Lion and the Princess

Never Settle

Never settle. Your cells are meant to dance. Your heart is meant to melt, your walls tore down and your soul slapped awake. You are destined to experience fire - someone that gives you chills, not Netflix and Chill, not chilling together because of a need for attention.

Wait for the person who you sometimes fight with, have heated debates at 3 AM with, who challenges you to be better, who brings you to your own attention rather than running away from tension.

Never go along with mediocrity, a passionless relationship just because you don’t want to be alone. A relationship bred out of convenience will be conveniently predictable, conveniently safe, conveniently right there rather than rare. There won’t be a risk to get burnt because there will be no fire.

There will also be no satisfaction, no inspiration, no emotions that will spark you to innovate the life you actually want to live.

Wait for that inconvenience, because it will change your life. Wait for a love that will expand your mind and capabilities, that will never let you get away with slacking on your talents or giving up on your dreams.

Wait for a head-over-heels, stupid crazy infatuation, wait for something that plants a fire in your heart, making you reach for more. Wait for someone who looks at you like you’re magic. They won’t be the person who always agrees with you - they will challenge you to change, to grow, to expand in ways that wouldn’t have ever occurred to you before you met them.

When they say they love you, it will be unfiltered, completely unedited, completely raw. There will be no validation, only a sensation of pure admiration. And you’ll never forget the way they smell, the way your heart aches and races when they look at you, or the emotion in their eyes when they tell you that you’re beautiful because you’re sure that they’ve never looked at someone like that before.

You will love each other’s gory bits, you will be in each other’s veins, you will make love each other with more emotion than you’ve ever known. Because your heart will feel completely safe and naked and fervent, all at the same time.

Wait for it, please wait for it. Relationships should never be experienced ordinarily.

The Logistician

Personality type: “The Logistician” (ISTJ-A)

Strategy: Confident Individualism
Role: Sentinel
Individual traits:

83% - Introverted vs Extroverted

62% - Observant vs Intuitive

82% - Thinking vs Feeling

78% - Judging vs Prospecting

82% - Assertive vs Turbulent

The Logistician personality type is thought to be the most abundant, making up around 13% of the population. Their defining characteristics of integrity, practical logic and tireless dedication to duty make Logisticians a vital core to many families, as well as organizations that uphold traditions, rules, and standards, such as law offices, regulatory bodies, and military. People with the Logistician personality type enjoy taking responsibility for their actions, and take pride in the work they do – when working towards a goal, Logisticians hold back none of their time and energy completing each relevant task with accuracy and patience.

Logistician (ISTJ) personality

Logisticians don’t make many assumptions, preferring instead to analyze their surroundings, check their facts and arrive at practical courses of action. Logistician personalities are no-nonsense, and when they’ve made a decision, they will relay the facts necessary to achieve their goal, expecting others to grasp the situation immediately and take action. Logisticians have little tolerance for indecisiveness, but lose patience even more quickly if their chosen course is challenged with impractical theories, especially if they ignore key details – if challenges become time-consuming debates, Logisticians can become noticeably angry as deadlines tick nearer.

Associate With Those of Good Quality if You Esteem Your Reputation...

When Logisticians say they are going to get something done, they do it, meeting their obligations no matter the personal cost, and they are baffled by people who don’t hold their own word in the same respect. Combining laziness and dishonesty is the quickest way to get on Logisticians’ bad side. Consequently, people with the Logistician personality type often prefer to work alone, or at least have their authority clearly established by hierarchy, where they can set and achieve their goals without debate or worry over other’s reliability.

Logisticians have sharp, fact-based minds, and prefer autonomy and self-sufficiency to reliance on someone or something. Dependency on others is often seen by Logisticians as a weakness, and their passion for duty, dependability and impeccable personal integrity forbid falling into such a trap.

This sense of personal integrity is core to Logisticians, and goes beyond their own minds – Logistician personalities adhere to established rules and guidelines regardless of cost, reporting their own mistakes and telling the truth even when the consequences for doing so could be disastrous. To Logisticians, honesty is far more important than emotional considerations, and their blunt approach leaves others with the false impression that Logisticians are cold or even robotic. People with this type may struggle to express emotion or affection outwardly, but the suggestion that they don’t feel, or worse have no personality at all, is deeply hurtful.

...For It Is Better to Be Alone Than in Bad Company

Logisticians’ dedication is an excellent quality, allowing them to accomplish much, but it is also a core weakness that less scrupulous individuals take advantage of. Logisticians seek stability and security, considering it their duty to maintain a smooth operation, and they may find that their co-workers and significant others shift their responsibilities onto them, knowing that they will always take up the slack. Logisticians tend to keep their opinions to themselves and let the facts do the talking, but it can be a long time before observable evidence tells the whole story.

