to last forever.

5. To attract people who are like you, you have to act like you.

There are so many other intuitives out there who think along the same lines as you do – but you’re never going to meet them if you’re spending all your time trying to act like something you’re not to fit in with the sensors. Be your loud, speculative, adventurous self – that’s precisely how you’re going to attract the people you want to be around.

6. Ignore every person who ever tells you “You can’t.”

What they really mean is “I can’t.” You’re an ENFP. Everything you want in life, you’re going to make sure you get, because you don’t mind going the extra mile. And you’ll be surprised at how under-crowded that extra mile is.

7. University is not the only way to get an education, nor is it the sole measure of intelligence.

When you do go to school, you’ll learn more from late-night talks with your classmates than you will in any lecture hall. You learn through doing, through debating, through experiencing and through reflecting. So don’t stress too much about memorizing the textbook – your ability to think on your feet is going to take you much further than your GPA ever will.

8. You don’t know as much about other people as you think you do.

You are quick to jump to conclusions about others and it’s going to get you into hot water more than once. Remember that introverted feeling is based on your own experiences – and those don’t always relate to others’ experiences. Listen a little more, assume a little less. You have infinitely more to learn from other people than you think you do.

9. Do more of what you love and less of what you think you should do.

Disinterest is your kryptonite. You are 100% guaranteed to be bad at anything you try to do that doesn’t interest you and the easy solution to this is to simply not do it. You CAN make a career out of traveling, out of freelancing; out of whatever passion you happen to be invested in. You’re just going to have to think outside the box to get there –luckily, that is your strong suit.

10. So many things about yourself are going to change but the core things never will.

90% of your interests are fleeting – and that’s okay! It’s good to know a little bit about a lot of things. The 10% of your interests that aren’t fleeting are pervasive as hell – and you already know what those are. Stay true to your morals, true to your passions, true to your inclinations and true to yourself. You already know who you are. Now it’s just a matter of what you’re going to do about it.

I don’t think I’ve experienced a single loss in my life that I’ve gotten over in the time frame that seems to have been allotted by society as ‘acceptable.’ And I suspect that I’m not alone there. It is not human nature to let go. We are, at our core, territorial creatures. We fight to hold onto what we love. Giving up isn’t in any way instinctual.

If there’s anything I wish we could talk more about it’s the in-between stages of letting someone go. Because nobody lets go in an instant. You let go once. And then you let go again. And then again and again and again. You let someone go at the grocery store when their favorite type of soup is on sale and you don’t buy it. You let them go again when you’re cleaning your bathroom and have to throw out the bottle of the body wash that smells like them. You let them go that night at the bar when you go home with somebody else or you let them go every year on the anniversary of the day you lost them. Sometimes you’re going to have to let one person go a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, and there’s nothing pathetic or abnormal about that. You are human. And it isn’t always as simple as making one decision and never looking back.

Moving on isn’t always about speeding enthusiastically forward so much as it’s about having one foot on the gas and the other on the brakes – releasing and accelerating in turn. You’re not a failure for getting to someplace amazing and still feeling like a part of yourself is missing once you get there. You’re not pathetic for mourning while you grow. The bad things don’t disappear in the blink of an eye and the good things don’t spring up into existence without reigning at least a tiny bit of collateral damage. It takes time for everything to even out. And it should.

The truth is, none of us want to think of ourselves as works in progress. We want everything to happen instantaneously: Falling in love, falling out of it, letting go of what we know we ought to leave in the past and moving on to whatever comes next. We hate the in-between spaces – the times when we’re okay but not quite there yet. The periods where we suspect that growth is happening but have nothing to show for it. The days when everything feels like it’s falling into place and yet we still go home and cry into our pillow because there’s nobody to share our good fortune with. If success is a staircase, we are eternally taking two steps forward and one step back and that’s okay. That’s how we keep ourselves in check. It’s how we keep ourselves from blowing the whole she-bang.

We have to be patient with ourselves as we move through the parts in between the where we’ve been and where we’re going. We have to let the chasm motivate rather than dishearten us. It’s okay to not be there yet. It’s okay to be unsure of every step that you take forward. We don’t talk about how moving on sometimes feels like we’re fighting every part of our most basic instincts, but we should. We should talk about how growth is often every bit as painful as it is beautiful.

Because growth and letting go are so complexly intertwined that we often only see one or the other. We forget that they can exist side by side – releasing the old while letting in the new. We forget that we have the ability to do the exact same thing. And that if we’d only stop beating ourselves up over it, we might realize just how far we’ve already come.

