Carolyn Hax Quotes

Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.

Being negative is easy. There will always be a downside to everything good, a hurdle to everything desirable, a con to every pro. The real courage is in finding the good in what you have, the opportunities in every hurdle, the pros in every con.

..a new baby is not uninterrupted bliss. It's joy mixed with terror, fatigue, depression, intense feelings of helplessness, loneliness and inadequacy. And poop.

My mom used to get really upset at what she perceived as my half-assing,’ reads one splendid anonymous comment on a Washington Post article by the advice columnist Carolyn Hax. ‘I’m 48 now, have a PhD and a thriving and influential career, and I still think there is very very little that’s worthy of applying my whole entire ass. I’m not interested in burning myself [out] by whole-assing stuff that will be fine if I half- or quarter-ass it. Being able to achieve maximum economy of ass is an important adult skill.

Trust isn’t about having a spotless record and finding someone else who does. It’s about finding someone good-hearted enough not to hurt you on purpose, and knowing you’ll recover and carry on when pain inevitably comes.

Other people's judgements are the mosquitoes of being human.