Logisticians need to remember to take care of themselves – their stubborn dedication to stability and efficiency can compromise those goals in the long term as others lean ever-harder on them, creating an emotional strain that can go unexpressed for years, only finally coming out after it’s too late to fix. If they can find coworkers and spouses who genuinely appreciate and complement their qualities, who enjoy the brightness, clarity, and dependability that they offer, Logisticians will find that their stabilizing role is a tremendously satisfying one, knowing that they are part of a system that works.

"My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein."

- George Washington

Take your personality test at Personality Test

Successful without Noticing

Pretty much since the day we’re born, we’re led to believe that we are in some constant competition. We are conditioned to compare, compare, compare. It’s really easy to get caught up in all that minutia and believe you’re behind where you’re supposed to be for your age or that a single mistake is the end of the world. The truth is, your age is not some indicator of where you should be and there is no time limit on figuring out who you are and what you want; the only person you need to impress or outdo is yourself.

Here are some signs that you can relax and breath, cause you’re pretty much killing it, without even noticing that you are:

You have criticism. That means you’re actually an individual. You challenge and confront people, you stand up for things.
You take risks. Even if it’s small risks like speaking to who you want when you’re out, or taking a class that intimidates you, those small risks are everything because you're doing something even know it scares you, and everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.
You know what you deserve. You understand that it is not the thought that counts. Someone can have the best intentions in the world, but if they don’t execute them, what’s the point? You won’t settle unless someone is willing to show you that they care - they show up for you, they are there for you when you need them. So many settle with people that mistreat them.
You’re working on building the new. We’ve all made mistakes, mistakes are inevitable in a life worth living. But instead of trying to fight the old, you’re focusing all you energy on building the new, to innovate the life you actually want to live. This is the first step to change and also to tap into an extraordinary life.
You think for yourself. Do you understand how rare and special that is? So many people live someone else's life, their thoughts are someone else's opinions. To think for yourself and to stand up for what you believe is rare; most people prefer to go with the crowd because it’s much easier than to think for yourself.
You’re constantly asking the question, “why?” You hate the concept of how things “should be.” You couldn’t live a “normal” life if you tried. Most people follow the pre-determined form and don’t see right through existing structures and methods, and all the ways they’re inept and unnecessary.
You’ll never just accept something. You question everything and investigate things for ourselves. It’s your intolerance of how things are “supposed to be” that has sparked you to start innovating the life you actually want to live, and you’re pretty much killing it because of it.
You're growing into your own wrongness. You're starting to love yourself in all your glory and imperfections. Most people never deal with who they truly are. But only when we face ourselves and love our flaws can we fully open to our ability to love others.
You care. So many people desensitize themselves - they are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to them. But you can't get what you truly want unless you take that risk and let your guard down.
You refuse to settle. You won't be with someone out of convenience. You first want to be sure of yourself, because only then will you be sure when you meet an extraordinary love.
You appreciate people. So many people are selfish and lose great things and relationships around them because they don't nurture them.
You know when you're wrong. It takes a lot of courage to endure the sharp pains of self-discovery. Admitting that you were wrong takes a lot strength. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

That is where an extraordinary life starts - It's not about never making mistakes, never making a fool of yourself; success is failing and getting back up. That's the real success. The perseverance, the effort, the aiming to be human, not perfect.

Becoming a Virtual Estonian

I've just acquired a whole new identity. It comes in the form of a plastic card with a chip in it, and it means that I am now a resident of Estonia. Or rather an e-resident, because this card is a symbol of Estonia's bold ambition - to export its expertise in digital identity to the wider world. The e-Residency program, which has already attracted 10,000 people from around the world, offers anyone who pays $100 some of the benefits of the digital ID cards which Estonia's 1.3 million citizens have had for more than a decade.

Kaspar Korjus, the young manager of this project, at the e-Estonia showroom in Tallinn, where the government shows foreign visitors the progress it has made down the road to digital public services. Kaspar starts by showing his own digital ID - he's 38712012796 by the way, though that won't be useful to you without his card and two PIN numbers.

Kaspar Korjus is in charge of Estonia's e-Residency program. The online site where he can check which data is held, linked to his ID. - his doctor, his driving licence, his family circumstances. He explains that he has control over that data and it could not be shared without his agreement. His ID card is even used for voting - "I've been travelling quite a lot - the last four times I was away but I could still vote. I use PIN 1 to confirm who I am, PIN 2 to vote." While e-residency will not allow me to vote, or permit someone from outside the EU to travel here without a visa or passport, it does confer a number of advantages. It makes it a lot easier to set up a business and open a bank account, and you can use the card to digitally sign documents and contracts.