When you’re scared of commitment, you want to run from the bad things. You want to run from the good things. There is some inherent, unpredictable part of you that has been programmed to “Go! Flee! Get out!” every time you encounter something real and you’re not sure what it is or why it’s there. You simply experience its underlying nuances – it wants and wants and wants until it gets. And then some sort of panic mode is activated – as soon as it has, it wants to drop. It wants to jump ship. To escape. To start all over.

It’s not an insecurity and it’s not a point of pride. It’s not refusing love because you think you don’t deserve it. It’s not disdaining affection because you think that you’re above it. It seems to be nothing more than a flaw in our most basic faculty of reason – the part that moves from want to get to keep breaks down once it reaches that final step. It is the act of being stuck in an undying loop: Want, get, want again. Want more. Always want.

Fearing commitment has nothing to do with a lack of trust. You trust in things almost too much – you trust them to be constant and steady and good and you’re not sure if those are adjectives that you’re comfortable with. You aren’t afraid of the bottom falling out of your world, you are scared of it staying where it is. Of things stagnating. Stopping. Of being thrown into an uncomfortable lurch where nothing new alters or grows. You are comfortable in chaos and suffocated by routine. So even the good things scare you. Even the consistently positive drains.

When you are genuinely fearful of commitment, it goes against all reason and logic. You can sit down and write out a list of ten thousand reasons why you want to be with a certain person or commit to a certain choice and be entirely sold on all of them. You can even truly want to see things through – to invest all of your heart and emotion and to will yourself to make the right choices, but there will still be that voice in the back of your mind – the one that says Go, Leave, Run. You can’t silence it. You can only temporarily ignore it.

I’m not romanticizing non-committal attitudes. There is nothing inherently desirable about the inability to see anything through. It’s infuriating. It’s maddening. It’s a toxic headspace to dwell inside of and yet it’s one that so many of us seem genuinely predisposed to experiencing. Our eyes are eternally bigger than our stomachs and there’s no way to quell the sense of panic that closes in around us every time it gets down to the wire. Something about us has been programmed to jump ship as soon as the waters stop raging. To seek out the chaos inside of calamity. To break away from all that is perfect. To run.

When you are terrified of commitment, there’s no easy answer to a given dilemma. Do you stay where you ought to – where others depend on you and where you have promised to be – even if it means that you slowly deteriorate in the meantime? Or do you follow your impulses – rashly and impressively, without a regard for where they’re taking you or who is suffering as a result? There seems to be no way to win and it’s a maddening game to be playing. You’re perceptive to an absolute fault. You’re losing at your own mental game.

And yet in time, we learn to slowly make sense of things. We make and keep commitments. We slow down and stay put. We see the definite results of putting all of our heart and soul into one project, one person, one place. We understand that we owe so many successes to the things that we have dutifully committed to. And yet somewhere in the back of our minds, that eternal voice is always going to whisper:

Go. Leave. Run.

And some part of us is always going to be at its mercy.

Not literally, of course. I don’t want to drag my feverish ass on an airplane and infect the whole Boeing with phlegm. But it’s always when the idea seems to hit the hardest: perhaps because it’s when I’m at my most vulnerable. I miss everybody when I am sick. I miss my mom. I miss my ex-boyfriend. I miss my best friend who moved across the country and can no longer crawl into bed with me and read me tacky Internet quizzes to distract from my nausea. I miss everyone I’ve loved and lost and feel estranged from when I get a simple stomach flu and that makes me want to disappear from my entire life.

That’s something I’ve noticed about the urge to wander: It hits the strongest when we’re the most powerless. The desire to strap on a backpack, slam the front door and not look back is the ultimate “F*ck you” to whatever about your life is getting you down. “You could leave this all behind,” Your brain coos. “It could all be that simple.” And for those of us who’ve chosen the escapist route before, we know it’s true: there is nothing complicated about leaving. Nothing difficult about packing a bag, buying a plane ticket and finding an apartment someplace new. It’s not an art. It is a habit and it’s one that becomes all too easy with time.

Perhaps that is a product of the society we have created: one where possibilities are limitless and no mistake is ever inescapable. We idealize leaving it all behind as the ultimate answer to our struggles. We see place as the problem and so we move on every time the urge to wander hits: we simply pack our bags, say our goodbyes and move along. This place wasn’t the right place for me, we reason. So onwards I go.

