Matt Joseph Diaz

Being a "nice guy" has become an excuse for unacceptable behavior in romantic relationships. Matt says enough is enough. It's time for honesty to take the place of kindness with ulterior motives.

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.

This week on Mondays With Matt: Wearing a crop-top. And I have a NEW BELLYBUTTON.

You aren’t half of something waiting to be made whole — you’re a complete human being with your own important thoughts and ideas, looking for someone to add to your life. You're neither incomplete nor missing out on anything just because you’re single.

Vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness, and those who see being open and sincere as symbols of fragility have a skewed idea of vulnerability. It takes NO strength to close yourself off from the world — to refuse to be who you are because you’re afraid of the reaction of those around you. Feeling deeply and openly, even in the face of resistance, is what takes true strength.

Success is an uphill climb, but it’s rarely a directly uphill climb. There are cliffsides and plateaus, there are points where you have to adapt and change in order to make things work. These are not steps backwards, nor are they indicative of your failure—they’re simply a byproduct of life. More often than not, this ability to work with the circumstances in order to get by will take you farther than certain “skills” ever could.

The “you” who opens their eyes in the morning isn’t the same “you” lays down their head in that bed that night. In those few hours of consciousness you have more exposure to life, you experience a world of compassion and cruelty that has the potential to change the trajectory of your entire life.

As much as you want to believe people are all the same, we don’t have the luxury of being seen as the “default” in the same way white, straight, cis people often are. We don’t have the luxury of dismissing our painful history and systemic issues for the sake of everyone getting along, because we’re still in the middle of them.

Think of #MondaysWithMatt as the ultimate #MondayMotivation. Today's topic is how to handle mental health in a partner.

This Monday, Matt talks about female comic characters. Batman? How about BatNOTSOMUCHMAN.