Hasta La Gadget!

For all the hands shaken and hamburgers eaten, President Obama has never quite shaken his reputation for detachment.

He is the “cool” president who doesn’t lose his temper even when he should. He is the former constitutional law professor who is too “academic” for the Oval Office. He uses his brain when he should be relying more on other body parts: guts, heart, cojones. He surrounds himself with a small coterie of friends and lacks the common touch.

All of this is nonsense, of course–the kind of stuff that has made People magazine and Entertainment Tonight into reference guides even inside the Beltway. Our celebrity culture has turned us all into armchair therapists who put even our president on the couch to analyze his personality flaws.

But when the label of “detached” acquires a political spin, it’s no longer just nonsense. It becomes dangerous. I’m not talking here about all the criticisms the left and right have leveled against Obama for not visiting the border and addressing the immigration crisis on his recent trip to Texas.

I’m talking foreign policy. It has become all too common, with crises spiraling out of control inGaza, Iraq, Ukraine, and elsewhere, to criticize the U.S. president for making his personal style of detachment into a national policy of disengagement.

Fred Hiatt, the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, is the latest analyst to jump on the pile. In “An Experiment Gone Wrong,” Hiatt lambastes the president for failing to support the Arab Spring movements, leaving the Syrian rebels in a lurch, withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq, and not building up U.S. forces in Europe to stare down the Russkies.

“Obama thought he could engineer a cautious, modulated retreat from U.S. leadership,” Hiatt writes. “What we have gotten is a far more dangerous world.”

Nothing Hiatt writes is particularly new. Obama has sustained numerous critiques from the right–from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in particular–for not implementing a more aggressive foreign policy. The left has chided the president for not providing more support for nonviolent democracy movements in the Arab world. I’ve certainly added my own voice of criticismfor the strategic choices Obama has made over the years, such as his reluctance to cut ties with Hosni Mubarak in Egypt or his refusal to pressure the Bahraini government to accede to demands from its own democracy movement.

Yes, U.S. foreign policy suffers from a variety of maladies at the moment. But the diagnosis that Hiatt provides–and which his co-opinionist Charles Krauthammer voices far more splenetically–is way off base. The problems that beset Washington’s foreign policy apparatus have little to do with disengagement, at least not the variety that so disturbs Hiatt and other proponents of the Great Helmsman view of presidency. They want Obama to steer the state with a firmer hand, like Ronald Reagan, but they actually sound a lot like Chinese nostalgic for Mao or Russians pining for an iron fist. Damn the niceties of democracy and self-determination, they seem to be saying, and full speed ahead–toward leadership!

Here are the four principal myths propagated by Hiatt and the Helmsmen:

1)   The United States has disengaged from the world.

The United States remains highly engaged in the world as the top arms exporter, the mover and the shaker behind institutions as diverse as NATO and the World Bank, and the promoter of democracy in certain places (Burma, China) but not others (Egypt, Saudi Arabia).

Obama has done nothing to change the U.S. stance in this regard; in fact, he has only accelerated these trends. He has even upped the ante in the Pacific by in pushing hard for both a new military base in Okinawa against the wishes of the residents and a new regional trade agreement at the behest of the corporate community.

In the current crisis in Gaza, the Obama administration continues to be quite engaged–both as the main supporter of Israel and as a putative mediator. Indeed, anyone with a scrap of experience in conflict resolution would immediately point out that the United States is over-engaged on this issue. From a purely professional point of view, it should make a choice between providing Israel with the means to continue its war against Hamas and trying to find a solution to the overall Arab-Israeli conflict.

Where the United States is less engaged–on climate change, UN reform, boosting global anti-poverty programs, negotiating with recalcitrant countries like North Korea–Hiatt and the Helmsmen would probably praise this strategic aloofness. Engagement, for them, is not really about diplomatic overtures and playing well with others. It’s telling others what to do and punishing them if they disobey.

When they say “engage,” they are thinking primarily of the Pentagon. The Helmsmen make the common mistake of assuming that boots on the ground and bombs from the air are the only true marks of U.S. engagement in the world.

2)   Boots on the ground and bombs from the air are the only way to stabilize an increasingly unstable world.

If the U.S. military were a force for stability in the world, then Afghanistan and Iraq would look today like Denmark and Finland. Instead, they are close to the top of every list of most dangerous countries in the world. Washington sent hundreds of thousands of troops to those countries and rained down terror from the skies, and now everyone is surprised that these are not stable democracies?