But here is what I’ve noticed about so many people who wander: No place is ever enough. No destination is final. Happiness is fleeting, escapable, volatile as the weather in a given destination. We go where the sun shines and we leave when skies darken. It’s the philosophy we live by both literally and figuratively. We are eternally in search of a better city, better job, better relationship, better life. When things are good, we stay. When things get tough, we pack up and move on. It’s our way of taking control of a given situation: we abandon it before it has the chance to wear on us. We control it by destroying it all and then marvelling over our power. The irony of our own actions evades us. We don’t see what we’re leaving behind when we jump ship. We’re onto the next, onto the new, onto the always bigger and better.

When the urge to wander hits, it’s never random. It is almost like a knee-jerk reaction for many of us. It is our lives telling us, if you stay, things will change. And change freaks us out. We want change on our own accord – change that we decided on, change we orchestrated. The compulsion to move is an eternal game of cat-and-mouse in which we misidentify our role. If we’re the ones choosing to move, then we’re the pursuers and never the chased. We have the power. We’re in control.

But here’s the truth about wandering: It does nothing but delay the inevitable. Change happens to all of us. If it does not find us on the road, it encircles us when we return home – we see the age in the faces of our family members, the progressions that our friends have made at work. We attend engagement parties and baby showers. We catch glimpses of the lives we don’t necessarily want but which force us to grasp the absurdity of the choices we’ve made. We haven’t run from change, we’ve run alongside it. We’ve kept an even pace with everything that’s shifted. And suddenly it seems like we may not be the cat in the game after all.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with travel. It can be eye-opening, perspective-shifting and life-changing. But it can also be escapism. And when it’s the latter, it begs us to re-evaluate. What is it about staying in one place that makes us tremble? Why do we so definitely need to move at every opportunity? What would happen if we stayed? Could we survive it?

Just as there’s a time to travel, there comes a time to stay put. And sometimes when the urge to wander hits, we have to learn to counter-act it. To step outside of ourselves and determine if it’s truly the time to depart or if we’re simply feeling threatened. If the changes life is trying to impose on us necessitate an escape or if they’re a storm that we could weather. That we could maybe even grow from. That we might benefit from once it’s all said and done.

Next time the urge to wander hits, ask yourself: What am I running away from? What would happen if I didn’t? What if I stuck to one place, to one commitment, to one way of living and saw it through right to the end?

Who would I become as a result?

And would that be so bad after all?

Unfortunately (or very fortunately depending on how you look at it), life is not a Nicholas Sparks novel. It’s also not a rom-com, a TV drama or a porno. Despite our desperate attempts to recreate the things we see in Hollywood, we are never going to be in a successful relationship if we keep expecting our partners to just get everything that’s going on in our heads without us having to say it. If we want to make any real, off-screen relationship function, here are a few things we need to start clearing up ourselves.

1. Our definition of “Romance”

I know that talking about romance takes some of the fun out of it. It’s supposed to be spontaneous, unprecedented and from the heart, right? Right. Except the part we get stuck on is defining it.

Is an intimate dinner at home the epitome of romance or is a sharply-dressed night on the town more your speed? Do you want roses to commemorate your half-year anniversary or are you content to let that day pass you by? It’s better to talk about it once than face unprecedented disappointment each time an occasion slips away without the celebration you were hoping for. For some people, a quiet night at home is romantic. For others, it takes elaborate gestures and relentless reminders of love. Knowing how to give love the way someone wants to receive it is not a natural instinct. We have to actually communicate that.

2. The meaning behind our passive-aggressive comments.

Yes it is incredibly frustrating to be misunderstood by a partner to the point where reverse psychology seems like the only option. That’s how the language of passive aggressiveness was born. But the more we feed into it the more we aggravate both each other and ourselves.

I’ve conducted minimal research but I’d guess that about 5% of passive-aggressive comments are ignored because the receiver doesn’t understand that it’s fine actually means something else, and the remaining 95% of comments are ignored because ain’t nobody got time to deal with that melodrama. If something is not fine, the best and most straightforward response is “This is not fine, and here is what is wrong.” If you find you have to use that phrase way too often it may be your relationship — not your vocabulary — that needs some reworking. 


3. Our sexual fantasies.

There is a problematic gap between the amount of porn we are exposed to growing up and the amount of sexual education we are exposed to. Porn has helped us assume that all sexual partners have the same fetishes as us and there is no need to ever chat about preferences, consent or expectations. This is untrue. It is also untrue that what’s good for the goose is always good for the gander (and vice versa).

