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I woke up late today, again. After spending weeks telling myself that I needed to lock in, be productive, and build momentum. It’s ironic that the first thing I managed to build this morning was disappointment.

And things spiralled after that.

I stayed in bed longer than I wanted to. I picked up my phone, despite knowing that using the phone immediately after waking up is not healthy for the brain, and proceeded to punish myself with mindless scrolling. I watched as the minutes counted themselves away on the screen. My frustration got hotter and hotter inside my organs as time passed. Yet I remained static in the cozy protection of my blanket.

It felt like one mistake somehow became proof that I was failing, that I might as well spend the rest of the day blaming myself for it.

Then, while scrolling, I came across a Pinterest board that said:

“Bad days are a part of a good life”

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ahhh the wisdom of Pinterest’s half-drunk coffee mugs

And it felt like being hugged by someone who was very warm and smelled very nice. It does not solve any problem, but reminds you that you are okay anyway.

The sentence — gentle, forgiving— was the only thing that got me out of bed.

Maybe not every day is supposed to be productive, inspiring, or memorable. Maybe some days exist just to be survived.

We tend to imagine improvement as a straight line rising endlessly upward, moving neatly from point A to point B. But life has never worked that way.

I think growth looks more like a spring. It loops and circles back on itself — days of certainty followed by days of doubt, moments of courage followed by moments of fear, trying and failing, hoping and despairing. Constant loops of oppositional forces that make you feel like you’re going nowhere at all. Yet somehow, with every turn, you’re carried a little higher than before.

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Ever since I was small, I knew I was a sensitive child. This was clearly and consistently communicated to me by teachers, parents and friends alike — always with a hint of condescension and pity, as if sensitivity is a disadvantage of the mind, a detriment to the rational human excellence.

And for a long time, I agreed with them. Nothing good had ever come from the acute awareness of my surroundings.

My blood boiled at the very thought of introducing myself in a new class (ice-breaker sessions criminally poured actual ice down my spine).

The world spun and threatened to crumble at my feet for something as simple as having to tell the server that they got my order wrong, so most of the time, I just swallowed it down, eating away both that disgusting taste of coriander and the overwhelming shame of not being able to initiate such a basic human interaction.

My cheeks burned, my pulse quickened, visions blurred, and my senses, ironically, both felt amplified and blocked at the same time.

Anxiety was painful, to say the least. It felt like a thousand needles wiggling inside my flesh, stabbing me at every turn. But there was nothing I could do. If I could have dissected myself and cut out all the parts that made me feel wrong, I would have.

Sometimes in my dreams, those fears and doubts manifested into a villainised version of myself, and we fought. I wanted so desperately to eliminate her; she was the reason why I felt weak and inferior, the culprit of every awkward conversation that haunted me at night, the very antithesis of everything I strove for.

But every single time, she beat me to the dust.

‘You cannot kill me. I am a part of you, and I will always be. Stop trying.’

Yet, it was easier to imagine the anxiety inside me as an antagonist, a monster to fight against. Other times, it would morph into a scared little girl, timidly watching other kids on the playground, not knowing what to do with her hands or mouth, so she got creative and dug her nails between her teeth.

I did not fight then, I couldn’t.

All I wanted to do was to hug her.

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It was hard to articulate this with my loved ones. Most of the time, they skirted around it, concluding that I was being too dramatic and that I should simply look on the bright side. But no one ever taught me how to find the bright side when my vision was filled with fog.

But I stomached it. They were right. If I wanted to survive and thrive in this fast-paced society, I ought to sacrifice that anxious mind, trade it for something more lightweight and effective, and I had to do it quickly.

Then came the years of relentless consumption of self-help books, motivational podcasts, and aesthetic Instagram quotes. I thought that if I could absorb enough theories on achieving inner peace, then maybe one day, I would finally be fixed.

And it did get better. The practices worked.

Slow breathing calmed me down. Journaling helped me clarify my thoughts. Meditation alchemised them into something beautiful. Drinking warm water, surprisingly (or maybe not that surprisingly), was incredibly effective in clearing the blockage in my nervous system.

Anxiety, I learned, was a product of unfamiliarity, and the best remedy was to habituate yourself as much as possible with the thing that scared you the most.

Sadness is the rain, I am the whole spectrum of weather, I am the sky.

Stoicism is the way.

Don’t get too attached. Nothing lasts.

For a moment, I thought I had finally made it. I was progressing. I knew how to acknowledge the weight without succumbing to it. I understood why I was bothered and how to avoid it. Step by step, I was inching closer to the identity I had always longed to embody.

But you cannot outrun your own architecture.

Beneath the steady breathing and the journal entries, an old dread still resided in the deepest corners of my brain, shrieking and laughing at my pathetic performance of being ‘okay’. It was the villain, or maybe the little girl, watching me play dress-up in a life that didn’t belong to me.

‘I told you. You cannot kill me.’

How desperately I wished for a happily ever after.

I wanted the sweet, permanent taste of a cured mind. For all the work I had done, I foolishly believed the healing could be permanent.

But I guess life is much more brutal and demanding.

They always returned — those sharp currents of anguish and trepidation — draining away all the wise, insightful knowledge I had gathered, leaving only the scorching, familiar pain of not knowing how to live. And any attempt at finding answers only produces more and more questions.

The best I could do was keep on living without knowing anything at all.

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There is no antidote hidden at the end of this page.

Some days, the sun envelops my spirit like a warm blanket.

Some days, the weather turns, and the fog rolls back in.

Some days, I am no longer the sky, but a mere object that is bound to be affected by its every movement.

You cannot fight the scared little girl waiting by the playground, and maybe you shouldn’t try.

Instead, you just learn to sit with her in the heaviness,
offering her some warm water,
and waiting for the sky to clear again.

The questions remain. The fog stays. And tomorrow, I will wake up and learn how to breathe through it all over again.

Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you.

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or support me with as many claps as you’d like. Follow me on Substack for more exclusive content.

Don’t forget to comment and subscribe to receive my newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

the hero.

There’s a scene in Doctor Strange, towards the end of the movie, that many people considered underwhelming for a final act, but I think is brilliant.