This is a country which does not worry about immigration - indeed it would like more people to move here. Kaspar tells me they are put off by the weather and the remoteness of Estonia but the hope is that e-residents will boost the economy by starting businesses here without needing to move. He quotes one example - Stanislaw, a painter from Ukraine, who was unable to sell his pictures because his country does not have the infrastructure to allow him to accept foreign payments. "PayPal will work with someone who has a business address in Estonia," says Kaspar, "but not with someone in Kiev." Now the artist has established a company in Estonia and is selling his paintings around the world while remaining in Kiev.

The expectation is that just about all e-residents will pay tax on any earnings where they are generated - in their home countries - and the Estonian government will transmit details of revenues back to local tax authorities. Estonia hopes to benefit because of the business generated for its banking and advisory services, rather than in direct revenues. Then there is the interesting prospect of linking this digital identity service to the blockchain, the technology underlying the virtual currency Bitcoin.

The e-Residency program has a showroom where foreign visitors can see how it works. One such experiment is already underway. NASDAQ, which runs the Tallinn stock exchange, is creating an e-voting scheme, allowing shareholders to vote at annual general meetings. The e-Residency platform will be used to identify voters, while the blockchain will provide a fast and secure way of recording the votes.

Kaspar Korjus is convinced that this is an idea whose time has come, and countries will compete to offer this kind of virtual citizenship: "We are the first mover - there will be lots of e-Residency programs." He has been set a target of attracting 10 million e-Estonians by 2025. That sounds ridiculously ambitious, but this tiny country has already shown that, when it comes to being digital, it can punch far above its weight.

I can see my new digital identity becoming a way to authenticate myself on e-commerce sites and other places which want to know you are who you say you are.

e-Resident of Estonia

The most advanced digital society in the world is the former Soviet Republic on the edge of the Baltic Sea. And by handing over $100 and a photograph, allowing my fingerprints to be taken and waiting a few weeks while my credentials were verified, I have been issued with an identity card, a cryptographic key and a PIN code to access its national systems. I am now an official e-resident of the Republic of Estonia, as is the Japanese prime minister, and you will want to be one too. And what's more, by doing so, you'll be part of a system that could not only reinvent public services for the internet age but fundamentally redefine what it means to be a country.

When Estonia gained independence from Russia in 1991, it quickly realized that it needed to find something to set itself apart from its neighbors. Norway had oil, Finland, mobile phones, Sweden, design. But as Taavi Kotka, the Estonian government's chief information officer, asks, what do you think of when you think of places like Lithuania or Slovenia? Nothing, he says, and so to become distinct, Estonia has embarked on massive technological innovation.

But what Estonia has achieved makes the Northern Californians look like laggards: despite only half of the country having a phone line in 1991, by 1997, 97% of Estonian schools were online. In 2000, cabinet meetings went paperless. By 2002, the government had built a free Wi-Fi network that covered most of the populated areas. By 2007, it had introduced e-voting, and by 2012 huge amounts of fiber-optic cabling were being laid, promising ultra-high-speed data connections and 94% of the country's tax returns were being made online, taking users an average of five minutes to fill in the parts that hadn't been automatically completed by the link between the tax office and local banks. Now, every task that can be done with a digital service.

Today, almost all government services are managed online. Citizens, armed with a chip-and-pin identity card, can run their affairs from a laptop or phone, anywhere there is connectivity. And the Estonian government wants to offer you the chance to do the same thing.

Twenty-four years after the end of the Soviet Union, this still feels weird. I feed the Estonian system with enough data to prove that I'm who I say I am; there's allegedly a background check and then a few weeks later I get an email telling me to come to the Estonian Embassy and collect my card. Within is my card, a USB reader, a sealed envelope with my PIN code and an invitation to visit a specific URL.

From summer 2015, you can go to the nearest Estonian embassy and apply for e-residency.

Estonia is working on linking its tax office with its counterparts in other regions of the world. The Estonians want to offer the option for, say, US citizens to run their US companies through the Estonian system, which would in turn, in the background, with no extra work for the user, make sure that the US tax office receives all the money it is legally due. A US-based entrepreneur, they hope, will decide to open her business in Estonia, use an Estonian bank and pay for some Estonian services, even if the company was only going to be trading in the US, because she would find Estonia's national infrastructure far easier to deal with than the US's. In other words, a nation is now competing with its neighbors on the basis of the quality of its user interface. Just as you might switch your bank to one with a better mobile app, the Estonians hope you'll switch your business to a country with an infrastructure that is easier to use.