Realistically, nobody knows how to get us off like ourselves. If we could only learn to ask things of each other, discuss our bodies comfortably and get it on like adults instead of teenage boys in porno films, we’d all be a little better off. Just because one party is satisfied does not mean the other one had an equally good time. Fake-orgasm scripts are not the ones that anyone wants to be reciting by default.

4. How we approach conflicts.

It’s a natural human inclination to want to help others with their problems. So when you come home after a long, stressful day and just want to vent, the best way to preface this is by saying “I just want to vent.” It’s simple and seemingly obvious, but it can clear up a lot of potential misunderstandings about where the conversation is going.

Beyond the focus of the everyday concerns, it’s important to let each other know how we like to be dealt with in our especially heated moments. When you say, “I need some space” does it mean get the hell out of my apartment or does it mean hold me close and promise to never go away? It’s an important distinction. Talking about our confrontation styles isn’t a particularly enjoyable conversation to have at the beginning of a relationship but it saves us a whole world of hell when the first conflict arises. 


5. What we want from the future.

Remember that scene from (500) Days of Summer where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s infant sister had to give him a bitch-slap in the feelings for not taking Summer seriously when she said “I don’t want a relationship?” Don’t let that be you. Don’t you ever be the Tom of your own life.


Starting off a relationship by assuming that all parties are on the same page is an incredibly risky assumption. It’s how people end up three years into a relationship nervously awaiting a proposal from someone who is hell-bent against the institution of marriage.

It’s becoming increasingly common for people to fall into relationships without talking about what the term “relationship” actually means to them. Is it monogamy? Long-term commitment? A merging of two families and friend groups? Or is it just someone to hang out with when you’re bored and have semi-regular sex with? Talking about these things has become taboo for all the wrong reasons. We’re so afraid of rejection that we’d rather just let rejection happen to us indirectly than speak up about our desires.

The more we talk about our needs, the more they are fulfilled. It’s a simple solution to a complex problem. And it’s a pretty good alternate to endlessly whining about things our significant others will just never get.

1. They’re seasonal daters.

Primary dating season for Canadians occurs between the months of October – May (Eager daters start scouting their options in September). Winter lovers are not just a bonus in Canada, they’re a key component of keeping our heating bills down. The closer you huddle the warmer you stay – and there’s a general understanding that all bets are off come May or June.

2. They dress for practicality.

Did you and your date show up wearing the same North Face jacket? Probably a good sign. No self-respecting Canadian wastes money on dressing impractically. Flannel is the new black and we’re Pulling. It. Off.

3. They’re super chill (literally and figuratively).

Canadians are used to things going wrong. Like that time in third grade when nobody could go to school for a week because it was negative forty degrees out. We expect inconveniences and don’t get our feathers ruffled easily. High maintenance isn’t an option in Canada.

4. They get turned on by some weird stuff.

Do you have an American Netflix login? Have you ever won roll up the rim? Most importantly – does your family have a cottage anywhere close to Muskoka? If so, oh baby. It’s on.

5. They reject you super politely.

Chances are you’ve been turned down by a Canadian at least once. You just don’t know it because we’re so damn charming that they probably made you think you were rejecting them. What can we say – we’re known for our outstanding manners. If we’re not into you, we let you down as politely as possible.

6. They take you to all the cool concerts before they’re cool.

Remember when the Arcade Fire was just a group of weird kids in the back of your sister’s math class? Because we do.

7. They don’t want to sit indoors.

If you’ve never gone hiking on a first date, chances are you’ve never been to Canada. We take advantage of every day of good weather we get – and the bad days are not off-limits either. You don’t really know someone until you’ve been camping with them in the rain. Who you are when the tent collapses is WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON.

8. They judge you by your beer preferences.

Do you ironically drink PBR? Have you entered a Coors Light challenge? Or do you exclusively consume Mill Street Organic because that’s the kind of person you are? We’re watching over whatever you order. We know our beers and our beers know their drinkers.

9. They’re used to long-distance relationships.

Unless you grew up in Vancouver or Toronto and respectively stayed there forever, there is a 99% chance you’ve had the heartbreaking experience of your high school boyfriend going to Western while you headed to Queens for University. Canada’s a pretty vast country and if you’re serious about pretty much anyone you’re going to have to get used to doing some driving. It never lasts, but we always make the attempt. I mean, breaking up with someone is just so rude.