Using the Infinity Stone, Strange traps himself and the villain — Dormammu — in a never-ending timeloop. Unlike many superhero movies where the protagonist puts up an epic fight, Doctor Strange merely bargains, then he fails, he dies, the clock rewinds, and he steps forward to do it all over again and again, for eternity.

But not even an eternity of failing can stop him from trying. In the end, Dormammu grows so frustrated and exhausted from killing him that it finally agrees to leave Earth.

It is perhaps a bit corny to find a philosophical perspective in a Marvel blockbuster, but that scene has anchored itself in my mind. A display of strength that does not focus on physicality, but mentality — the persistence of a mind that refuses to give up.

Even though we do not possess an Infinity Stone, as long as the lungs expand and the pulse persists, as long as the sun rises and the day resets, we are all in a loop of our own making — a series of "agains" that only end when we decide the bargain is over.

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the villain.

Since we’re here already, let’s just use the scene as a metaphor for the rest of the blog. Who’s the Dormammu in our daily lives? What sort of entity must we bargain with? Is it the fear of failure? Is it the crippling anxiety of “not being good enough”?

It’s confusing because most of the time, we are both the hero and the villain; we’re constantly fighting ourselves to protect ourselves against ourselves — a circular war where every blow we land is a wound we must also carry.

Even though the fears we hold may seem frantic and unruly, we are still their creator. Each shameful emotion, each dreading anxiety, each paralysing doubt all start within you, and therefore only you have the power and authority to challenge them.

It is easier said than done, I know. But in this chaotic realm, there is an indisputable territory of control that remains ours. And no matter how little it is, we must hold on, we must bargain.

the cost of bargaining.

Bargaining is costly because we pay with our pride. Each time we dust ourselves off to stand is a time we must acknowledge that we had fallen. Like Strange, every time we make a bargain, we die a dozen tiny deaths. Every time we try again, we are reminded of those deaths. Yet, it is only through this continual depletion of ego that we find room to accumulate hope.

When we have failed enough, the fear of "failing" loses its fangs. We become braver, we become wiser, we become more resilient in chasing a life we know we deserve.

So it’s not really a cost, but more like an investment. You invest with your ego bruise, with your broken illusions of not being that kind of person yet, with failed attempts and hard-earned lessons. And smart investments are bound to compound.

There may not be much of a difference after two weeks. You might even have to wait two years for a slight change to occur, but honestly, who cares? Time passes anyway. And instead of spending it dwelling on the fact that you are not able to do that thing just yet, why don’t we just try again, practice again, fail again?

The more we try, the more we know. And the more we know, the better we become.

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the inevitability of winning.

All this time, I’ve treated success as if it were a talent show, where the winning crown is only reserved for the best of the best. But that, I know now, is a scarcity mindset that focuses on the lack — lack of resources, of opportunity, of talent. This way of thinking is its own dark dimension; it keeps us paralysed in a state of constant, vibrating anxiety, convinced that if we don't win now, the chance will vanish forever.

But winning is more like building a house. When we view each “try” not as a final product, but as a single brick, the house eventually builds itself through the simple, repetitive act of placement. And the world is filled with an abundance of bricks—an abundance of chances that do not require us to defeat a rival or beat a clock. They only require the bravery to pick them up.

Winning, then, is just the residue of a thousand failed bargains. It is the moment when the world finally yields to the consistency of your presence.

So, we return to the loop. We face the versions of ourselves that are tired, the ones that are bruised by the cost of the bargain, and we pick up the next brick.

The house exists because the builder didn't stop at the first stone.

We don’t have to be the smartest, the fastest, or the most talented. We just have to be the one who refuses to stop showing up.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise, the loop will reset, and we will walk back in, chin up, ready to bargain one more time.

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a backstory.

I have so many fears.

I’m scared of fish markets, where bodies of sea creatures are laid out in rows, with their dull, soulless eyes stare straight at me with the full force of blame.

I’m scared of public speaking. Ice-breaking sessions. Networking events. Any space where I have to give my best performance as a normal, functional human being.

Late trains. Insects. Rejection emails.

I’m scared of many things, but my biggest fear has always been failure.

Oh, I’m petrified of it.

Growing up in a traditionally Asian family, there was always this burdening, lingering pressure to maintain a pristine image — perfect and spotless. Family meetings were where gossip thrives. I remember sitting there while conversations unfolded. Stories about people who got it wrong. Uncle B, who lost everything in an investment that turned out to be a scam. Miss X, who did not think it through when she divorced her husband, just because he texted some girls online. Some kid who failed the entrance exam. Someone who made some bad decision.

Every misstep, every drastic downfall, every unfortunate events were mentioned and passionately debated.

Nothing can define you as much as your failure.

This had not been directly communicated to me, but it was something I slowly learned from those gatherings where they dissect and label people based on the mistakes they made. (When I grew older, however, I realised that this phenomenon was not restricted to the Asian culture; social media made it clear that making mistakes is not tolerated across all corners of the globe, so I will stop the stereotyping of my own race here.)

I dedicated the first quarter of my life to avoiding failures as much as I could, and what’s a better way to do that than not trying anything at all?

If you don’t try, you can’t fail. Genius!

For a long time, I thought this was the way to keep me safe. I stayed in my lanes, avoided risks, and became an expert in stopping myself from doing things that may appear “cringey” or embarrassing.

How can people judge me if there’s nothing to be judged? Fucking genius!

But even though I feel safe on the outside, internally, I was dying. While I was protecting myself from failure, I was also removing myself from everything that makes life feel alive.

I wasn’t trying.
I wasn’t experiencing.
I wasn’t growing.

Days passed, then months, then years, and everything started to blur. Nothing changed me, and I changed nothing. My life had become so stagnant, predictable, and boring.

Suddenly, I was envious of people who fail, because at least they have a story to tell, at least they have evidence that they had lived through something and survived it.

Whereas I have nothing — no failures, but no real experiences either. Just a carefully constructed life where nothing went wrong because nothing really happened.

Exactly as I had planned.

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a turning point.

I’m 25 now. And standing here, looking back at how I’ve lived so far, is… confronting.

I realise how much I held myself back, not because someone forced me to, but because I allowed fear to take the lead, to be the sole compass I used to navigate my life.