Stability, after all, was not the stated objective in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. troops were there to fight terrorism (even if this rationale turned out to be bogus in the case of Iraq). Hiatt and the Helmsmen mistakenly believe that fire fights fire. But our fire has only fed the fire. The Taliban is stronger than ever in Afghanistan. And al-Qaeda has spawned any number of follow-on mutations from Boko Haram to ISIS.

Even where humanitarian concerns are the putative reason for intervening, stability has not been the ultimate result. McCain, along with any number of liberal interventionists, urged the Obama administration to use force in Libya. Given how close Muammar Gaddafi was to implementing an Assad-like crackdown in Benghazi, a case could certainly be made for a multilateral humanitarian intervention.

But however you might feel about that particular intervention, no one today would mistake Libya for Club Med. The Pentagon is not in the business of spreading fairy dust on countries and turning them into the next hot location for American tourists.

3)   The United States–and by extension the U.S. president–can change the facts on the ground at will.

Long before the Ukraine crisis broke, the Obama administration was leaning on NATO countries to increase their military spending–at least to 2 percent of their GDP. The only country to do so consistently has been Britain. Europeans in fact have been decreasing their spending and balking at their contributions to the operations in Afghanistan.

Moreover, most of Western Europe was perfectly happy to cultivate better relations with that giant oil and gas company known as Russia. The United States, meanwhile, was reducing its military presence in Europe for very good reasons: the Cold War ended a quarter century ago, and many bases in Western Europe were rendered superfluous with the drawing down of combat operations in Afghanistan.

Do Hiatt and the Helmsmen really think that Putin’s moves in Ukraine would have been any different if Obama had convinced his allies somehow to beef up their NATO commitments and station more U.S. troops on their territories? Nothing that the George W. Bush administration did–and it certainly can’t be accused of being pacifist in its tendencies–dissuaded Putin in Georgia or Moldova.

Should the United States have kept troops in Iraq? That’s a moot point. Iraqis overwhelming supported their withdrawal. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki didn’t even want to keep 3,000 trainers because the Status of Forces Agreement would have given them immunity from local prosecution.

Could the United States have tipped the balance in Syria? If Obama had pushed for an all-out military effort to topple the tyrant and impose democracy, Assad might be sitting at The Hague tribunal at the moment. But there was very little support for such an option in the United States. If the president had somehow pushed through a much larger package of military support, the rebels might be in a better strategic position, but the country would still be stuck in a horrific civil war.

A Marshall Plan for the Arab Spring countries and an Apollo-like program to boost carbon-neutral technologies are both admirable ideas. But they’re not the stuff of executive orders. They’re huge, complex programs that require considerable legislative commitment. And Obama has had very little in the way of congressional assistance on his foreign policy. The deal on the new START, for instance, required a huge give-away on nuclear modernization to Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who ended up voting against the nuclear arms control treaty anyway.

For all its military and economic power, the United States has limits on what it can do to change “facts on the ground.” And what applies to America in the world goes double for the president’s ability to impose his will on policy inside the Beltway.

4)   U.S. disengagement leaves chaos in its wake.

It we’re going to make grand generalizations, we might as well say that U.S. engagement has left chaos in its wake, as the interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya suggest. The truth is, U.S. actions contribute to a wide variety of outcomes, and it’s more often how we engage or disengage that is critical.

Look at the situation in Latin America. In those countries where we poured money, weapons, and military advisors in wars against leftist insurgents–in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua–the countries are struggling with the horrific legacy of violence. It’s gotten so bad that families are willing to send their children unaccompanied and at great risk to the United States just to avoid early death at home. Here is a case of irresponsible disengagement, for after doing so much to stoke the conflicts, the United States did little to ensure that these countries would thrive in the post-conflict environment.

But in other parts of the region–Chile, Argentina, Brazil–the absence of U.S. involvement has allowed societies to prosper. U.S. disengagement from that part of the region, as it turned to focus on other parts of the world, created space for these countries to build up their economies, strengthen their democracies, and create a new web of South-South connections.

Yes, there are radical isolationists in the United States. And there are neocons that want the United States to reestablish some putative golden age of neo-imperial control. The real debate, however, takes place between these poles–where the United States should critically engage (for instance, to reduce carbon emissions) and responsibly disengage (closing military bases).