10. They’re super attracted to beards.

In some countries beards are a fashion statement. In Canada they’re a measure of practicality. Beards are an extra layer of coverage for your face between the months of November to April – one you don’t even have to pay for! Men with thick beards are simply pragmatic. Any Canuck could tell you that.

11. They’re politically correct.

You’re not someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend in Canada, you’re their partner. You’re not throwing your beer can in the garbage, you’re recycling it. And no matter how much you hate Bell as an Internet provider, goddammit you’re hashtagging #BellLetsTalk all day long on January 28th. If you can’t follow the most basic rules of inclusion you are never going to score with a Canadian.

12. They judge their dates by which hockey teams they’re faithful to.

Canucks fans are rowdy. Canadians fans are old school. Leafs fans are loyal, albeit kind of dumb. How into hockey you are doesn’t actually matter – just tell us your favorite team and we will tell you who you are.

13. They’re sarcastic about their country’s stereotypes.

Are you a non-Canadian dating a Canadian? Don’t worry aboot it. We keep our igloos warmed at a comfortable -20 degrees and our timbits are hand-delivered by Mounties every morning. Just stick with us. We’ll protect you from the polar bears, we promise.

1. You can’t remember the last time you felt excited about a project at work. 

Not every task is going to blow your mind, but if you’re consistently uninspired by your day-to-day undertakings, really without exception, it may be an indication that the job is not a great fit for you. Your interest should be sparked at least a fraction of the time.

2. You’re only staying for the money.

You keep telling yourself you’ll quit after the end-of-year bonus or your next big paycheck.No, the next one… And then suddenly it’s three years later and you’re sitting at the exact same desk.The truth is, there will never be a good time to leave a stable source of income. There will only be a time when the satisfaction of doing so finally outweighs the financial risk. 

3. Your strengths are not being emphasized (or optimized). 

You have a creative mind and a commitment to excellence but you are stuck with tasks that downplay your natural abilities. Your best self has no place in your workspace – which is unfortunate because that is the part of yourself that does the most inspired work. 

4. There is a field you’d rather be in, but fear is holding you back from pursuing a career in it. 

You know exactly what you’d rather be doing but someone (possibly you) has convinced you that it is a pipe dream. You stay right where you are because it’s easier to fail at a job you don’t care about than a job that you passionately do care about.

5. You never feel stressed in the workplace.

There is absolutely such thing as “healthy stress.” It’s what we feel when we are invested in an undertaking that we want to see prosper. If you never feel stress in the workplace it may be an indication that you aren’t that invested in your job. And that lack of investment makes for some very long days.

6. On the flip side, you are always feeling stressed.

While a healthy amount of stress breeds productivity, an over-abundance of it wears on our mental and physical health. We all need to know our own limits and work within them. If your job is constantly requiring you to push those boundaries, it may be time to re-consider the role.

7. You are replaceable.

Your role doesn’t require a set of skills that are specific to you. If you left tomorrow there’d be a lineup of people who could fill in for your position and it would be no skin off the company’s back.

8. You have noticed a significant discrepancy between your own values and the values your company/co-workers embody.

In a lot of ways, finding the right job is like finding the right relationship – You don’t have to have all the same interests but your long-term values should line up. Working for a company that you don’t believe in is a slow form of torture – one that takes a toll on you both in and outside of work.   

9. Your self-esteem is suffering.

You feel ashamed of what you do for a living and it is reflecting on the way you see yourself as a person. No matter how badly you need to pay the bills, your work should never come at the cost of your own respect.

10. Work parties have become something you abhor and avoid.

The last thing you need is to be unpaid to hang around the same people you see every day. Business has no element of pleasure for you – ever.

11. Though you enjoy your time off, you develop an impending sense of dread each Sunday evening around 7pm.

The anticipation of another five days in the office is almost more than you can bear. 

12. You scour the jobs ads occasionally, just to see what else is out there.

Though you may not be serious about leaving your job anytime soon, it is a fantasy that you actively maintain. You want to keep your options open and if anything better came along you wouldn’t think twice about applying for it. 

13. You have a difficult time concentrating on tasks.

Even when you’ve had eight hours of sleep, two coffees and a yoga break, you cannot seem to snap out of a daze at work. It’s as if you’re in a perpetual coma from the time you clock in until the moment you can finally leave.

14. When you’re asked where you see yourself in five years you have a plethora of answers, none of which involve your current field of work.