You want to open a business, say; once you have your card, you can go online from wherever you are on the planet, log on to the government portal with your card and PIN, and use it to form your Estonian company, then register with an Estonian bank and start trading. Because the Estonian tax office is digitally linked to Estonian banks, filing your taxes is radically simple, remember the five-minute average from a few paragraphs back? So too is any bureaucracy involved in keeping the company going. After all, these are Estonian digital services we're talking about: it's across the web, secured with your ID card. To be clear, this doesn't involve actually becoming Estonian, or even physically being in Estonia. Instead, they're hoping to spread the ideas of their powerful Internet-based services and promote their national brand, in order to coax others to use them from afar. Perhaps also to spread the idea to other countries that such a thing is possible. "We don't really like to speak to each other in person, so we went and created Skype and all these things," says Siret Schutting of the government project e-Estonia. "Stuff like this has to be a social right."

In the pine-lined IKEA-esque government showroom of Estonian innovation, there is no one over 30, it feels more like the offices of a volunteer-led arts organization than an international showpiece but foreign delegations visit every week in order to learn from the Estonian experience. Introducing the ID card, Schutting tells those visiting leaders, is a gradual process: "When you introduce an ID card, you get a lot of people asking, 'Why do I need that?' But then you add all of these services, and you can purchase a car from your living room, or vote from your living room or, when it's like minus 40 outside and you have a newborn baby, you probably don't want to go to the family office to name her: you do that online. Very small, pragmatic things."

Today, the fact that every interaction with, and within, the Estonian government happens digitally has had subtle social effects. For example, apart from only carrying two cards (driving licenses, donor cards and the like have been subsumed into identity cards), Estonians have complete control over their personal data. The portal you can access with your identity card gives you a log of everyone who has accessed it. If you see something you do not like, like a doctor other than your own looking at your medical records, for instance, you can click to report it to the data regulator, a civil servant then must justify the intrusion.

The culmination of these systems makes for an awkward conversation with members of certain foreign governments. Strikingly young, dressed like a man who has borrowed a suit before visiting his in-laws for the first time, and sitting behind a chipped table that wouldn't make it into the caretaker's office in a western European capital, one Estonian official, who didn't want to be named, reveals that e-Estonia has a list of foreign delegations they don't bother to have meetings with any more. These countries, he says, are so far behind in their thinking that time spent with them is too dull to bear. They just stare at us, he says.

Meanwhile, parliament is designed to be paperless: laws are even signed into effect with a digital signature on the president's tablet. And every draft law is available to the public to read online, at every stage of the legislative process; a complete breakdown of the substance and authorship of every change offers significant transparency over lobbying and potential corruption.

Although it's never been proved, it has always been assumed in Estonia that the attack came from the Russian Federation -- if not directly, then certainly with its support. The Russians, indeed, are commonly held by the Estonian-speaking majority to be up to no good. For most of the last 800 years, Estonians have been part of someone else's empire, and it's an ingrained belief that they're destined to become so again at some point: many are, post-Ukraine, deeply nervous of Vladimir Putin. Many people in Tallinn say the same thing: we're next.

Starting on April 27, 2009, Estonian web servers found themselves under constant attack for three weeks. Huge amounts of traffic, generated by virus-infected machines around the globe, overwhelmed the country's systems. More than 120 of these distributed denials of service attacks brought down sites across the country, including those belonging to the president, government ministries, newspapers, banks, and local businesses. Although the systems behind the websites weren't damaged per say, they were unreachable for that time. It was a truly modern show of force, now considered one of the first major examples of a cyberattack on a nation.

They're planning for it and the main question is what will happen after an attack. The last time an annexed Estonia won independence, after years of rule from Moscow, the government was able to restore much of the country's land to a semblance of pre-Soviet ownership by consulting church records and other written documentation. Today, though, that documentation is entirely digital -- and that makes all the difference. "The point is that it's not only the data you need to backup," says Kotka, the Estonian tech entrepreneur turned government CIO. "If you look at what happens in Ukraine, for example, it's not a war, it's a hybrid war. So if you want to affect Estonia somehow, virally, make our ID card not work. Then we're in trouble. Banking: 40 per cent of people using e-banking are using their ID card for e-banking. Take those services down, and they can't access their money and they have to go physically to the bank... and since the banks have optimized according to the need, with 99% of banking transactions happening electronically, they've closed their offices. So in a hybrid war case, we need to backup services as well as data... so if the little green men" he means the Russians, "decide to have their holiday here rather than in the Ukraine, just to be sure that the ID card works, we'll move it to the UK."