The United States is not Atlas, and the U.S. president is not a Helmsman. Atlas is not shrugging; Obama is not nodding.

Instead of these false dichotomies between blundering engagement and irresponsible disengagement, let’s have a real debate about where the United States can make a difference given its resources, how President Obama can have a positive impact given his circumscribed influence, and why the American colossus should continue to rein in its unilateralist tendencies, given the declining utility of force and the overriding need for global cooperation.

Crossposted with Foreign Policy In Focus

Why does the world seem to have so much trouble recognizing women’s rights as human rights? It’s not as if any can claim that women are an imported or foreign idea or something that doesn’t occur in a particular culture. It’s not as if any individual can claim to not know any women. Why do women’s rights get so little attention? Why doesn’t solving the problem get more energy from individuals, institutions, governments, and international bodies? How can anyone fail to recognize that the advancement and protection of women’s full equality is a requisite to any future for human rights? No country nor international body has done enough to realize equality. With just over half of humankind being female, we can not wait any longer.

On December 10, 1948 the United Nations (UN) formally declared the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The whole text applies to all of humanity, but it sees women’s rights meriting attention enough to include particular references to them in the Preamble and again in four of the Articles (2, 7, 16, and 25). With formal declaration almost seventy years past and having been promoted around the world as a foundational document for human rights, you’d expect tremendous progress to have been made for women’s equality following global recognition. Unfortunately, nowhere near enough work has been done, and today women remain devalued, dismissed, and sometimes destroyed both domestically in the United States and internationally around the globe.

Women have their voices dismissed, their experiences devalued, and their lives are often on a continuum between distressed and destroyed as a result. It seems that the self-esteem and confidence of young girls, never equal to boys even when young, is decimated at and after adolescence. Perhaps when the body changes in the journey to adulthood, perhaps then girls get a larger view of how the world will generally treat them. After seeing how the world generally discriminates against and mistreats women, it is only understandable that they have their inner foundations shaken. What is to follow is often not a mere crisis of confidence, but a series of affronts against them for the simple fact that they are female in the world. Discrimination against women is faced by our mothers, sisters, daughters, partners, friends, and co-workers and is so pervasive to often go unnoticed in all but extreme cases. If we seek a world with human rights for all, it is a must to remove the barriers to those rights for women.

Domestically in the United States, women and girls experience discrimination and harm in a variety of spheres. Economically, women are subject to unequal pay, with women earning seventy seven cents to the male dollar. With court rulings allowing employers to use their religion to dictate provision of reproductive healthcare and the failure of most companies and organizations to promote and support women with parity to men, the workplace makes it difficult for women to balance job demands with family demands. Reproductive rights at-large are under renewed assault, with abortion becoming less available geographically and states passing laws to restrict access as far as they can, in spite of the likely effects not being fewer abortions but of more negative health outcomes for women and their children. In the meantime, school districts around the country very often deny girls the ability to receive sex education about their own bodies while in school, with predictable results of decisions made without information. Partner violence remains very high for American women, with a substantial number experiencing physical and emotional abuse in relationships, often young and without sufficient knowledge nor resources to help them get safe.

With rape and sexual assault in the military itself, the number of female soldiers that report being assaulted by fellow soldiers is high and reporting is increasing. The military failed to respond sufficiently to reported incidents until publicity became too big. The military dishonored the well-being of its own women soldiers and it is shameful to have military women having to worry not only of the risks of combat but of assault by other American soldiers. Not only do we continue to see alarming levels of harassment, battery, assault, and rape committed against American women, but we fail to even reach political consensus on facing it. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed to provide tools to prevent and prosecute violence against women while offering support to survivors. When the Act needed reauthorization in 2013, the House of Representatives in particular gave significant resistance saw significant resistance. Apparently, the human rights of women is not enough of a concern to be able to even quickly pass a bill assisting victims of violence. Is that the country you want to have?

Internationally, the attitudes towards women ranges from problematic to grim. In countries around the world, women are denied the ability to vote, they are denied equal standing in court, they find reporting rapes to result in their own prosecution, they are subject to taboos and prohibitions in workplaces and education, they are vulnerable to widow-burning and honor-killings and forced marriages and female genital mutilation (FGM). They face being targeted by the use of rape as a weapon of war in conflicts. They are trafficked into forms of slavery as sexual commodities and as unpaid factory workers and in a thousand other ways, women are not given full equality nor access to the full rights of the UDHR. The United States could support equality efforts and make a serious effort to end this discrimination. Does it? The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has seen most of the world sign and/or ratify and acceede. Of the two nonmember observer states, the Holy See has not acceded to CEDAW while Palestine has. Additionally, Taiwan, without such UN status and thus not able to formally ratify/accede, has passed domestic legislation mandating enforcement of CEDAW as domestic law. Seven member states have failed to ratify or accede to the Treaty: Iran, Palau, Sudan, South Sudan, Tonga, and the United States. Look at that list and ask yourself if there is enough being done by the United States to support women’s equality internationally.

