no matter what happens tonight, or whatever happens for the rest of our lives, i’ll always be here! hang in there, little burners!

hey there, little burners! i just wanted to remind you that you should never feel like you shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling, just because you think someone has it worse than you. your feelings are ALWAYS valid, buddy. it’s important to care about yourself, because you are number one in your life!

i’m sorry i haven’t been around much lately, but sometimes motorcity needs my help too! i’ll be around later to answer your messages, but until then i hope you have a fantastic day!

aw, pal, you are really welcome. self-loathing does suck, but nobody should have the power to just tell you to “get over it” and expect it all to go away! as we grow up, feelings don’t—at least they shouldn’t—go away, and we only learn how to deal with them in the best way possible. i really hope you feel better from here on out, but if you don’t, i’ll always be here!

how could it be awful? i’m just some guy with a computer! you’re amazing too, and you’re very welcome!

oh, thanks, lee! i really do try to cover a lot of things with each message i answer, so i can help as many people as possible in as much time as i have—since i do have plenty of people left to answer! (i am totally going to get to those, friends.) you have a fantastic day too, buddy!

you’ve already started, buddy. you’re a great person—you’re acknowledging your flaws, and it’s healthy to want to work on them. “good person” status is not achievable without imperfections—it just doesn’t happen, because a “good person” can mean anything, to anyone, in any way, shape, or form.

compulsive lying isn’t something that can be fixed overnight. more importantly, it’s not something that is your fault. the compulsiveness of it is part of who you are, and if you wanted to stop it so abruptly, you would, wouldn’t you? but you can’t! and that’s why we can be mad at ourselves for things that are beyond our control. lying is an unethical gateway we use to get ourselves out of tangled situations, and i know it’s hard to jump headfirst into the most logical action. darn near impossible, actually. lack of truthfulness is a flaw, but it does not, under any circumstances, overpower any other positive quality of you.

saying you’re not really good at anything is a clear underselling of yourself. everyone’s good at something, and that’s a fact. just because we don’t all build airplanes or paint mona lisas or fly into space and push the planets into alignment with our bare hands, does not mean you have to undervalue yourself and your skills. you are good at something, and of that i am positive. if you haven’t found it yet, it’ll find you. trust me!

it sounds to me like you realize you’re insensitive without realizing it, so that’s more of a step forward than you think. realizing the lack of realization leads to working on your personality, which leads to more realizations, which leads to change. baby steps. personally, giving advice to you folks is helping me grow as a person, too. like your problem with lying, it is not an overnight fix-it-up. as you grow, even if you don’t realize this realization, you will slowly understand feelings, and be able to communicate better. trust me. you’re going to grow.

friends come and friends go. you might hear that friendship is the only ship that never sinks, but your friendly neighborhood mike chilton is here to tell you that’s a lie. friendship is a very, very powerful thing, but powerful empires fall, don’t they? and then again, some friendships don’t fall like that. some of them are locked smack into the core of the earth. and sometimes there are earthquakes, with messes to clean up, but the earth’s still there. there’s two different friendship analogies for ya. i gave ya two because friendship is a very powerful thing, but under no circumstances is it a black and white subject. if you find it hard to keep friends, you just have to search the earth some more, and build an empire when you find the right place to settle. and then leave your legacy when it falls, so in truth, it never dies.

see? i mixed ‘em. still not black n’ white, though.

secrets—secrets about yourself, or others? if you keep secrets about others, those people may very well trust you. and being trustworthy is a fantastic quality to possess. while you may have issues telling the truth, keeping the truth about others from people—in respects of privacy—tips the scale a little bit, in a good way. find your happy medium. hold peoples’ truths close, and keep your truths close with them. truth for a truth, you know? like truth or dare. but it’s just truth. you’ll build upon this in your relationships. soon, you will have all this honesty and trust, you won’t even know what to do with it all.

that’s my advice. to be fair, if others share their truths with you, they’re confiding in you, and hoping for truth in return. so even if you’re keeping secrets about yourself—tell someone the truth about something. you’ll get the truth back. trust me.

apologizing too much—too much of anything is too much. that is why it’s “too much”, right, buddy? my advice is to apologize when something is sincerely your fault, and you sincerely feel it was wrong. apologizing for who you are is something you should never, ever, ever have to do. because, i’ve said this before—you’re the most important person in your life. self-love is extremely important, so you should strive to impress no one but yourself. if someone else doesn’t like you, you have to apologize? where, in this situation, do you sincerely feel like you have to feel sorry for doing something wrong? in your own fault? who you are as a whole is not your fault. working on flaws, as you’re trying to do, is in your power. but you are who you are, and no one is going to fire you from being you.

if your friends aren’t loving you for who you are, what kinda friends are they? they just wouldn’t be for you, and that’s okay. friends come and go, like i said.

you don’t share yourself and then you wonder why no one’s around. sounds like you put the answer in the question, huh? you’re very self-aware, which is healthy, a good quality. i said this—sharing yourself will build upon your empire of trust. and you rule it—you rule it right, man. you just have to know who’s gonna run the empire with ya. whatever that means, huh, kid? i’m getting ahead of myself.

all in all, anonybuddy, you are a great person, and you gotta give yourself credit. you gotta know. you gotta own it. and you have the power to better yourself, with baby steps and the right support. there are people out you who care about you—i know i do.

just remember that you are the sovereign of yourself. no one else.

hey, anonybuddy! just because things aren’t going your way lately, doesn’t mean things are never going to go your way. i know what you’re going through, man, trust me. there are those days sometimes—when we see everything in greytones and nothing impresses us. depression isn’t anything to mess around with. it’s real, it messes us up, and not everyone is on the same level as you—they might tell you to “look on the bright side” even when it’s hard to—they mean well, but it’s easier said than done, isn’t it? that’s why i try to propose more options, but i see your outlet isn’t treating you well either. it happens to the best of us.

i guess the best thing i can tell you is that none of this is going to last forever. i promise you that. and if you ever feel like going through worse measures—hurting yourself or anything like that—please don’t. you can always look for help in other ways—i really hope the best for you. i even hope you get your writing muse back! i bet, once you’re out of your rut, you’ll write beautifully.

okay, pal. you know what—just because other people have “bigger problems,” it does not mean your problems aren’t valid. it’s okay to focus on yourself, because thinking about how much worse it could be, is not a healthy coping method. you may sit there thinking, trying to put things in perspective, but it really isn’t going to make the problems go away.

you’re shaking, and that concerns me! if you feel like this when you’re online, you might wanna step away from the computer for a second. lie down, or get some fresh air. or all of the above—just try the best relaxing methods you know.

school’s tough, ya know? it’s an artificial system. no proper, well-rounded measurements of your intelligence. you’re not a failure! you’re just a sophomore—i cannot tell you how much time you have to achieve wonderful things. you can do this, okay? you got this!

woah, woah, woah, buddy. slow down! i don’t know what’s troubling your brother, or why he’s trying to hurt you if you’ve never done anything to hurt him, but just take a breather for a second. breathe in, hold it for 7 seconds, then breathe out for as long as you want. it’s something i learned growin’ up. breathing exercises are good for this kinda stuff.

anyway, know that familial troubles are not uncommon, and they can sometimes be the worst out there. you’re blood and you care about each other, but that doesn’t mean you guys are impervious to feelings. whatever it may be, try to sit down—or stand up? whatever you wanna do—and talk to your brother. confrontation can be a scary thing, but you’ll never know the outcome until you try, okay? you’re gonna be fine. you and your brother are gonna be fine. chin up, buddy!