Or, indeed, any of his six planned "data embassies" around the world. At times of national emergency, the plan is to be able to hit a switch and move the execution of the code that runs the systems behind the Estonian state to another server farm, one outside Estonia. An attack, even an invasion, can't shut down the local government because it doesn't need to be local to still be a government. And even if the links are severed, eventually independence would be re-won and the state can be restored from a backup. This can be applied not just to digital data and services; because everything from the Estonian parliament to its civil courts is paperless, they can be run from anywhere. In the old days, a government in exile would quickly lose legitimacy. Sheltering in another country, it would lack the infrastructure to do its work. But today an Estonian government in exile could just carry on. Fittingly, for a country that founded Skype, the judiciary could fly to the Caribbean, and it would mean nothing more than a series of particularly relaxed case hearings. They could be there today if they wanted. It helps to clarify the differences between a nation, a state, and a geographical country. These things are already a bit fuzzy, but in general, a nation is a group of people within an area who perceive themselves as being the same type of person; a country is that geographical area itself, and a state is the set of political organizations that those people agree to adhere to. By disconnecting the silicon-based functions of the state from the actual soil-based country, Estonians are protecting their nation from fates that might befall their country.

This is all software, and software can be easily, and perfectly, copied. So if the Estonians are successful in their efforts and they can build a digital state infrastructure that can be hosted anywhere, then there's nothing to say they can't release the code and let another nation upload a new flag gif, change some of the names in the config file and boot themselves up their own version. It doesn't have to be an officially recognized state, either: fully realized, this brings down the barrier to entry to effective statehood for the more agile, more entrepreneurial separatist movements, budding caliphates or secessionist offshoots.

Gathering people of specific identities together is what the internet does. We're forever building nations online. There's American TV, a communal experience, but there's no American internet: we build our own experiences individually, through the people we hang out with online, regardless of geography. It's not the proximity of distance but the proximity of ideas that matters. Or perhaps proximity of time zone, as Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe had it: shift workers allied to the people whose waking hours shared the same offset from GMT, no matter if that matched a London sunset to a Los Angeles sunrise. If we choose our communities by interest or culture things we can choose rather than by closeness, which is thrust upon us by birth, why not start choosing the state-level infrastructure we actually interact with on the basis of how well it works?

In 1996, one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow, wrote an "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". A seminal text for its time, it says: "Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is the world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." When that declaration was made, it seemed outlandish because independence only went to actual nations which had all of the tools of a state. You had to have a parliament building before you could have a parliament. A state needed the stuff to be of substance.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, by 2020 80 % of the world's population will own a smartphone. Perhaps, soon after, where they choose to live and work and place their businesses will depend as much on the fertility of their country's digital infrastructure as its land. "Welcome to e-Estonia," says its website, "and enjoy a hassle-free life!"

Since April 1, you can apply via an Estonian embassy. Take your passport or photo ID. You'll have your photo and fingerprints taken, fill in a form, then hand over $100 in cash. Then comes the background check, when your documents are sent to Estonia. You may be asked why you want e-residency and whether you have any previous links with the country. After about four weeks or so, you'll receive an email to let you know whether your application was successful. If it's a yes, you can go and pick up your identity card from the embassy.

Sensitive

Being highly sensitive in the modern dating world can be as difficult as finding a good Adam Sandler movie. You reflect on things more than anyone else, and at times you feel like you’re just on another level. If you're lucky enough to date a highly sensitive person, hang on to them for life, we're a dying breed that's difficult but well worth it:

We feel deeper. - Ted Zeff, Ph.D., author of The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide and other books on highly sensitive people, says “They like to process things on a deep level. They're very intuitive, and go very deep inside to try to figure things out. This emotional depth is just a part of us and we’re able to connect on a deeper level than most people. Because we care a lot, we have really high moral standards and we'll never betray you or take you for granted.
We don’t settle. - So when we’re with you, we’re with you. We only choose to be with someone who we’re crazy about, who satisfy us completely: emotionally, physically, metaphysically…
You’ll never be settling with us… - When you’re with us, we’ll make your cells dance in a way you’ve never experienced before. Highly sensitive people are rawer than others, and we might need some time to allow you into our rich, inner worlds.
Be careful with criticism. - Highly sensitive people have reactions to criticism that are more intense than less sensitive people. According to Aron, Highly sensitive will, as a result, employ certain tactics to avoid said criticism, including people-pleasing (so that there is no longer anything to criticize), criticizing themselves first, and avoiding the source of the criticism altogether, according to Aron. A lot of us have a hard outer shell, but don't be fooled - be extremely careful when criticizing us. We can say, "Whatever," and put on a straight face, but the emotions will always catch up, they'll just come out in weird ways, and sometimes at very weird times, often through misdirected anger.
The thought of dating more than one person at a time makes us cringe. - What can we do; we want and need real passion. Yeah, we’ve heard the arguments that you can be in love with your partner and sleep with someone else won't take anything away from the relationship, but seriously... Commitment for us means boundless passion and love and because we only commit when we’re head over heels, we don’t even have an impulse to be with anyone else, it’s just not in our DNA.
We’re the first person you’ll want to see after a long day. - Highly sensitive people will have more empathy and feel more concern for a friend's problems, according to Aron. We’ll always be naturally in tune with how you’re feeling, so we’ll be able to see through any front you put up and make you jump into the deep end.
We need a lot of support and nurturing. - We’re more prone to anxiety and depression - I guess that just comes with the territory of being so emotional. Aron explains, "If you've had a fair number of bad experiences, especially early in life, so you don't feel safe in the world or you don't feel secure at home or... at school, your nervous system is set to 'anxious.'" But that doesn’t mean that all highly sensitive people will go on to have anxiety -- actually, if you are nurturing of us this can go a long way to protect us from anxiety.
That doesn’t mean we’re needy, though. - A lot of us are highly independent people, we just feel more, man. You can’t over-protect us, but you can’t under-protect us, either. It’s a balance.
We have times where we don't want to hear problems. - We seek deep meaning in all our relationships, but sometimes we care too much. At times we might not want to hear about the harsh stuff because we’re overly sensitive. People’s suffering affects us a lot so don’t be fooled into thinking we’re surfacey and don’t care; it’s quite the opposite. So don't judge us for watching dumb reality shows - sometimes we just need a break from our mind-numbingly introspective heads.
Some of us are bad at expressing just how sensitive we are. - Be patient with us. We're complicated and have a lot of layers, there's a lot going on in our heads at all times. We go out of our way to make other people feel comfortable and happy so sometimes we forget to nurture are own needs. Let us know that even though we're strong, it's ok to let ourselves be weak, sometimes, and fall into someone else's arms without fear of being vulnerable.
You can’t bullshit us. - We often have a keen eye for detail, noticing things that may escape others around us. We always know when you're lying, even to yourself.

