About

I created this blog website to inspire and encourage others. I've been a writer for some time but never took my writing seriously enough to have anything published until 2020, when I started writing on online platforms such as Medium and Quora. People appreciated my advice and willingness to open up about my own life. Despite a relatively privileged upbringing, I endured some difficult life experiences as an adult. I've been homeless. I've had to get groceries at food pantries. I've had my car repossessed and had to walk an hour to my job because it wasn't on the bus route. I've had to sell almost all of my belongings to pay rent. I've had to live with some serious consequences from terrible decisions I made out of naiveté, desperation, and otherwise bad judgment. That was well over a decade ago. Since then, starting with my exit from an abusive relationship, I've made a slow but pretty steady improvement in my life. It has been anything but easy. I had burned a lot of bridges, some of which could not be rebuilt. But experience can sometimes be the best teacher, and sometimes picking yourself up after falling, or tripping, or being pushed, is the best way to learn something. Even if you have to keep picking yourself up over and over and over. Like me. I've told many people my story, or at least parts of my story, to let them know that they're not a failure, and to look at failure as more of an opportunity to get up and get back in that saddle. After all, I tell them, one doesn't become a good rider until they've fallen off and gotten back on the horse, over and over, so they can learn what they're doing wrong and how to do it correctly to get the results they need in order to develop their riding skills. The same applies to life and its lessons. For this blog I combined the words "self" and "fantastic" to make my own sort of play-on word to describe the goal of being, basically, your best self. And our best self now may be different from our best self five years from now. In order to be "selftastic," one has to be, at least by my definition, a lifelong learner. Someone who is malleable and willing to grow and learn from others, as well as from their own past mistakes, can become their best self. Here's to being selftastic! Cheers, Bethany