Some mornings, I wake up with this heaviness on my chest, as if an elephant has decided to park itself there. That elephant demands:

Figure it out.
Know who you are.
Know what you want.
Know where your life is going.
Know first. Move later.

But the more I try to answer it, the more I realise I don’t have those answers. And that felt like failure in itself.

One day, I conjured up all my courage and made a bargain with the elephant.

“My dear elephant,” I said,

“I know you’re here to protect me. You want me to stay where it’s safe. You want me to be certain before I take a step because you don’t want me to get hurt, or embarrassed, or lost. I get that. But can’t you see the irony of it all?

“How can I know the shapes of a road without walking on it? How can I understand the textures of water without submerging my whole body in the sea? How can I know anything at all without experiencing it?

“We discover answers through experiments, through trials and errors, through failures. That’s how learning works.

“I might get it wrong, yes. I might take the wrong path and end up somewhere I didn’t expect, and find myself in situations that feel like danger. All of that is possible. But I’m not helpless. I have my will and my wisdom and a soul that longs to be free.

“And if the worst-case scenario does happen… I’ll learn.

“I’ll learn which roads to avoid, which paths to take,
what to discard, and what to keep.
I’ll learn about the world and about myself.
I’ll learn, and I’ll know, and I’ll have so many stories to tell you later, elephant!

“So, can you please stop sitting on my chest, you fat fuck and let me mooooooove?”

(The elephant is a metaphor for my fear, me bargaining with the elephant is a metaphor for me overcoming my fear without undermining the validity of its arguments. Not that you need this explanation, you’re on Substack! You’re already well-read and smart and will totally get this. I’m just trying to keep up with my word count so that it can seem like I’m a serious writer. Am I yapping too much? Is this part totally unnecessary? Whatever. Anyway. On to the next one!)

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the chapters when the main character just sort of fucks around and finds out.

I think I’m in that phase right now. The part of the story where the adventure finally begins.

I’ve been experimenting. With my time, my interests, my energy. With who I am, and who I might become.

I’m working a below-minimum-wage job as a florist just so I can be around flowers and learn more about their beauty. I wanted to understand them better. The endless way they can be arranged, the meanings they carry, the eternal beauty of something that exists for only a short time.

I’m still keeping up with my writing, although not as much as I hope, but keeping it up regardless. Words are starting to feel less like something I need to perfect and more like something I can use to understand myself.

I bought a new camera so that I can practice seeing things from different angles. To learn about framing, about light and movement and what makes a picture feel alive.

None of this feels comfortable yet. There’s still hesitation in everything I do. Still that voice asking if this is a waste of time, if I’m falling behind, if I should be doing something more “serious,” more stable, more respectable.

But I’m doing it anyway, for the plot!

No matter how clumsily I write my life, at least for the first time in forever, I’m finally writing for myself, finally building a story of my own.

These next chapters might feel uncertain and scary, but I’m living them regardless. Because the worst thing that can happen is that I’ll learn, and that doesn’t sound so bad. :)

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It’s March 2026, and I still haven’t quite made peace with the fact that 2016 was ten years ago.

I’m no longer 15, daydreaming about becoming an actress, imagining a life that felt cinematic and full of promise. I’m 25 now, and dreams start to feel like luxuries I can no longer afford. These days, I can only wish for a full week without anxiety humming in my chest.

It hit me how time has slipped so quietly through my fingers. At the beginning of the year, everyone was posting their 2016 throwbacks — overexposed photos in Instagram filters, corny captions, Twilight memes, Vine clips that once felt like the peak of internet culture.

It was funny at first, the way we all laughed at our younger selves. But then a strange discomfort settled in. Those throwbacks suddenly became hard evidence that 10 whole years had passed before our eyes.

Ten years have gone by, and I am not the person my 15-year-old self thought I would become.

I’m not an actress. I’m not the CEO of an international empire. I’m not a journalist or a news anchor. I’m not a free-spirited person who travels the world to do volunteer work. I’m just not anything I wished for myself.

I know it’s now frowned upon to call yourself “old” at 25. And I agree with that, logically. Twenty-five is still young, still full of possibility. But logic has never been very good at calming the heart. And sometimes, late at night, a question echoes inside my mind like an unwelcomed guest:

“What if my life is forever unremarkable?”

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Your chance of living, in statistical terms, is … okay, I actually don’t know.

But just imagine: Out of all the possible people who could have been born, out of all the genetic combinations that could have happened, somehow your particular version of a human being ended up existing on a planet that, against all cosmic odds, somehow has all the right and rare conditions for complex life.

The math may be beyond me, but the feeling isn’t. Just the fact that you and I are here feels strangely miraculous.

And perhaps that’s where the pressure begins.

Because once you realise how rare your existence is, it suddenly feels like you’re responsible for doing something with it. There’s always a deep, lingering desire pulsing in our veins to make life “worth it” — make it matter, make it grand.

Humans are perhaps the only species that know we exist and know we will die, and therefore, the only species that can experience the delight of existential crisis — a tormenting awareness that time will pass and we will leave behind nothing significant.

Sometimes I look at my cat, licking his butt while sunbathing near the window without a care, and I feel a sting of envy. He never worries about being the most talented or successful cat in the world. He doesn’t compare his life to other cats who might be eating premium sashimi while he survives on canned food (sorry, babe, mommy’s not in that financial position right now).

He doesn’t wonder if his cat life is too ordinary, too small or too brief. He just does his normal cat things — naps, stretches, knocks things down from the kitchen counter — and that seems to be enough.

Meanwhile, I do my normal human things — drink coffee, walk, try to plan a future, overthink about said future —and somehow it never feels like enough. Because beneath everything, there is always that haunting, unsettling question whispering in the background:

“What if my life is forever unremarkable?”

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Time is a powerful force. It is the engine behind everything that lives — the reason seeds become trees, children become adults. It gives us growth, yet it also carries the promise of our decay. Ever since we are aware of our brevity on Earth, humans have tried to bargain with time — shorten it, fasten it, optimise it, own it. But time has never been interested in negotiating.

It moves forward with the same indifference whether we are ready or not. It does not slow down for the overwhelmed, nor pause for the ones still figuring things out, nor return for those who regret.