Unconventional Old Soul

Calm, insightful and wise beyond their years, the Old Soul perceives the world with ancient eyes, feels the world with an ancient heart, and comprehends the world with an ancient soul. You find joy in the little things... When you're an old soul you just want happiness. You could be going through the worst days of your life and you would still smile through it all. You understand that everyone has rough times and you'll get through yours. It could be a situation that, to others, completely doesn't make sense but to you, you understand it. You see everyone's point of view and just try to calm things down. You're always trying to keep others happy and lift their spirits. You don't see any point in letting someone be sad when you can help them be happy. Even since you were younger, you could tell you were different. You cared more about things than your friends did and you were more observant. The things that matter to you are not considered normal in society, you care about your friends and their happiness and you care about finding yourself because that's what life's all about. Having an old soul is such amazing thing. You can see the world from a different perspective than everyone else.

Old souls have a very romantic view of the world and our relationships, which is great, except when we idealize things too much and become let down by our own expectations.
We have a lot of enigmatic traits. - We have a lot of paradoxical traits. On one hand we value stability, but on the other hand, we also require a lot of freedom in our lives and in our relationships so it can get a bit tricky. If we feel secure with you but also that you give us freedom, we will really thrive.
We’re unconventional. - About our life and standards of living. Which means we will never just accept something, we question everything and investigate things for ourselves. Be prepared for a lot of creative thinking. We’re unconventional in everything except our relationships. - In our personal lives, we’re very old school. If we’re involved with someone in any way, it means we feel a connection that goes beyond the surface level. If we like someone, we really like them and we either get into a relationship where we know that we're putting our time and energy into something that will ultimately pay off or end in a serious commitment… or we're just not going to bother. We’re either 100 percent in, or we’re out.
We see the world and our life on a much larger scale. - We’re old school romantics at heart - even our constantly thinking, mind-numbingly introspective minds can’t stop us from believing in ‘the one,’ but we still see breakups and problems as a learning experience and consider our struggles as just a part of our overall journey. Because of that, our philosophical views can impact our relationships and the way we interpret the things that happen in our lives. Our dreams and plans for our lives can at times seem too large for where we’re currently at in our life. Part of seeing the world and our life on a larger scale is that we can often visualize where we’re going to be years from now, and even if something won’t happen for quite awhile, we know we’re taking the steps to get there. To fall in love with an old soul is to fall in love with their dreams, their passion for life. Belittling our desires in life is the fastest way to ruin a romantic connection with us.
Don’t underestimate our instincts. - If we say we have a feeling about something, just go with it. Seriously, just shut up and go with it. Just kidding. But our intuition is really never wrong.
Communication is actually the greatest form of intimacy. - Old souls are very cerebral people. Hearing about your history, learning about the way you look at life, and how you understand the world around you based on your past experiences, is exactly what helps us to better connect with the person we’re dating. None of your stories are unimportant. We want to hear it all. Don’t ever think any story is too boring or unimportant. We want to hear it all. For us to really stay in a relationship we need a deep connection with our partner – something that goes beyond the surface level of lust, attraction, and surface similarities. We need someone who is a freethinker and who has similar philosophical ideas about life.
We love old school romance and dates - All the old-fashioned stuff, like calling us - (it’s sad that making phone calls is now considered a dying art) or picking us up for a date. We need our romantic experiences to have a deeper meaning. So yeah, if we get romantically involved with you, it means we won’t stand for communication that’s detached or impersonal.
Our lives consist of always searching for ways to improve things. - We see the potential for humanity and have a lot of faith and expectations so this can sometimes be the cause of a lot of pain and disappointment, but that still won't stop our creative minds from making plans to execute our big goals and dreams. We're always thinking outside the box, for lack of a less cliché term.
We need freedom but… - We also need a lot of security from the people we surround ourselves with. If we feel secure with you but also that you give us independence, we will really thrive.
