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Gabe is a really good friend of mine, and the last thing I want is for him to realize that I keep checking out his sister’s ass.
The thing about being a perfectionist workaholic is that you bring your own guilt with you.
There was a point in my life, she writes, where I really needed to hear these words: You are enough, just as you are. So I’m going to say them to you. You are enough, just as you are.
In conclusion, A. has written, I am a horrible fraud, so give me more grant money.
“Maria,” Tina says slowly, “are you flirting with this poor boy about radiation?”
“How long has this guy been low-key flirting with you using math?”
“You’re a goddamned professor. If you assume your female students who care about their appearance don’t know math, you’re doing them an incredible disservice.”
Saying, ‘I didn’t know you knew math, so I’m sorry I treated you like a nonperson’ is also fucked up. People who don’t know math also deserve respect.”
It’s never a good idea to expect anyone will care when I need them to. It never turns out.
“The scary thing,” he continues, “is that concentrated asinine obtuseness burns twelve times hotter.”
The joy and the agony of being a perfectionist in a changing world is that you will never succeed in being without fault, but you also never run out of chances.”
Love doesn’t mean you never screw up. It means you don’t hold on to the unforgivable.”
“Step one: stop feeling self-conscious about things not working. You want a PhD? Well, guess what. You’re going to be issued a wall, with instructions to beat your head against it for a few years. If you’re lucky, the wall will crack, and you’ll write about the structural integrity of walls. If you’re unlucky, your head will break, and you’ll write about the structural integrity of heads. Either way, we have to talk about failure. If you can’t get over your ego and just talk about what you did and what happened, this will take four times as long.
The lesson I drew from this when I was young was that even brilliant minds can stall out if they let their brain get stuck on the way they think the universe works instead of examining the actual evidence.
“You’re all in for everyone else,” Tina says. “Always, all the time. I think you’re freaking out right now because the only person in your life you aren’t all in for is yourself.”
But I don’t need to fight anxiety with nothing but willpower and sleepless nights. I have better things to do with my willpower.