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, young or old — we are all captives of time, slowly inching toward a point of no return.

And sometimes that thought scares me.

Because if time is always moving, then what happens if I never become extraordinary? What if the life I imagined never fully arrives? What if I spend this rare, improbable chance of living simply… existing?

But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe the problem isn’t our limited time, but our limited definition of what makes a life extraordinary.

We’ve been influenced to measure life’s worth by its visible achievements — prizes, titles, money, recognition, status, and grand moments that sound like Hollywood movies.

But what if we measure life, instead, by the kindness we offer to the world, the number of times we make a friend laugh, the days when soft sunlight envelopes our skin? Maybe those moments count for more than we think.

So when that question returns:

“What if my life is forever unremarkable?”

I’ll gently respond:

What if it already is far more remarkable than we realise? What if it always has been, and will always be, remarkable?

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Maybe the fear of an unremarkable life comes from a simple misunderstanding.

We assume that because life is rare, it must also be extraordinary, that if the odds of our existence are so impossibly small, then our story must become something impressive enough to justify it. But time keeps moving regardless of what we achieve, and perhaps that was never the point.

Perhaps a life is not measured by how remarkable it appears from the outside, but by how honestly it is lived from the inside. By the quiet courage of continuing, even on days that tempt us to stop. By loving, trying, failing, and beginning again.

And maybe one day, when another decade slips quietly past, we will look back, not at a life that was spectacular, but at a life that was fully, imperfectly lived — and realise that it has always been remarkable in every way.

With love,
janelle.

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i used to believe that love does not come with any requirements. that love must be given unconditionally and asks nothing of us — that to be loved is to be accepted wholly as who we are, untouched and unedited.

and that belief is not wrong, not at all.

love should not ask you to change to be worthy of it. it should not become something that’s transactional or conditional. it should welcome us in every state of our being — in our grace, and in our shame.

but love, if it is allowed to grow, will inevitably encourage change.

it may ask you to sit with your feelings instead of avoiding them.
it may want to witness the darkness you’ve learned to keep hidden.
it may ask you to trust, even when the cost of trust is the possibility of heartbreak.

we are often sold a version of love that arrives fully formed, effortless and eternal. it blooms perfectly and will stay perfect for eternity. what we are rarely told is that when love grows, it asks us to grow with it.

i used to think love was the answer. now i think of it more as a test of willingness, a challenge of commitment that begs us to confront the difficult questions:

can you stay and repair instead of disappearing?
can you speak honestly when silence once kept you safe?
can you allow yourself to be changed by love? to be challenged and influenced by it?

true love does not force transformation; it does not break you down or demand that you become someone you are not. but it does create a space where staying the same becomes difficult — not because you’re not enough, but because you can be so much more.

love should not demand that you become someone you’re not.
but it will inevitably alter you.

it will ask you to grow in ways that feel unfamiliar.
it will stretch you past versions of yourself that once felt permanent.
it will change how you speak, how you listen, how you stay.

not by erasing you,
but by uplifting you.

and maybe that’s what it really means to be loved:
not to be preserved in stillness,
but to be met so deeply
that you are changed
without ever being lost.

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I’ve been sitting a lot with my feelings lately. Not fixing, not improving, not making them better — just sitting with them.

This is unfamiliar territory for me. I am usually the type of person who intellectualises her feelings. The moment something stirs inside my body, my brain is activated, my hand reaches for the pen, and the paper’s spilled with hypothesis: Why am I feeling this? When did it happen? Who caused this? What does it mean? How do I regulate it?

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Before the feeling gets the chance to form, it’s already been cornered, captured, labelled, and dissected for research.

I am both the scientist and the specimen.
An owner and object of experiment.
A lab rat of emotions that’s never allowed to be free.

We live in a strange era where everything that exists is expected to be useful. Time must be optimised. Bodies must be improved. Emotions must be regulated. Creativity must be monetised. Knowledge must be weaponised. Rest must be productive. Everything must be enhanced in exchange for more and more of everything. And more is never enough.

And I am not rejecting the benefits of these activities, I do them too. Reflection, awareness, regulation, improvement— these are much needed in life. But there needs to be a balance in the way we approach this.

Raw chicken and burnt black-hole-colored chicken are equally unhealthy.

STOP OVERCOOKING YOUR EMOTIONS

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Sometimes, the problem isn’t that we feel too much, it’s that we don’t allow feelings to live long enough to do their job. We rush to disinfect them, especially the ones we’ve deemed unacceptable: sadness, anger, grief, anxiety, despair. We treat them like system errors instead of internal signals.

However, these so-called “negative” emotions exist for a reason.

We — or more precisely, our ancestors — used to rely on these emotions for survival. Anxiety was used to sharpen attention in the face of potential danger. Anger was good for setting boundaries and protecting ourselves. Sadness slowed us down to process loss.

These are incredibly human parts inside us, but in our obsession with emotional optimisation, we silence them before they can speak. What we have as a result is not clarity, but numbness.

You don’t need to rationalise our emotions into submission. You need to feel them without immediately asking them to justify their existence.

Sit with them.
Let them ache.
Let them spill.
Let them be messy.
Let them confuse you.

Feelings are not meant to be interrogated; they demand to be witnessed in their full light. Stop asking why you are sad; just be sad first. Be mad first. Be disappointed, frustrated, lost, or ashamed first. Understanding can come later.

When you stop pinning your feelings down, they are finally released to move, to soften, to pass at their own pace.

your emotions are not meant to be analysed,

they are meant to be felt.

let your heart spill💖

Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for 5$ per month.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive the newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

It’s comforting to think about destiny, isn’t it?

To believe that there might be something out there made just for us — a special someone who knows our soul inside out without needing explanation, a career that forever feels like a hobby and asks nothing of us, a dream life that’s sculpted perfectly, hidden deep in the soil, waiting for us to discover.

At sixteen, I believed life moved like an arrow — defined and predictable. All I had to do was discover my one true calling and follow it faithfully, and everything else would fall into place.

But the more I grow, the more chaotic it becomes. Life feels less like an arrow but more like a maze that multiplies its paths whenever I take a step.

I soon realise that I don’t have the one true calling. I desire a lot of things.

