Matt Joseph Diaz

"Don't boo, vote." — President Obama, but also Matt Joseph Diaz. Rock the vote this year and set some changes in motion!

One of the most dangerous aspects of positive change is our tendency to demonize the people we’ve been. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t lain awake in bed, plagued with the thoughts of a cringe-worthy move they made in their younger years, or some kind of toxic behavior they exhibited before they knew better.

For some of us, our first real taste of adulthood comes from sitting alone in a clinic, waiting to get our ding-dongs tested.

Though it's worth noting that my weight was beginning to become a health concern, I’d never considered my body a “problem” until I heard how doctors talked about it. In the same way a hurt child won’t start to cry until he sees the worry in his parent’s face, I never felt bad about my body until the first time I felt like I was being looked at with disgust. So whatever route you decide to take with the health of a child, make sure it’s treated as a growing opportunity and not a solution to a problem. Your children are not problems — they are the foundation upon which the adults of tomorrow will be built.

Impostor syndrome is a disconnect in your mind between how everyone sees you and how you see yourself. It can be more dangerous than it seems.

Even on the days you've made a mistake, or hurt someone, or otherwise messed up and caused yourself to doubt whether or not you like you, it's sti

"The universe is a big, dark, cold empty space — but you're not any of that. You're a light."

Dear anti-feminist men, 

I’m writing to you because I want to have a discussion.

After spending a long time in nature, it stopped being intimidating. It started being calm. The quiet wasn't something I feared anymore. It was something I wanted to cherish.

In the spring of 2013, I met a woman on OKCupid. She was petite, with a kind smile and a voice so soft that it could melt all your troubles away. Her shock of red curls went down to her shoulders — and because of this, and the fact that we no longer speak, let's call her Ann.

Ann was a few years older than I, wise and mature. She also, it turned out, spent her professional life beating up strangers for their sexual satisfaction.