You have strong ambitions and the drive to go far – you just don’t see your current company as the place where that will happen. You have already mentally checked out from any possible future in your current role.

15. You are actively laying down the foundation for a career elsewhere.

You are taking side courses or volunteering in the field. As soon as the opportunity arises for you to achieve gainful employment in the field you really want to be in, you’ll be ready. No questions asked. 

16. You’re preparing to leave.

Even though you don’t have another job prospect on the horizon, you’ve begun clearing your desk, tying up loose ends and prepping yourself to move on. It’s only a matter of time before you find something more meaningful.

17. You know that when you finally do leave, you will be nothing but proud of yourself.

You’re finally ready to take steps toward the life you truly want. And the idea of doing so fills you with nothing but pride – something you haven’t felt at work for a very long time.

Youngest children grew up watching their siblings make mistakes and then course-correct – which gave them a sense of fearlessness when it comes to their own decisions. They aren’t afraid to get out there and tackle life full-force. They’re always the first to sign up for a new experience or adventure.

2. They show the hell up for you.

Youngest children show their love through solidarity. They’re used to being part of a team – one that sticks together at all costs. They’ll be the first people clapping when you win and the first to jump to your defense when you’re threatened.

3. When shit hits the fan, youngest children don’t panic.

Youngest children were usually the casual bystanders of chaos – they watched their families freak out around them while they sat with their juice box and waited for the panic to pass. As adults, they maintain this sense of calm anytime something goes wrong. They know the details will get sorted and the problem will eventually work itself out – so they keep calm throughout crises and tackle problems with a level head.

4. They’re adorably affectionate.

Youngest children grew up jumping, climbing on and clinging to their older family members. They’re used to showering people with affection and having that affection returned. A youngest child will be the first person to give you a massage or a massive ol’ bear hug when you’re having a bad day.

5. They’re ridiculously open-minded.

Youngest children had the luxury of observing what happened when certain rules were followed by their older siblings and others weren’t. As a result, they learned that there are a thousand different ways to tackle any situation or problem. They keep their minds open to new ideas and they’re always on the hunt for new ways of looking at things.

6. They’re low maintenance (kind of).

Youngest children grew up on hand-me-downs and second place medals. They don’t need the best of the best by any means. But they ARE a little used to being catered to. Youngest children are low-maintenance 90% of the time – but if something doesn’t go their way, their inner brat CAN still emerge.

7. They know how to take a joke.

Growing up, youngest children were the butt of all the jokes – so they learned to fight fire with fire and be feisty right back. A youngest child can both dish it out AND take it back – which makes them a lot of fun to be around, as long as your own skin isn’t too thin.

8. They don’t freak out if you don’t call for a day.

Youngest children are the masters of creating their own entertainment. They were often lost in the shuffle growing up and had to create vivid imaginary worlds for themselves to stay entertained. This is a habit they’ve carried into adulthood, which means they aren’t hanging off your every text or word – in fact, they may altogether forget that they’re dating you for hours to days at a time.

9. Their social skills are effortlessly on-point.

Youngest children learned to wheel, deal and charm with the best of them at a very young age. Their playful charisma has gotten them by for a very long time – which means you never have to stress about bringing them along to social events. They’ll form instant alliances with, well, pretty much everyone they meet, within the first ten minutes of meeting them.

10. They aren’t afraid to break a few rules to keep things interesting.

Youngest children grew up carefully observing the rules, so that they knew exactly which ones they could get away with breaking. They aren’t afraid to twist a few guidelines in order to keep things fresh and interesting – luckily, they’re also masters at wiggling their way out of trouble.

11. They’re top-notch communicators.

Youngest children quickly learned that they had to speak up in life in order to be acknowledged. As a result, they have no qualms about bringing up challenges or struggles within a relationship. They know that passive aggressiveness gets them nowhere – so they’re tirelessly direct when it comes to talking about what’s important.

12. There’s nothing they cannot make fun.

Growing up, youngest children never got to pick the plans – it was always about what their siblings were up to or what the pre-established family tradition was. So they learned to just go with the flow and enjoy whatever activity they were going to get dragged to anyway. Consequently, they still find a way to make pretty much anything fun as an adult.

13. They think outside the box.

It was never the job of the youngest child to play by the rules. They saw their older siblings take all the socially encouraged steps in life, and they made it their own personal mission to do the opposite. Youngest children are creative, outside-the-box thinkers, who have always refused to play by the rules.