What can you do? Use your voice and wallet to enlist both political pressure and financial support for people and organizations working to make things better for women and girls around the world. Contact your Representatives and Senators in Congress (see www.contactingthecongress.org for information on how to go about doing this) and ask them to include specific support for women’s equality with a stronger agenda to achieve it domestically and ask them to count women’s rights in other countries as a strong national interest of the United States in international fora. If you wish to make a donation, we’d ask that you consider a donation to the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), which is run by an old colleague of mine, Curt Goering. The work they’re doing is sensitive and necessary and currently involves victims and survivors of the civil war in Syria, including women, who are largely underserved in efforts to help them recover as they best can. Your voice does matter and together we can be listened to, so tell Congress. CVT does excellent work, so donate if you can. But the most basic and imperative support, and one that you should repeat constantly, is to constantly ask yourself what can be done to better support full equality for women and have this conversation in offices and grocery stores and homes nationwide. We deserve to live in a world where the UDHR is more than a dream, but one of full equality, where our mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, co-workers, partners and the whole of humankind enjoys full equality. It’s overdue that we get started in doing more. Let’s start now.

Jay Carney and David Letterman joked on Wednesday about the ways the White House press secretary can avoid answering reporters’ questions.

Carney left his post as the White House press secretary earlier this year, and appeared on “The Late Show” to discuss his experience as part of the Obama administration. Letterman presented a list of phrases that the former press secretary has used in lieu of giving a direct answer.

They included: “I’m not going to tell you,” “See yesterday’s non-response,” “Yea, but I could be making it up.” Carney laughed, but on a more serious note, he said that the best answer sometimes is simply “I don’t know,” because being wrong has serious “repercussions.”

“They could be international, domestic or political, and in today’s media climate, that could metastasize so quickly,” he remarked. Other times, he added, he simply could not comment on classified information.

Carney had some memorable clashes with White House reporters during his tenure, and he said Wednesday that he believes the relationship between the press and the White House should be “adversarial.” Watch the segment in the clip above.

Among the numerous refuse-to-die nutrition urban legends, agave reigns supreme.

“Just the name ‘agave’ conjures up images of romantic tropical excursions and mysterious shamanic medicine,” writes Dr. Joseph Mercola. “These are the mental images many agave ‘nectar’ sellers want you to hold. [W]hat they’re selling you is a bottle of high-fructose syrup, so highly processed and refined that it bears NO resemblance to the plant of its namesake.”

We should have buried the agave myth ages ago, but intelligent people still buy the hype. One 2013 HuffPost blog entitled “Agave Recipes For Healthy Baking” argues that with “agave recipes, you can eat your sweets without the sugar (and also keep your blood sugar levels from spiking).”

Its author should know better when even once pro-agave experts have recanted their position.

“Over the past few months, I’ve become increasingly concerned about a sweetener that I’ve recommended on my show in the past,” wrote Dr. Mehmet Oz earlier this year. “After careful consideration of the available research, today I’m asking you to eliminate agave from your kitchen and your diet.”

Likewise, Dr. Andrew Weil recently reversed his agave position.

While I’m glad to see these and other mainstream experts modify their opinion, Dr. Jonny Bowden wrote a scathing critique calling agave “a triumph of marketing over science” in The Huffington Post back in early 2010. Why are these experts just now catching up to Bowden and others who long ago asserted agave unhealthy?

“Most agave ‘nectar’ or agave ‘syrup’ is nothing more than a laboratory-generated super-condensed fructose syrup, devoid of virtually all nutrient value, and offering you metabolic misfortune in its place,” writes Mercola.

The few studies that focus specifically on agave don’t make this sweetener look good. One with 12 rats found compared with sucrose (a glucose/ fructose combo), agave nectar contributed to weight gain. Another found even moderate amounts of fructose-containing liquids (including agave) create unfavorable changes in your plasma lipid profile and one marker of liver health. Another lumped agave with refined sugar and corn syrup for minimal antioxidant activity.