I want to be a journalist, an actress, a philosopher, a florist,
a traveller who writes and a writer who travels,
a therapist, a counsellor, a professor,
or perhaps just a mere 9–5 office worker who can enjoy her morning coffee in a secluded cubicle that’s always air-conditioned.

I want a life of freedom where I can explore the world on my own terms. But I also want to settle down and share my life with someone I love.

I want to be free of the so-called womanly duties. But deep down, I fantasise about the day I can hold a roughly 4kg body of flesh that’s born from love in my arms, and nurture it with even more love.

So many things to do, so many lives to experience,
but so little time,
and only one body to carry them all.

Where, then, is destiny? Where is fate and purpose and all the buzzwords that advertise the existence of a single divine life personally carved for every individual?

Maybe there is none. Maybe I am not destined to be anything at all.

And perhaps that’s the true freedom of being alive.

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When we think of freedom, we often imagine something open, expansive, limitless, weightless. But existentially speaking, freedom is weight — for where there is freedom, there is the burden of choosing and the freight of not choosing.

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there will always be people who hate what you do

Humans are social creatures in the most inconvenient way possible. We are wired to notice one another, measure ourselves against one another, and adjust our behaviour to stay included. Belonging has always been our currency.

Long before the concepts of likes and comments existed, we had craved approval and acceptance more than food. It has been roughly 300,000 years since we learned that belonging to a pack kept us fed and protected, and we carry that biological wiring even now.

It becomes genetically impossible not to care what others think of us. Even the most self-declared independent thinkers still glance sideways for confirmation that they’re being seen, admired, or at least tolerated. It feels as though we need a seal of approval from every other human being to believe that we deserve to be here.

At the same time, humans are spectacularly opinionated. We see the world through different cultures, generations, religions, politics, morality, aesthetics, and whichever side of the comment section we first land our eyes on.

Our values clash. Our definitions of “right” contradict one another. What earns praise in one room might get ridiculed in another.

This is where the conflict lies. We are built to seek approval in a world incapable of offering it unanimously.

No matter what you believe, someone will disagree with it.
No matter what you enjoy, someone will find it distasteful, embarrassing, or performative.
No matter how carefully you choose your words, someone will roll their eyes and decide you’re wrong.

No matter what you do, someone will hate it.

But here’s a comfortable truth: you can just do it anyway.

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do it anyway

I carry an audience in my head. A crowded room of imagined faces that inspect every time I’m about to form an opinion or make a move. Before I can act, the commentary begins.

Posting videos is embarrassing. They’ll judge you.
If you say this, they’ll disagree. They’ll think you’re not smart enough.
They’ll think you’re cringey. They’ll think you’re dumb. They’ll think you’re not enough.

So I stopped. Again and again. Not because anyone actually criticised me, but because I rehearsed their disapproval so thoroughly that it felt real.

I abandoned ideas mid-breath, softened opinions until they meant nothing, talked myself out of futures before they had the chance to disappoint anyone. All of them rot in corners of my mind like corpses, rendering my inner world a cemetery of unlived dreams.

For a long time, I tried to understand why judgment terrified me so deeply. Eventually, I realised I was operating under a dangerous assumption: that somewhere there existed a correct version of me. An objectively right way to think, speak, create, and exist. And that if I listened closely enough to other people’s reactions, I might finally locate it.

I thought my existence needed to be peer-reviewed to become valid.

But the truth is, no word can escape judgment, no action can be free from opinion, no version of you is ever enough to be approved by every single person in your life. And perhaps that’s how it should be.

In chasing external validation, I abandoned myself in exchange for a hypothetical acceptance that never arrived. And the irony? I was still being judged by people who would have judged me no matter what.

There will always be people who hate what I do, but I’m doing it anyway.

Because I’m tired of curating my life for others, exhausted from running away from the desires that always find their way back to me.

Because my life is too short, too fleeting, to spend it auditioning for roles I never wanted in the first place.

Because perhaps being disliked is proof that I’ve stopped diluting myself for the comfort of others.

So I’m learning to let the audience in my head murmur in the background while I live anyway, speak anyway, try anyway.

And if they hate it, I’ll let them — it means I’m doing it right, it means I’m finally living my life.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for 5$ per month.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive the newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

I grew up reading stories and tales of the extraordinary, of prodigies and heroes — the gifted few who seemed to arrive in the world with a spotlight already stitched to their skin (Harry Potter, I’m looking at you).

I thought I was supposed to be one of them, that my life was supposed to be full of adventure and plots, that my existence was supposed to be a story worth telling.

I thought being special was a prerequisite for being worthy. So I tried to manufacture uniqueness. I rejected trends without even knowing why, dismissed popular things because they felt too accessible, too common. I avoided anything that smelled like the majority.

I wanted to be an outlier — sharp, distinct, unmistakably different. I thought that if I could carve myself into something niche enough, rare enough, then maybe the universe would finally recognise me. Maybe then I could be the main character of my own story.

But I could never escape the aching realisation that I was not special. Everywhere I go, there will always be people who are much brighter and more capable than I will ever be. Everything I do, there will always be a 6-year-old Asian kid who does it better than me. My interests, my hobbies, the books I read, the music I listen to — they are not different or special. I am not different or special.

And you know what,
that’s actually okay.

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For the longest time, I thought “ordinary” was a kind of insult. A label for those who didn’t try hard enough or dream big enough. But I’ve started to realise it’s simply a description of the human condition, a name for our general sameness.

Most people are not prodigies or chosen ones. Most people like eating fried chicken and listening to pop music. Most people want to be loved, want to feel seen, want to afford rent and maybe take a holiday once in a while. Most people are like me, and I’m like most people. Yet, every single one of their lives matters, and so does mine.

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sometimes, moving on feels like taking a step back.

i’m moving, but not in the direction i was hoping for. i am still in disbelief that you are completely gone now. i cringe at every sound of notifications, hoping it would be your text, wishing you would want me back.