14. They’re independent as hell.

Youngest children are tenacious little buggers. They grew up wanting to try everything out with their own two hands and it’s a habit they never outgrew. You don’t have to worry about youngest children becoming clingy or overly-needy in a relationship. They grew up fending for themselves and they plan on continuing to do so – it’s just a matter of whether or not you want to come along for the ride.

At the age of eighteen I printed out the quote “It is never too late to be what you might have been” by George Eliot and hung it on my wall for the next three years. It seemed to be the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card any time anxiety began rearing its head.

I had time to make so many wrong choices. I had unlimited time left to correct (and re-correct) my course.

And to an extent, this quote holds true.

As long as we’re still breathing, there is (and always will be) time to start over.

It’s just that the older we get, the higher a price we start paying for those fresh starts.

At eighteen or twenty or twenty-two, it’s easy to throw your life into a backpack, charge a plane ticket to your credit card and figure out your next step as you go. You’re young. You’re unestablished. Most of the people around you are transient, so there’s no reason for you not to be as well.

If you’re lucky, nobody you know has major health issues. If you’re lucky, nobody you love is dependent on you financially or emotionally or physically.

It’s easy to be untethered at twenty-one or two or three because the opportunity cost of ‘leaving it all behind’ is essentially nothing. And that’s a wonderful thing that should be fully taken advantage of (that is, if leaving is what you want to do).

But lately I’ve been questioning that George Eliot quote that I used to so adamantly swear by.

I think that at some point, we have to lay to rest the people we might have become.

The explorers who took on the world. The lovers who saw certain relationships through. The dreams that we once failed to realize. The challenges we never took on.

Because at a certain point, those versions of ourselves come with opportunity costs.

What happens when realizing one dream means giving up another? What happens when chasing ‘the one who got away’ means asking them to give up the one they found in your absence? What happens when the price tag on your outdated ambitions starts to include the life that you built in the meantime?

Because the truth is, the older we get, the harder it becomes to just ditch our lives and leave it all behind.

We have people who depend on us. We have families members who are aging. We have careers that we don’t want to walk away from. We have commitments that have become a part of who we are.

And we can look at those commitments in one of two ways: as though they are inescapable ball-and-chains or as though they are the anchors we need.

Because the thing is, it’s fun to be untethered. It’s fun to explore. It’s fun to feel attached to nothing and open to everything. It’s fun, when and if, in the back of your mind, you know you have a safe place to return to.

It’s fun to travel when you know that your parents are in great health and you can come back and stay in their basement if (and when) you run out of money. It’s fun to take daring new risks, when you know that your friends are cool with you crashing on their couches anytime you’re in town (because you can’t hold down an apartment lease yourself). It’s cool to explore when you have those safe bases to fall back on.

But part of adulthood is becoming your own safe base. And sometimes, that means opting for security where you once chose adventure.

Because eventually, your parents age (and die). Your friends settle down and start families of their own. And the entry-level jobs you picked up with ease at eighteen or twenty or twenty-two when you needed some fast cash for your next adventure stop looking as appealing.

You start learning to provide for yourself. You start learning to be the safe base for other people.

The couch your friends can crash on. The provider your family can rely on.

It gets harder to start over as we get older because we grow into our bigger, adult shoes and they are not uncomplicated garments to unlace.

Nor should they be.

Because as limiting as adulthood can feel – as stuck and as claustrophobic as it can make us feel, it also offers us the ultimate form of liberty.

The liberty to rely on ourselves. To provide for ourselves. To become a person who isn’t dependent on our parents or our friends or our community members or even our youthful exuberance and energy.

It provides us the opportunity to put down roots in a way that matters to us. To finally survey our lives – after all of our exploring – and decide which parts of it to keep. Which parts to focus on. Which parts to nurture and grow into something astounding.

If being young is about exploring, than perhaps growing up is about flourishing.

It’s about recognizing what matters most to us and holding onto that. Optimizing that. Relishing in that.

And instead of packing our bags and planning our escape every time the going gets tough, we learn to weather the storms that come our way. We learn to stick it out and fight for what matters to us most.

We learn that the people we might have been live on inside of us – they always have and they always will.

But for now, our job is to grow into the best possible versions of the people we are.

And it is not a bad job to be left with.

The dream job you never thought you’d quit. The person you didn’t think you’d leave. The plans you had for the future that never came to fruition because something else got in the way. Life ebbs and flows and to keep up with it we have to do the same. We have to forgive ourselves for having the self-awareness to change our minds about the really big things.

