I Need To Know

James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there’s nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.”

— Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes (via perfectquote)

The fact that you can feel so strongly for someone but they never have to feel the same. The fact that you can love and want only one person and they don’t have to feel the same. The fact that you can miss someone so much your heart aches for them, yet they can be fine without you

Journal Prompts

All the following questions were found from PsychCentral in the article 64 Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery. I’m going to be using them in my next following posts

Who do you trust most? Why?

What are your strengths in relationships?

How do you draw strength from loved ones?

What do you value most in relationships?

What three important things have you learned from previous relationships?

What five traits do you value most in partners?

How do you show compassion to others? How can you extend that same compassion to yourself?

What are three things that work well in your current relationship? What are three things that could be better?

What boundaries could you set in your relationships to safeguard your own well-being? (*****This is particularly going to be a challenging one for me. I’ll get into that later.)

What do you most want your children to learn from you?

How can you better support and appreciate your loved ones?

What does love mean to you? How do you recognize it in a relationship?

List three things you’d like to tell a friend, family member, or partner?

What values do you consider most important in life? How to do your actions align with those values?

What three changes can you make to live according to your personal values?

Describe yourself using the first 10 words that come to mind. Then list 10 words that you’d like to use to describe yourself. List a few ways to transform those descriptions into reality.

What do you appreciate most about your personality? What aspects do you find harder to accept?

Explore an opinion or two that you held in the past but have since questioned or changed. What led you to change that opinion? 

List three personal beliefs that you’re willing to reconsider or further explore.

Finish this sentence: “my life would be incomplete without….”

Describe one or two significant life events that helped shape you into who you are today.

When do you trust yourself most? When do you find it hard to have faith in your instincts? (***Interesting. See to post 1).

What three things would you most like others to know about you?

What difficult thoughts or emotions come up most frequently for you?

Which emotions do you find hardest to accept? How do you handle these emotions?

Describe a choice you regret. What did you learn from it? (***)

What parts of daily life cause stress, frustration, or sadness? What can you do to change those experiences?

What are three things that can instantly disrupt a good mood and bring you down? What strategies do you use to counter these effects?

What are three self-defeating thoughts that show up in your self-talk? How can you reframe them to encourage yourself instead?

What go-to coping strategies help you get through moments of emotional or physical pain?

Who do you trust with your most painful and upsetting feelings? How can you connect with them when feelings low?

What do you fear most? Have your fears changed throughout life?

Describe your favorite thing to do when feeling low.

What three ordinary things bring you the most joy?

List three strategies that help you stay present in your daily routines. Then, list three strategies to help boost mindfulness in your life.

How do you prioritize self-care?

Describe two or three things you do to relax.

What aspects of your life are you most grateful for?

How do you show yourself kindness and compassion each day?

Write a short love letter to some object or place that makes you happy.

What place makes you feel most peaceful? Describe that place using all five senses.

List 10 things that inspire or motivate you.

What are your favorite hobbies? Why?

What parts of life surprised you most? What turned out the way you expected it would?

What three things would you share with your teenage self? What three questions would you want to ask an older version of yourself?

List three important goals. How do they match up to your goals from 5 years ago?

Do your goals truly reflect your desires? Or do they reflect what someone else (a parent, partner, friend, etc.) wants for you?

What helps you stay focused and motivated when you feel discouraged?

What do you look forward to most in the future?

Identify one area where you’d like to improve. Then, list three specific actions you can take to create that change.

How do you make time for yourself each day?

What do you most want to accomplish in life?

List three obstacles lying in the way of your contentment or happiness. Then, list two potential solutions to begin overcoming each obstacle.

Obviously there are not 64 questions listed here. I’ve eliminated any regarding work. Just not the topic of conversation that I’m wanting to have right now.

Rough Scribbles for a painting. Hopefully I can start this weekend. #graffiti #painting #canvas #bird #kingfisher #wings #flying #feathers

“Maybe, the only thing that has to make sense about being somebody’s friend is that you help them be their best self on any given day. That you give them a home when they don’t want to be in their own.”

— Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X (via thebookquotes)

03/25/2021+03/26/2021

The unconscious act of clinging to one’s tangible emotions removes all possibility of these coming into existence.

The backwards law plays a paramount role in these cases.

Trying to draw out something,which not even the owner can feel on command is foolish.

It’s like stomping on the ground and then start fishing,meanwhile believing to go home with a handful of goods.

To actually be able to accomplish what you set out to do,you have to immerse yourself in the environment and follow where the current brings you.

Then,and only then,the reward will come to you.

The focus should not be one’s own emotions,and therefore not even themselves as a person.

Shifting it on a purpose beside that which has been the constant object of such attention,would prove benefiting for the primary objective itself.

For one to receive love,they must first know how it would feel before being able to open the doors to it.

By bestowing close ones with your own small acts of love,each in their different shape,will open the one-sided path of love.