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i open my eyes and try to anchor myself to reality, but all i can see is your face and that one strain of hair that’s always out of place, the shapes of your fingers and how they’re knitted with mine, the crisp of your laugh, the smell of your hoodie, the dilation of your pupils whenever you tell me about your passions, the weight of the asmosphere on the last day we met and how it crushed me to bits, the curve of your lips when you said you wanted to stop — the same lips that used to kiss me and tell me how beautiful i was.

it’s pathetic, i know, but i guess that is just the cost of being in love.

i was so mad at you. was everything that happened between us just a part of your lie? was i that hard to love? i wanted to be mad at you, to paint you as a villain, to drag your name through the mud the same way you shattered my heart to dust. but deep down, i understand.

falling out of love with me is something i do daily, too.

it’s not all that bad, though. losing your love has gained me so much more. my friends took me out to all these beautiful cafe shops, and i almost laughed when i saw their awkward tiptoeing around the topic of us. my dad gave me a lecture about how it’s so much time-saving to lose you now rather than later. “what’s not ours will slip away from our fingers eventually”, he said. “someone better will come along, dear”, my mom consoled. even my cat purred a little bit louder when she curled in my lap.

how absurd it is that it takes the presence of everyone in my life to fill in the absence of one person.

but i’m doing better now, really.

i wake up early, i journal, i meditate, i go out more, i meet new people, i take good care of myself. perhaps losing you is a requirement for me to find myself.

it hurts, but separation is the only way that two entities can be whole again.

sometimes, i still feel loneliness piercing through my ribs, i still see the echoes of our past lingering in the streets, still hear our old conversations about the future ringing in my ears, still startle whenever i catch a smell of your usual cologne, still taste the bitterness of your departure. as if all my senses are dedicated to finding ghosts of you.

but i try to remind myself: i may never get over you, but i did get through you, and all the pain that’s bred from our love.

all endings come with new beginnings. a heart that breaks is a heart that knows how to care. and i finally find peace in the pieces you left me.

i wish you all the best, i do.

and i wish you find peace in losing me too.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for 5$ per month to support my work.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

“I’m shy at first, but I‘ll open up once you get to know me!”
“I tend to overthink a lot”
“I’m very emotional and prone to stress”

These sentences were the scripts I recited, time after time, not only to others but also to myself. And while they were true at the time, they slowly became the barriers I accidentally built that hindered my growth.

Yes, I’m timid. But I also spoke up in rooms full of people to share what I’m passionate about.
Yes, I overthink. But I also knew how to step back, take a deep breath, and let go.
Yes, I’m emotional. But that didn’t mean I was irrational.

We are all made of contradictions, full of conflicts and complexities. But somehow, there are certain stories that we unconsciously cling to, while silently discarding the parts that don’t fit the script, the other truths about us.

Over time, these stories harden; they take root inside our brains, settle deep into our hearts. They can either ground us or cage us. And if you’re not careful, a single sentence can become a prophecy you live by. Not because it’s true, but because you keep telling yourself it is.

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Maybe it’s time we reflect on whether the stories were ever truly ours to begin with.

Our parents, our childhood, schools, friends, societal expectations, and a myriad of things that continuously influence us from the moment we were born — each one collectively affects our perception of ourselves.

I didn’t see myself as timid until I overheard my parents say it to a teacher. I didn’t think I was an overthinker until my friends gave it a name. Again and again, I absorbed these outside definitions, repeating them until they felt like my own voice.

Because somewhere deep down, I believed that others might know me better than I knew myself.

However, these stories, once an anchor that defines who you are, can hold you back from moving forward (or moving in any direction at all).

“That’s just not who I am”
“I don’t do things like that”

These phrases, repeating themselves like broken records, imprison me in my own life.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear posits that identity shapes actions, not the other way around. Yet, we are conditioned to believe the opposite. We chase proof before permission. We think we have to earn the right to call ourselves anything.

Write 3 posts per day, and maybe you can call yourself a writer.
Go to the gym every morning, and maybe you’ll be considered an athlete.
Draw 1000 paintings, and you might finally qualify as an artist.

This mindset keeps identity locked behind achievements. It treats growth as something that you have to prove, not something you enact. And when the results don’t come fast enough, we abandon the title, the story, the maybes. Not because there is a lack of talent or progress, but because we don’t allow it enough time to emerge.

Belief begins in language, in intention, in resolution.

If you don’t actively, consciously, deliberately choose your story, you’ll forever live inside someone else’s scripts, putting on labels that were never truly yours.

Just because a story has been told for a long time
doesn’t mean it’s true.
Just because it feels familiar
doesn’t mean it still fits.

We outgrow stories the same way we outgrow old clothes. Only in this case, the clothes are metaphorical; we cannot physically feel their tightness and worn-out fabrics damaging our skin. So we kept wearing the same old stories with a lingering discomfort we couldn’t identify.

Maybe it’s time we stopped reciting the lines that no longer serve us.

It’s time to lay out the scripts we memorised and choose which ones to keep, which ones to rewrite, and which ones to throw gently into the fire.

It’s not too late to take back the ownership of your book. You are not bound to a narrative just because it once felt safe. Don’t cage yourself in a single page when the storyline needs to evolve.

You have the pen. You own the papers. Write yourself a story worth living.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for 5$ per month to support my work.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

Lose weight in 4 weeks,
Upskill in 21 days,
Reinvent yourself in one month.

How many times have we been sold this glittering vision of instant transformation? As if change is a microwave dinner that can be cooked in under 3 minutes. As if becoming a completely new person is something you can buy, download, or squeeze into an online course.

We fall for the myth of overnight evolution, and then punish ourselves when we can’t keep up. We always feel like we’re behind and time is running out.

And it is true. We do have limited time — excruciatingly limited.

If someone lives to 80, they get roughly 4,000 weeks alive. That’s 28,000 mornings and sunsets. 28,000 grains of sand that slip away from our fingers faster than we’d like to admit.

And because of this limitation, and our painful awareness of this limitation, we pressure ourselves to figure everything out as soon as possible.

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There are good days and bad days. Today is one of the bad days.

There’s always a telling sign —
you wake up and realise that you don’t actually want to wake up;
you get out of bed, and the air feels heavy, thick, as if you’re under water;
your heart is tired and weak, your mind refuses to go to work.

ah, one of those days.

Sometimes, I try to bargain with it. “Small wins build momentum” — that’s what they all say on the podcasts.