2. The ways in which you fought through pain

The dark paths you shouldn’t have gone down. The crazy things you did in the name of coping that brought about more damage than good. The things you did to keep yourself alive when you didn’t know any better way. The way your survival instinct showed itself when you were too young or helpless to control it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a stronger, fuller person for still being around. For having found your way back to life.

3. The person you could never love properly

The person whose words body never fit right with yours, whose thoughts weren’t the ying to your yang, whose words never quite sounded right but whom you tried to love despite and because of it all. The person you tried to get it right with so hard that it felt like your heart was going to give up on beating, but who eventually had to let go. You cannot force love into existence. And letting it bloom somewhere else only makes us all freer in the end.

4. The fries that you ate with your lunch

You’ll survive this.

5. All the ways in which you are not enough

The body you’ll never have, the knowledge you will never acquire, the courage you’ll never muster and the effort you’ll never put in. You may never be brave enough or smart enough or strong enough to suit someone else’s ideal but you are always going to be just perfectly you enough and the moment you realize how important that it, the sooner you can let the rest go.

6. The way you treated your parents when you were sixteen (Or twenty. Or thirty.)

You were awful and infuriating and insufferable and now all of those days are behind you (Unless they’re not. If you are sixteen and reading this, please go hug your parents and tell them you love them). So perhaps we all grew a little sideways or backwards on the way to growing up and we said a couple things we didn’t mean. Life went on. We all grew from it. And it is never too late to say, “I’m sorry.”

7. The way you treated yourself most of your life

Every flaw you picked apart inside the mirror. Every lie you told yourself about your limitations. Every “I am not good enough” thought that ever flitted through the recesses of your mind, settling into a place where it mattered. We have to forgive ourselves for not being our own best friends, our own confidants and our own biggest cheerleaders. We didn’t know what a difference it would make to love ourselves, until we finally did.

8. The useless degree you took in college

The world is changing, quickly. Once upon a time there really were jobs for undergraduate Philosophy majors. We just don’t happen to live in that world anymore. But the cool thing about the world we do live in is that it’s getting smaller every day. We have less specific career paths when we graduate but more general opportunity. You’d be shocked at all the ways your “useless” major still comes in handy. You won’t end up where you expected but you may end up somewhere much better.

9. The breaks that you took from life

The semester when life got you down. The year you spent living at home. The months that you wish you could wipe from your mind as times of self-loathing and fear. We all get overwhelmed sometimes. We all forget how to deal. We need these times to re-group, to reflect, to re-create ourselves and figure out where to go next. We are stronger for having gone through these breaks, despite what they felt like at the time. We figured out how to bounce back harder.

10. The chances you didn’t take

The places you never travelled to. The experiences you didn’t have. The person you did not chase after when they decided to walk away. We have to unclasp our palms and let go of every alternate reality where we’re happier, stronger, brighter because of all the things we did differently. Those universes do not exist. But ours does. And it’s okay here, if we open our eyes up and let it be.

11. The things you didn’t say until it was too late

The “I love yous” we let slide. The phone calls we didn’t pick up. The messages we forgot to pass on while we still had the chance to do so. We believe that our words and intentions could have changed things, so we use our words now. We don’t let our “I love yous” slide. We pick the phone up. And we forgive ourselves for all the times when we didn’t.

12. The disasters you didn’t see coming

Every person you should not have trusted. Every fun night out that went wrong. Every choice that in retrospect should not have been made. Except we don’t live our lives in retrospect. We live them forward. And we don’t get the privilege of knowing if our choices will be right or wrong before we make them. We simply have to do the best we can, try the best we can and forgive ourselves whenever we are wrong. If we’re living life right we’re going to be wrong a whole lot.

13. Whatever you still are not ready for

Every fear that is holding you back right now. Every leap of faith you haven’t yet made. Every story you’re telling yourself about where you ought to be by the age that you’re currently at. We’re all a little not ready for life. We’re all a little bit timid. We’re all a little bit gunshy and we’re all trying in whatever small ways we know how. Give yourself the time you need to grow. It’s going to happen, just not on the timeline you think it will.

14. The mistakes you haven’t even made yet

Because as much as we’d always like to believe that we’re eternally out of the woods now, we’re not. We’re going to screw up again. We’re going to fall down again. We’re going to make more huge, inconsolable mistakes that will diminish us. And thank God. The day we stop making mistakes is the day we stop living. We just have to give ourselves the room we need to make them.