Do not covet from others what you have never given to them.

i am tired and uninspired

i am used batteries

i am talent-less i am stale

i am a book thats been read and now sits on the shelf

i am a broken guitar string

i am useless

i am invisible

everyday i feel like i’m at war with the world

some days i feel like im standing on the tallest mountain,

screaming at the top of my lungs

”look at me, please, look at me“

if loneliness ever needed a defention,

it‘d be me

i see countless faces everyday

but do they see me? NO!

i am alone

i am invisible

all i wanna do is help other people like me

i wanna hold you and kiss your scars

and say ”i swear to god it‘ll be okay“

not today, but one day

one day, you‘ll wake up and smile for no damn reason

but today, we can cry

today we can be invisible.

invisible by dandelion hands

Level 1 / Lesson 2: 잘 and 못

안녕, 친구들! Hi, friends! Welcome to this next lesson! In previous lessons, we learned how to make affirmative and negative sentences. In other words, we know how to say that something is/does something, and that something is not/ does not do something. In this lesson, I want to teach you how to say you are good/bad at something, or that you can/can’t do something. This is a good way to talk about your interests and abilities! Perhaps this could also help you ask for help if you struggle with something :). Let’s start!

잘하다: to do well 못하다: to do badly

Let’s start by taking a look at a verb that ends with 하다, such as 수영하다 (to swim):

수영 = swimming 

하다 = to do

Notice how 수영 is essentially a noun–it is the action itself of swimming. It is something you do, hence why 하다 is attached to it. You are doing the swimming, if that makes sense. You can even say 수영을 하다 to mean the same thing–the object particle here suggests are are doing an action of some sort.

So how can you say that you are good at swimming? It’s pretty simple: just take the noun for swimming, 수영, and attach 잘하다 to it. Don’t forget to conjugate 잘하다 also!

수영 + 잘하다 - 다 + 여요 = 수영 잘 해요 = I / you / he / she / they swim(s) well

This can also be translated to “I [or any noun] can swim.”

Conversely, we can use the verb 못하다 the same way to mean “I cannot swim” or “I am bad at swimming”:

수영 + 못하다 - 다 + 여요 = 수영 못 해요 = I cannot swim

Let’s look at another example using the verb 공부하다 (to study). Here, 공부 would be the noun “a study” or “studying” Again, you can think of it as “to do studying,” if that makes sense. Thus, you can use the same formula to say you are good or bad at studying:

공부 + 잘하다 - 다 + 여요 = 공부 잘 해요 = I am good at studying

공부 + 못하다 - 다 + 여요 = 공부 못 해요 = I am bad at studying

Here’s another example: 이해하다 (to understand)

이해 = understanding / comprehension

이해 잘 해요 = I understand / I understand well

이해 못 해요 = I do not understand

Something that may be useful for y’all is to say which languages you can and cannot speak. For example:

한국어를 잘 해요 = I can speak Korean / I speak Korean well

한국어를 못 해요 = I cannot speak Korean / I do not speak Korean well

영어를 잘 해요 = I can speak English / I speak English well

영어를 못 해요 = I cannot speak English / I do not speak English well

*Note that although the verb 말하다 means to speak, we just use the verb 하다 to talk about speaking languages, since it’s inferred that the action in question is “speaking.”

Not too confusing I hope :). But there are many verbs that do not end in 하다. So how are we supposed to say that we can / cannot do those actions? It’ actually perhaps a little simpler than above! Let’s look at the verb  (to go). 

Simply add 잘 or 못 in front of 가다 to say you can or cannot go:

잘 가요 = I can go (this is what it could possibly translate to, but this sentence is usually used to mean “goodbye”–it could be translated as “go well”)

못 가요 = I can’t go (perhaps your parents won’t let you go to a party or something lol)

Here’s another example: 부르다 (to call / to sing). In this case, we’ll say it means “to sing.”

잘 불러요 = I sing well

못 불러요 = I cannot sing

Interestingly, there’s another word that means “to sing”: 노래하다. Let’s give this one a try too, shall we? It works the same way as the previously 하다 verbs do:

노래 = song

노래 잘 해요 = I can sing / I sing well

노래 못 해요 = I cannot sing / I sing badly

There are also some verbs that look like this:

춤을 추다 = to dance 

춤 = a dance (noun) 

추다 = to dance (verb)

In this case, I don’t think you can say “춤을 하다.” You should just say “춤을 춰요” to mean “I dance.” 

Similarly to how we put 잘 or 못 right before a verb for the 하다 verbs, we can do the same for verbs like these:

춤을 잘 춰요 = I can dance / I dance well

춤을 못 춰요 = I cannot dance / I dance poorly

Let’s look at another example with the verb 꿈을 꾸다 (to dream)

꿈 = dream (noun) 

꾸다 = to dream (action)

꿈을 잘 꿔요 = I dream well 

꿈을 못 꿔요 = I cannot dream / I don’t dream well 

(Not really sure when you’d say something like this lol. Maybe when you’re describing whether you had a good or bad dream? I just wanted to use this for the sake of showing the grammar lol.)

I think that’s about it for this lesson! Hope it helped you out! If you study hard, you’ll be able to proudly say “한국어를 잘 해요” one day! As always, questions are welcome, so ask away if you have any! Thanks for studying with me and see you later!! 안녕!