One of the most challenging things I’ve had to learn is that healing must be intentional. There is no one golden day that comes and saves you from all your misery. Healing is a practice. You have to decide that it’s what you want to do and actively do it. You have to make a habit out of it. Once I learned that, I only looked back to see how far I came.
Indigenous people: We have been cultivating this land and eating animals sustainably and with respect for literal millenia
Non native vegans: Wow unfortunately I just cannot think of ANY possible way to make life sustainable or moral other than replacing the factory meat farm with the same colonial expansionist theory but with vegetables instead :/
but i also firmly support a person’s right to say “hey, i really would rather not hear this right now” for any reason, so if you ever don’t want me to mindlessly ramble about how much my life sucks PLEASE feel free to tell me because i strongly think that helping someone deal with their problems should be VOLUNTARY
oh BOY do I have about a dozen people I’m gonna screenshot this to
Today at work, I approached a young couple and opened with my default greeting. “Welcome,” I said. “If you have any questions or if you need anything—“
“No,” said the man. “I don’t have any questions.” I smiled, nodded, and started to walk away.
“I do this for a living,” he said, turning to me. He was dressed in khaki cargo shorts, hiking boots, a safari hat, a dinosaur-print button down shirt, and a red handkerchief tied around his neck - a denim shirt away from a bad Dr. Alan Grant cosplay. He looked me up and down. “It’d be pretty weird if I had any questions for you.”
I kept my face as neutral as possible, and said calmly, “I hope I can reach a point where I too have nothing left to learn.”
As I walked away, the woman with him reached out and smooshed her hand over his face. “Don’t listen to him,” she said to me. “He’s twenty.”
The thing that pissed me off was that, while he may not have had any questions about the subject matter, he might eventually want to know where the bathroom is, or if I have a band-aid, or what time we close, or if that outfit made him look like a try-hard douchebag. It’d be pretty weird if I had any answers…