We have a lot of conflicting emotions. - At times we need some time alone to reflect but sometimes we'll just need you to get us out of our heads. We’re often conflicted about what we want - it’s very hard to find the balance between our big hearts and our creative, constantly thinking minds.
Don’t worry about going overboard with impressing us. - Okay, that doesn't mean not making an effort, it means that it’s the simple things in life we have the most fun with. The easiest way to our heart is just doing things like walking around a city exploring, going on long drives, doing spontaneous, random things and conversations that last long into the night. We value seemingly simplistic gestures over anything else because it’s in those moments where we feel we truly connect with someone.
We tend to have an easy-going and carefree nature about us but sometimes it can seem like we don’t care or like significantly hard moments aren’t as hard to us as they are for others. It’s not that we don’t care, or we aren’t impacted on the same levels, but we see each struggle in life as a moment to learn from and make us stronger.
Sometimes we’ll prefer hanging out by ourselves to hanging out with you. We need a lot of alone time to reflect and decompress from whatever’s going on in our lives, and we just need the person we’re dating to understand that, rather than feel rejected or upset.
We don’t really have a lot of friends. Tons and tons of acquaintances, yes, definitely, but we can probably only count our number of friends on one hand. An old soul is always a bit of a loner through life. We feel like we just don’t fit in with the rest of the world and our self-awareness about ourselves can sometimes inhibit us from making other friendships.
We have a tendency to be overthinkers. We’re highly analytical and we’re always noticing the things other people seem to skip over. Sometimes this causes our brains to go into overdrive. This is great when you want to get the scoop on a situation or person, but because of our analytical nature, it can sometimes be kind of annoying when we’re in a state of overthinking something.
The person we date needs to have their own desires and dreams of their own. Old souls are looking for the kind of person who thinks for themselves and are fearless in the way they make their decisions and live their life. They have to have their own innate desire to better themselves and not just follow a path someone else has paved or told them to go down.

Our lives couldn’t be further from conventional. - We hate the concept of how things “should be.” We couldn’t live a “normal” life if we tried. We have no desire to follow the pre-determined form which means we will never just accept something, we question everything and investigate things for ourselves. In our careers, we see right through existing structures and methods, and all the ways they’re terribly inept and unnecessary. It’s our intolerance of how things are “suppose to be” that has sparked us to innovate the lives we actually want to live.

Connection

They’ve always said that love is the only thing you need but never before has there been such a surplus of my generation. We don’t connect anymore; we can’t take that risk. The selfishness and detachment are not what they seem: they are the byproducts of broken trusts and broken hearts. Romance and connection are there - we just don’t know what it looks like anymore because we’ve been burned too many times to allow ourselves to see it.

If we choose - when we choose to commit - we are still one-eye-wandering at the options. How can we expect people not to be selfish and have one foot out the door, when so many have been burned in the past from putting all their trust and emotion into one person?

We soothe and distract ourselves, and if we can’t even face the demons inside our own brain, how can we be expected to stick something out – to love someone even when it’s not easy to love them? We don’t. We can’t. Because once you’ve been cheated on you’re unlikely to be able to trust and let someone in for years to follow, let alone love him or her. By cheating on someone, you are not only breaking his or her heart, you are creating a generation of people who don’t trust and can’t commit. This isn’t because of the choices, the options, or the comparisons, but because the vulnerability of trusting again is a risk that is too great to take. And, the cycle starts again: we are so broken that we break someone else’s heart.

And so, we break up. We break up because we’re damaged, we can’t commit, we can’t connect, and we can’t trust. So we swipe: swipe, swipe, swipe just a bit more on Tinder. We order up a human being in the same way we can order up Pad Thai on Seamless: OkCupid, Tinder, Grindr, Dattch…take your pick.

Onto the next: searching for the intangible; the next quick fix; the next instant gratification. We know deep down that more is an illusion, but we can’t help it. We have trust issues; we can’t sit down long enough to connect with someone because connecting is feeling, and feeling to us means getting hurt.

We realize that we want a love that builds: we want slowness. We want simplicity. We just can’t do it.