Heavy processing doesn’t help, but what really gets agave into trouble is its high fructose content. According to Bowden, agave can contain up to 90 percent fructose, the most metabolically damaging sugar. That’s why Mercola calls fructose “far worse than high-fructose corn syrup,” which contains about 55 percent fructose.

While fructose doesn’t raise blood sugar, what it does becomes far more metabolically damaging. In a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Dr. Robert Lustig notes among its problems, fructose contributes “to rising rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.” Excessive fructose also becomes a key player in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Even though it doesn’t raise blood sugar or insulin, fructose contributes to insulin resistance. Studies show fructose raises triglycerides and doesn’t signal your satiety hormone leptin or suppress your hunger hormone ghrelin.

Fructose also makes you fat. One study found fructose converts to fat twice as much as other sweeteners. According to Lustig, about 30 percent of fructose will convert to fat.

It doesn’t take much fructose to create these and other problems. “Fructose only becomes a metabolic poison when you consume it in quantities greater than 25 grams a day,” writes Mercola, noting one tablespoon of agave could provide that amount and most people consume about 70 grams of fructose every day.

Considering that even small amounts can create fat gain and numerous health issues, why choose agave when far healthier sweeteners exist?

If you ever fell for agave hype, what helped you “see the light”? What’s your current go-to sweetener? Share your thoughts below.

By Erin Russell

I turned 29 last month. Before I dry up and turn to dust, I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned as a twenty-something. One of the greatest things about being older is not giving a sh*t — I have already written about this some, but today I want to elaborate on the things I don’t give a sh*t about anymore. I once cared deeply about these things. But as I’ve gotten older and “wiser” (debatable), I’ve realized they just don’t matter to me.

1. Celebrity gossip

From about age 19 to 25, I read every article on Perez Hilton every day (plus a rotating list of Go Fug Yourself, DListed, etc.). This was a special achievement when I was living in a completely different time zone (Italy) and would read all the backlog from the entire U.S. day in my morning. But as I got older, I kind of realized I was devoting a lot of time to something that doesn’t affect me. Seriously, does knowing about a celebrity’s life make me feel emotions? Make me more cultured? Plus, it’s the same story over and over: Someone might be pregnant, two people might be feuding, someone’s stylist made them wear something I could never afford that is still horrendous, etc., etc. I’m still interested in people’s life stories, but my information generally comes from Wikipedia now.

2. Who my boyfriend is messaging

Oh my God, I used to get so jealous. I didn’t think I was, but the number of times I read my boyfriends’ Facebook messages tells another story. Oddly enough, what changed for me was finding evidence I was being cheated on. I’d been looking and looking and… I found something. Now what? I was miserable when I was snooping and then I was even more miserable when I was right. My way of solving this problem was to stop dating people I didn’t trust completely. Your significant other should leave no doubt in your mind that they are completely devoted to you. Feeling the need to snoop is not OK; It’s either a problem in the relationship or a problem with you.

3. Finding someone to go with

In high school, I remember thinking that going to the mall by yourself would be sad and depressing. Now the idea of shopping with someone else makes me twitchy. But, on a larger level, doing things by yourself is OK. I remember the first time I went to a concert by myself. I was worried everyone there would think I was a loser, but then again, I realized I didn’t know any of these people, anyway, so it doesn’t matter what they think. Maybe they will think I’m cool but if not, f*ck ’em, I never have to see them again — I’m going to dance. I can’t say everything I’ve done by myself has been enjoyable, but it has just as good a chance of sucking if I’m with someone else. I’ve gone to networking events, book readings and Greece alone, sometimes made new friends and had a great time — and I’m stronger because of it.

4. “Confessions” articles

Do any of y’all remember grouphug.us? I used to read that all the time in college. After a couple of months, though, I realized probably 90 percent of the “confessions” were fake. Those Whisper secrets you’re reading, or the Reddit thread on the horrors of working in a restaurant? Probably some dude in his mom’s basement who also comments on YouTube videos for fun. (Of course Literally, Darling’s “This Week In Awkward” series was, sadly, 100-percent real).

