Some Good Stuff… four links, and two books.
But first, a question:
If a box held a string that was the measure of your life, would you look?
Boston! The winners are great and all, but it’s the regular-ass runners that make it fun.
There’s a lot of talk about what people with autism can and cannot do. I don’t have the knowledge or experience to speak on any of that, but this was freaking amazing!
Let me preface this by saying I regularly read self-help and my life is better for it, but there’s a lot of snake oil out there. This conversation about Mel Robbins’ wildly successful book Let Them Theory, represents everything that disappoints me about the self-help genre: questionable backstory, junk science, flawed logic, and the general feeling that this should have been 150 pages shorter. Robbins went one step further and literally stole the whole concept of “Let them” from a poem written by Cassie Phillips. (If Books Could Kill)
“Just let them.
If they want to choose something or someone over you, LET THEM.
If they want to go weeks without talking to you, LET THEM.
If they are okay with never seeing you, LET THEM.
If they are okay with always putting themselves first, LET THEM.
If they are showing you who they are and not what you perceived them to be, LET THEM.
If they want to follow the crowd, LET THEM.
If they want to judge or misunderstand you, LET THEM.
If they act like they can live without you, LET THEM.
If they want to walk out of your life and leave, hold the door open, AND LET THEM.
Let them lose you.
You were never theirs because you were always your own.
So let them.” ~ Cassie Phillips
Bookstore walk. hahaha
Recent Reads
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I found this book erksome. The beginning reads like a Cinderella retelling, and then turns into an awkward "romance" where the power imbalance between the young Casiopea and a god is just creepy. I like learning about myths, but this story just didn't work for me.
The premise is "What if everyone could know exactly when they would die?" but really this book is about the COVID Pandemic of 2020... Or maybe I'm so obsessed with processing that experience because I don't think we can move on as a country until we do, that I see everything as a reflection of the pandemic.
I loved the characters and even cried more than once, but some parts did leave me wanting. I had too many questions at the end. Overall, this was an enjoyable, thought-provoking read.
In case you missed it
Generally Phenomenal
“How are you doing?” Without hesitation, he responded, “Generally phenomenal.”
It’s sad to reflect on how surprised I was that he said something so definitively positive. I’m not sure I’ve responded with anything more uplifting than “Busy, but good” in more than a decade. When did reluctant contentedness become my default?
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