"Thank God for granting me, this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty. The world will feel my truths". - Jay-Z
Every now and then, I have a moment when I come across something that is so timely. This is one of them.
Lately, I've been harboring one simple thought: "can it be that it was all so simple then"? Young girls nowadays have it rough. The world feels colder and so much more brutal than it did back when I was growing up.
Now, don't get me wrong, it was never perfect. It's just that in this day in age where celebrities reign supreme and the tachyon-like speed of technology has everyone in a tizzy, there seems to be more of a focus placed on competing with the next chick or taking for granted true friendships and healthy relationships.
Being the eldest, my younger sister always had an advantage in that I was always able to pass on to her all the lessons learned from some of the bullshit I would go through. Though there is no greater teacher than experience, it always helps to have a heads up. Even now, at 29 years old (wow, 30 is way too close) I find that I am still in the midst of immature and disingenuous personalities. So it is important to understand and realize that some things will never change. You have to just rock with the ebb and flow. Keep your friends close and your enemies on limited profile. The old adage had to be changed to fit today's times :)
Below, I pasted a genius excerpt from Eve Ensler's book. It's a must read for all women out there. But before I end my post, I want to pass on some of my own advice to young girls in particular who may reading:
Love the ones that treat you right and forget about the ones that don't. Surround yourself with HONEST, HONEST (that is not a typo -- I just cannot stress HONEST enough), LOYAL, POSITIVE, ENCOURAGING friends and remember that the greatest relationships are built on the strongest foundations. It may sound cliche, but, the greatest and truest of friends are the ones that will stick by you, no matter what. Excerpt from I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World:
"Dear Emotional Creature:
I believe in you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your intensity, your wildness. I love the way you dye your hair purple, or hike up your short skirt, or blare your music while you lip-synch every single memorized lyric. I love your restlessness and your hunger. You possess the energy that, if unleashed could transform, inspire and heal the world.
Everyone seems to have a certain way they want you to be -- your mother, father, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, boyfriends, fashion gurus, celebrities, girlfriends. In reporting my new book, I learned a very disturbing statistic: 74 percent of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone.
I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please; to be the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please men, we push ourselves when we aren't ready. To please our parents, we become insane over-achievers. If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? The act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We forget what we know. We make everything OK rather than real.
I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I meet teenage girls and women giggling, laughing as they walk country roads or hang out on city streets. Electric girls. I see how their lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. So many women I have met are still struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their way.
Instead of trying to please, this is a challenge to provoke, to dare, to satisfy your own imagination and appetite. To take responsibility for who you are, to engage. Listen to that voice inside you that might want something different. It's a call to your original self, to move at your own speed, to walk with your own step, to wear your color.
When I was your age, I didn't know how to live as an emotional creature. I felt like an alien. I still do a lot of the time. I am older now. I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be OK with being different, with being this alive, this intense. I just don't want you to have to wait that long.
Love, Eve Ensler"
What would be your advice to young girls out there?