5. Sex tips

I subscribed to Cosmo in college. Listen, those tips repeat themselves every few months, are incredibly PG-rated and, most importantly, do not work on every person. If you are looking for “50 ways to please your man,” ASK HIM. Do not listen to a magazine (which, again, uses made-up “testimonials”) telling you that pouring candle wax on his chest a good idea, then try to surprise him with your sexy new trick. Talk to your partner about what he likes and what he wants to try. I know one guy who is totally into anal stimulation (tee-hee, anal! But seriously, it’s not a big deal) and another who was turned off forever by someone springing it on him. And if you’re reading sex tips looking for ideas for yourself? Sure, I guess it’s a fine place to start. Just stay away from anything involving food.

6. Chasing after people

“He only returns like every third text, I always make the plans and he thinks I’d look hotter as a redhead.” NOPE, BYE. “You are still mad at me for something I did eight years ago? I must need to apologize some more.” AT THIS POINT IT’S THEIR PROBLEM, NOT YOURS. “He can’t be attentive to me because he has just been hurt and doesn’t want to commit right now, but I need to be there for him.” HE’S PROBABLY A SCUMBAG. IF HE CARED HE WOULD SHAPE UP. “I know I shouldn’t text my ex, but I just want to win, you know?” THERE IS NO WINNING IN RELATIONSHIPS. YOU WIN BY NOT ASSOCIATING WITH A**HOLES.

7. Cool music

As a native Austinite, there is a large amount of pressure to like the “right” bands. I scoured Napster when I was in high school (uh… I mean, did legal things?) trying to find cool new music before anyone else — no easy feat on a dial-up Internet connection. Then, I worked as a DJ at our college radio station and was met with a whole other level of music snobbery that I needed to attain to fit in. People cooler than me would zealously discuss whether something was categorized as trip hop or dubtronica, and the effects of the soaring chord on blah blah blah. I didn’t even like half of these weird-a** bands but everyone else did, so I had to at least be knowledgeable of Ratatat and The Arcade Fire. I spent SO much time on this. Now, the music can find me, dammit. If I like it, I will buy it whether it’s by Disclosure or Drake, Broods or Beyoncé. As long as it makes me sing, dance or speaks to me, I don’t care how cool the band is or what damn genre they are.

8. Sales

This is tricky, because sales have the potential to be awesome. I used to be the first person in the store during the Victoria’s Secret semi-annual sale, because, $25 bras! But now, with a drawer full of dainty underwear only about a third of which is actually in rotation, I give sales the side-eye. I immediately unsubscribe from newsletters of online purchases because I don’t WANT to know about sales. I don’t need to be spending money right now, and it’s better to just not even have the temptation there. Sometimes the “sale” price is only a difference of like, $5 anyway. Then there are sites that will show you such a huge markdown that how could you NOT buy it? Problem is, no one on earth is selling it for that high original price—they are only trying to make it seem like a deal. Finally, if you’re buying something on sale, you should be willing to pay full price for it because you love it that much. If you justify buying a dress because of the price, you probably didn’t want it that much in the first place and it will just gather dust in the depths of your closet.

9. Not swallowing your pride

To clarify, I do not say this meaning “be a pushover” or “apologize and not mean it” (see, No. 6). But certain occasions call for a dose of humility in the short-term for good in the long-term. Asking your boss or a co-worker for help when you’re overwhelmed and about to lose it. Telling someone you love them. Finding a way to apologize to your girlfriend when you KNOW you were right, but the way you said it upset her. Bite your tongue, talk it out with the other person and be empathetic. Have you heard of “echoing” someone’s speech? For example: “OK, so you are upset with me because I made plans with friends on our date night and you wanted it to be one-on-one.” It sounds silly, but it’s absolutely the best way to make sure you understand what someone else is trying to communicate.

There’s a saying I found in my late 20s that I wish I’d heard earlier: “Apologizing does not always mean that you’re wrong and the other person is right. It means you value the relationship more than your ego.”

10. Trying to be perfect

Look, we’re all flawed human beings, even that successful cousin/acquaintance/frenemy your mom is always asking you about. You don’t need to throw on a full face of makeup and a cute sundress to go to the grocery store, you don’t need to hide the fact that you poop from your significant other, you don’t need to be married by 25 so you can be together for three years before baby No. 1 at 28. Life works in mysterious ways, and everyone is not on the same schedule. Just focus on being the best version of yourself. What more can anyone ask?

Originally posted on Literally, Darling an online magazine by and for twenty-something women, which features the personal, provocative, awkward, pop-filled and pressing issues of our gender and generation. This is an exact representation of our exaggerated selves.