So I try.
Make the bed. Get ready. Drink coffee. Journal. Go for a quick run.
Done, done, done, done, done.
Feeling better?
No.

Because there are days you can’t really escape or avoid it, no matter how hard you try to compensate. It hums hauntingly in your head, claims its rightful residency inside your body.

Some days, I have to accept defeat.

Why am I like this?

Why can’t I just be okay?

But I guess being okay is not a default setting; it’s just a feeling that visits whenever it feels like it. And on days like this, even breathing alone can be counted as a success.

We keep striving to be the best version of ourselves all the time. We expect every day to be full of sunshine and rainbows, but we cannot stop days that are gloomy and rainy; we cannot negotiate with storms; we cannot control what we cannot control — we just have to accept them.

Sit with the bad weather and let the day be.

Do what you can, and it should be enough.

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I think what scares me most about these days is how convincing they are. They make it feel like this is who I am at my core — the fog, the heaviness, the tired heart. As if the brighter parts of me were a temporary glitch, and this is the real version underneath, the one I have to live with for the rest of my life.

But I’ve lived long enough to know that no feeling stays forever, everything is fleeting, and everything returns. And how marvellous is that? The realisation that we will never be just one thing, but always changing, evolving and becoming— always moving, even on days we’re stuck.

I’ve survived every one of these days so far.
And I’ll get through this one too.
And the next.
And all the ones after that.

We’re all gonna be okay.
We’re all gonna be not okay.
Nothing stays.
Nothing lasts.

This too shall pass. And that should be enough to look forward to.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for 5$ per month.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive my newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

If you click on this post, I guess you’re also a bit frustrated with the state of the world at the moment. The internet eating away our attention. The intoxicating characters of some people. The social media. The late-stage capitalism. The constantly late trains. The news. The unexpected rain when you forget your umbrella, just right after you wash your hair.

I can list millions of daily irritations that make me hate life. But honestly, I’m getting tired of being tired. Lately, I’ve been craving a softer way of being. I read somewhere that people who nurture beautiful thoughts end up radiating them, and I couldn’t agree more.

So this December, I’m gathering small, steady ways to redirect the frustration, quiet the noises, and remember what’s still lovable about being alive. Consider this essay my attempt to fall in love with life again, and an invitation for you to come along.

Make the ordinary things in life extraordinary

When we’re swallowed by deadlines and ambitions, it’s easy to forget how much wonder sits right at our feet.

The observable universe holds an unimaginable number of planets, and yet somehow, this one became home to millions of species, ecosystems, and living rhythms that support us without asking for any recognition. What we call “ordinary” is statistically absurd, almost arrogant in its rarity. And yet, we scroll past it like it’s nothing when, in fact, it is everything.

So let’s slow down to notice the tiny miracles in our days. Notice how the morning light dances gently on your walls. Notice how the wind hums a duet with the birds outside your window. Go outside — into a park, onto a trail, anywhere green enough for your lungs to remember how good breathing can feel. Nature has a way of steadying us, of pulling us back into our bodies when our minds have sprinted too far ahead.

Or if you’re in the city, notice the constant choreography of life around you — how people walk, how people talk, how people live — how people, no matter how small and fragile we can be, build all these tall, magnificent buildings out of nothing but desire and cooperation. Every bus stop, every coffee shop, every blinking traffic light is proof of civilisation’s progress, a testament to human persistence.

All these small, familiar heartbeats of life serve as a great reminder that you’re here, alive, participating in something larger than yourself. Feel the weight of that miracle. Let yourself be stunned by how much life is happening around you. The world is overflowing with wonders.

Pay attention to them. They’re far more real — and far more nourishing — than whatever chaos is unfolding on your screen.

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Growing up in a Vietnamese household is essentially an elite bootcamp in productive self-loathing. Compliments are rationed like wartime food. Love arrives with conditions attached. Satisfaction is a heroin to mediocrity.

How dare you settle for a B+ when an A existed? Have you heard about Auntie C’s daughter? She’s got into S university with X amount of scholarship. And Uncle D’s son just has a new job with a Z monthly salary! How great they are, how competent and successful.

“What about you? What have you achieved?”

They never say this directly to me. But it’s too perfectly implied to be ignored.

Of course, I can’t pin everything on my parents or the culture that raised me. I could easily expand the blame pool: the internet, the social perception of success, the rat race disguised as ambition, the educational system, capitalism, the advertising industry, the algorithm, the endless online parade of shinier humans.

As long as it exists, I can probably make a compelling case for why it ruined my ability to be kind to myself. There’s something so comforting in the act of blaming, in the knowledge that you’re not the culprit.

“It’s them! Not me. I never meant to hate myself. They planted the seed. They watered it. They curated comparison charts and crafted envy. Of course, I cracked under the weight. It’s all them.”

But when it comes to fixing the broken pieces they shattered, it’s never them,
it’s you,
only you.

And accepting that responsibility feels like swallowing a stone.

But maybe that’s where the rebellion begins. Not in fighting the world — but in refusing to keep hurting yourself just because the world taught you how.

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I used to think that healing would look gentle.

Scented candles, fresh bed linens, an adorned journal and a hot cup of tea waiting on the nightstand with cozy music background. That’s what the world sold me — the “aesthetic” of healing, carefully packaged in glitter and wellness ads.

But my actual healing journey was nothing like that. It was mucky, messy, and chaotic.

It was nights of staring aimlessly at the ceiling with untouched piles of clothes flying around. It was mornings of dragging myself out of bed with swollen eyes and zero energy. It was days of trying to mend the wounds that unexpectedly opened up.

But through the ugliness of it all, I healed.

the paradox of pain

The more I tried to run from the memories that broke me, the tighter they held on. That’s the funny thing about memory: the harder we try to forget, the deeper it ingrains in our brains. Avoidance is its own form of imprisonment.

So I stopped trying to forget. I began to actively remember. I remembered the versions of myself I didn’t want to meet, the faces I wanted erased, the conversations I wished to undo, the failures, the crying, the laughing, the pain. I remembered them all.

At first, it was terrifying to look directly at these monsters of the past that used to shred me apart. But slowly, I learned to see them not as enemies, but as teachers. No matter how painful they were, these moments taught me valuable life lessons that made me who I am today.