Because when you cheat on someone you are not only breaking his or her trust in you but you are breaking his or her trust for the next person. And the cycle continues.

We are not the generation that thinks intimacy lies in a perfectly executed string of emojis. We are not the generation that can’t put down our phones because we’re selfish:

We don’t delete Tinder off of our phones after an incredible first date because we are shallow – it’s because we are scared. We are scared to feel because feeling for us means heartbreak.

And so it is: the cycle that we so effortlessly have become a part of – one that we haven’t been asked to qualify for - becomes one that we hope to one day break ourselves.

Broken

A girl who is a little bit broken will be unlike any other girl who you will ever love. That much is for sure. She’ll be the toughest puzzle to crack and she won’t show you her scars easily. But she’s also the girl who will change your life - when her walls come down her love is powerful, and it’ll change both of you forever.

She will be careful with how much to reveal. This might be confusing - how can someone who’s so strong with so much fiery, be so guarded all at once? It’s like one moment she’s extroverted, the next introverted - you can’t ever seem to figure her out.

Here’s the thing, she’ll be so charming and life of the party that you’ll forget how much she actually lives in her head. Don’t let the charm fool you - underneath all that sass she’s extremely introspective, prone to overthinking everything. She might seem like she has it all figured out, she might seem all chilled and collected, but inside she’s full of depth and vulnerabilities that she shows to very few.

She’ll protect her heart with a lot of armor because she once gave it away too quickly and too easily. She’s afraid to fall again because love consumes her, and she wants to be sure this time. She wants to be sure that you’re worth it. That you won’t leave.

But none of that will spill out very easily. Her reaction to her emotions is to compose herself because of a lot of the times, it’s too much for her to handle. She’ll tell herself that she can be casual, that it doesn’t have to mean anything. But the truth is, her feelings always catch up to her. It might just take her more time. And when it does catch up, it comes tenfold.

Expect her to pull away from you, especially when she realizes how much she likes you. Give her space to come back to you, but show her how much you care. She’s secretly hoping that you’ll be the one to break down all her walls.

Expect her to be stingy with trust, to only give a little bit at a time, but every piece of her heart that she gives will be the most exhilarating feeling you’ve ever experienced.

Believe that she’s falling for you faster than she’ll ever admit and in a way that you’ve never experienced before. She needs your patience. To understand that her layers can sometimes get in the way of her happiness, but if you stick around, if you show her she can trust you, she’ll be the greatest love you’ll ever have.

Choices

Each choice we make holds tremendous power. Each choice ripples through space and time, creating realities and potentials for the entire fabric of life. It is a choice that determines how we experience life, it is a choice that allows us to change our perspective, and it is a choice that allows us to become more conscious and commune with God within us.

The concept of enemies and allies is a very practical way of harnessing the power of choice. If every choice creates a reality, the question becomes "what reality is my choice making?"

Each choice has a consequence, and that consequence is either one that brings you closer to your divinity, or further from it. When you commit to doing something that expands you, you create a version of yourself that has already completed that task. That version of you in the future guides you through the present until you become one with that version of yourself. The reason commitment is so powerful is that you create allies that are lifting you up, and energetically you are gaining the benefits of your potential actions before ever physically completing them.

As you continue to honor your commitments you gain stronger and stronger allies as the universe knows that when you commit to something it becomes a reality.

Another secret to creating allies is creating timed commitments. In order to create a stable reality and stable ally, you have to have a stable commitment. Committing to meditating is much vaguer than, committing to meditating on gratitude for 11mins a day for 21days. Committing to meditating as a general statement creates essentially no ally, as you can meditate for an infinitely small amount of time and that commitment is completed or an infinitely long amount of time creating an endless loop. When you set up timed commitments you create a very solid version of yourself that is stable and tangible. Without timed commitments, you create an ally that is either weak or in a constant flux, which doesn't really help.

As you create more allies in your life, life becomes much easier. The allies you create will download inspiration to you. They will create the fastest pathway from where you are now to the version of you in the future so long as you honor your commitments to the best of your ability.

Creating allies is about making agreements with yourself. It is about recognizing that although others are around to assist you it is ultimately you that makes the choice of what to do with your life and what you want to create for yourself and the world. Every choice you make is not just about you as an individual, but each choice you make affects the entire web of life around you, whether or not you can consciously see the ripples your choices make. When you create allies and become more of yourself, you bless the world with your gifts and your presence. When you create an ally for yourself you also create an ally for the world, for the world now has access to a more expanded potential and version of itself.

So ask yourself "what can I commit to that will bring me closer to my goals?". Regardless of what your goals are, commitment and creating realistic agreements with yourself are how you get there. Your dreams are allies, waiting for you to commit and take action so that they can become physical and stop being dreams.

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