And perhaps that’s the pain of healing.

To walk back into the fire and make peace with what scroched us.To cherish the moments that were so close to being our last.To carry the past into our future without letting it affect our present.

Healing is never the absence of pain, but learning to hold it gently.

the illusion of healing

We live in a world that convinces us that healing can be bought. That peace comes from neatly curated Instagram feeds and essential oils. It distracts us from the real work. It keeps us empty, so that we always find ways to fill the holes with new products and services.

But healing is never meant to be pretty. It’s feral, unpredictable, confusing. And sometimes, ironically, you may discover more pain in the process of trying to heal.

We thought healing meant adding stuff to us — more ointments, more bandages, more decorations. But true healing strips us down, unmasks us and asks us to face the ruins of our past and finally pick up a mop to clean it.

So don’t distract yourself with the aesthetics, immerse yourself in the ugliness.

Let healing be messy if it needs to. Let it ache. Let it spill over.

Only in the rawness do you begin to touch the real work.

the labour of being okay

Healing is not a sunlit day at the beach and sipping your pain away with matcha lattes (even though I’ll admit, it kinda worked to a certain extent). Real and sustainable healing is heavier, slower, more intentional. It is labour.

It’s looking at the murky corners of your past and daring to see something beautiful in them. It’s choosing not to turn away from the mess, but to study it and understand how it shaped you.

For me, the truest tool has been journaling. Not the curated kind with stickers and cute doodles, but the raw pages that are filled with tangled handwriting, questions answered with more questions, and messy discoveries of the self. Writing has helped me dig deeper into the core of my being.

Maybe for you, it can be something else. Maybe it’s drawing, singing, dancing or photography. Each of us has different ways to craft our souls. Whatever that may be, you need to create, not consume.

Healing is a practice, not a purchase. A labour, not a lifestyle.

Change belongs to those who do the work — even when it’s unglamorous and repetitive, even when it hurts.

Healing can be painful. And pain can be healing. The two opposites are companions, each shaping the other.

Contradictions move in harmony:
strength found in softness,
beauty born from mess,
peace discovered in chaos.

Healing asks us to hold these juxtaposed elements of life dearly in our hearts without discarding any side.

What changes is not the world outside us, but the way we learn to see it. And a change in perspective enforces a change in life.

enemies become teachers,
disorder becomes organised,
darkness turns into light that leads us to the path of being.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or consider becoming a paid subscriber for only 5$ per month.

Don’t forget to like, share, comment and subscribe to receive my newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

I’m slowly concluding that I have free will (to some extent).

For most of my life, I didn’t believe that. I always thought I was simply a product of decisions made by others. My parents picked my school. My friends shape my taste. The internet told me how to dress, think, speak, act. Even my emotions felt outsourced, inherited, algorithmically assigned.

To think of it, we were all born against our will, no consent involved. From the very beginning of life, it was already announced loudly to us:

“You have no choice but to be here”.

I didn’t choose to be born in a world where they starve children for politics, where people slander each other online over the tiniest issues, where the internet collectively agrees to hate a woman because she was too loud or too cringe. No, I didn’t agree to any of this. There are so many things in life that make me unhappy.

And for a long time, that ache turned inward. I felt hopeless, useless, worthless, less. Everything seems out of my control, so I stopped trying.

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But then I soon realised, the very things I resented most were flourishing because I gave up on my happiness.

Consumer culture prospers when we’re dissatisfied. Social media blooms like weeds in the cracks of our confidence. Advertising feeds on our uncertainties — offering newer, shinier, more optimised identities if you just purchase one more thing.

Everything is actively working to keep you feeling less and make you hungry for more.

The less you question, the more obedient you become.

The less you fight, the more control they have.

The world doesn’t need you to feel whole. It needs you to feel lacking so you’ll keep chasing, buying, bending, breaking.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve added something to my cart, hoping it might fix me. As if transformation could be delivered in a box. As if healing had a shipping option. The more I purchase, the less I truly have.

But suddenly, something in me ignites — a spark, a defiance:

My choice to be happy will not only serve as an antidote for my soul, but also as a rebellion against the world that constantly profits off my pain.

So I began to ask myself: What can I actually control?

Not the weather. Not the changing moods of other people, or the movements of the stock market. Not the strangers online who project their pain, or the systems that profit from mine.

But there are quieter, more powerful things that I do have a say in:

The way I respond to discomfort.
The things I say to myself, and how I treat her.
My decision to be gentle instead of cruel. To be kind, even when I’m hurting. To not let bitterness calcify into identity.

Freedom of choice isn’t dramatic or cinematic. It’s not an overnight transformation sparked by a single motivating podcast or self-help article. It’s about the small, consistent choices you make every day — like choosing to pause before reacting, to speak with kindness when resentment feels easier, to rise and try again after a morning lost to doubt.

Each act may feel insignificant on its own, but together they gather weight. Like raindrops filling a well or footsteps carving a path through wilderness.

Real change may require years to take shape. There will be good days, and there will be bad days; you just have to keep fighting for a life where, slowly, the good days begin to outnumber the bad.

Progress doesn’t follow a straight line. But it moves. And movement is enough.

I didn’t choose to be here. But now that I am, I’m choosing how to live my life.

I choose to acknowledge the fact that everyone has their own path in life, and mine is mine alone. I no longer waste energy trying to control how others see me. That’s their story, not mine.

I choose to meet the chaos of life with steady breath, knowing that uncertainty isn’t an error in the system; it is the system.

I choose to allow joy in my body, not because I’ve earned it, but simply because I can. Because it’s available, and I’m allowed.

Every quiet act of choosing — peace over panic, presence over performance, hope over helplessness — is a step toward becoming who you were always allowed to be.

In a world that is so beyond our control, that profits off our doubt and floods our minds, maybe the most radical thing we can do is to choose.

Choose how to move through life. Choose to be happy.

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Hi, I’m Janelle☆

Whoever you are, I hope today has been kind to you!

If you resonate with my writing, you can buy me a coffee or support me with a like and a share.

Don’t forget to comment and subscribe to receive my newest posts ♡

Your support means the world and helps me keep doing what I love. Thanks for walking this path with me, one step at a time ──★

here’s the Youtube version: