No Body is an Object

I was chilling with some girl friends of my mine and we were watching music videos.  And yes I still watch music videos, in fact for your information I am the same age as MTV, so that makes it perfectly reasonable that I would enjoy the occasional video (not that they play music videos anymore, but that is a separate issue) So were watching them and my friend says to me “YOU will like this video, all the men are being objectified”

This struck me as odd; I’m not sure where I got the reputation that I would enjoy seeing men objectified. But somewhere along the line I had, and that was not a great feeling.

Yes I do consider myself a feminist. Yes I do see the flaws in the constant barrage of unfair, subservient or down right sexist images we get of women on a daily basis.  I think that it is sad that just because you align yourself with these causes, that you are then thought to be a man hater, or that you enjoy seeing men put in the same compromising position that women for years have been unjustly put in.

Just swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction is not the answer. I understand that sometimes it is interesting to see things in ways we have not seen them before. Turn in on its head so that we can be educated.  That’s cool, and useful.

But honestly I really don’t think objectifying any human is something to be excited about. It really doesn’t help any movement for equality. 

Gathering Fruit

“Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?" - Frank Scully

This quote is a great reminder to me.

I think that sometimes we have to take risks. It’s not easy. It is scary. But it really can be worth it.

Now to be fair, I am not known for my risk taking abilities. No, I am more known for my caution, and perpetual fear of everything, including my own shadow.

But to live in that constant state of fear is no good. The truth is, life is so much better when you take risks. Now I am not talking about skydiving or bungee cord jumping (although I’m sure they are both extremely exhilarating) No I’m talking more about the personal kind. The ones were you take a chance on yourself or you make yourself vulnerable in order to grow and change. Those kinds of risks are perhaps the most frightening. But they also can be the most rewarding. Can you get hurt? Of course you can, or it would not be a risk! But at the end of the day I would rather be the person who gave it a shot, then the person who always is wondering what might have been.

Achiever Achiever

I have come to the conclusion that I am just an achiever.

What does this mean? I am so glad you asked! It means that I don’t really fall into the category of over achiever, which is far too lofty a description for anything I do. Nor would I consider myself an underachiever, because really, I did manage by some strange magic that is beyond me, to have garnered a (mind you very humble) amount of creative and academic success in my life. However when put in relation to the accomplishments of others, including those I currently spend many of my graduate school hours with, I can’t help but notice my own lack of awesome. Not a total lack of awesome, just a slightly less amount when put in relationship to other peoples awesome.

Perhaps the problem is right there! Perhaps our whole system of underachieving vs. overachieving is flawed do to the fact that it is completely contingent on its comparison to others.

It may be a wiser then to simply focus on my individual accomplishments rather than on how they stand up to what others are doing.

Truly I think I will start seeing myself as an achiever achiever, which takes the other people out of the equation altogether. No longer under or over anyone else!

Just me the achiever achiever. I like it.

We Are Fragile

Our lives are such precious, temporary things. It’s so easy to forget how truly fragile we are as we muddle through our day-to-day lives. It is easy to get wrapped up in our own personal anxieties. When we do we forget to appreciate the good in our life. We fail to acknowledge the people around us who make our life richer and more beautiful.

It often takes a tragedy to shake us from our narrow focus, our selfish lives. I can’t help but think how much better our lives would be, if we remember to take a little bit of time every day to acknowledge how grateful we are for our loved ones. To say a prayer (if one is of the praying type) of thanks for the friends and family that surround us. Not because we are spurred by some tragedy, but simply because it’s part of the ritual that makes us whole.

I encourage you all to not take for granted the good people in your life. Tell them right now how much they mean to you, hug them, let them know they are loved.  When you part with them, treat it as though you may never see them again, because truth is, you may not.

Grow Up Already!

Maturity is a weird concept.

I suppose I always thought that I would hit a certain point and I would just be mature.  People who knew me would be like “who her, yeah she is a complete and total adult, nothing childlike about her”.

That’s the thing though; maturity isn’t something that happens over night. It’s one of those hard-earned gifts that we get over time and experience. Yet I feel like I should be more responsible, more grown up than I actually am. Perhaps I naively thought that as soon as I turned thirty I would shed all the bad decision making of my twenties, and step into a more settled down version of myself.

Who knows, maybe I am more mature than I was this time last year. And I know that I have a greater insight into myself than I ever had. I guess the changes, the maturity, the growth; it’s all just very incremental. It didn’t happen in one big swoop as I thought it would, but rather it has been slowly creeping up on me.

That’s harder to see though isn’t it?

Perhaps maturity is not instantly being able to make the right decisions all the time. Perhaps it’s the ability to stop making the really stupid ones a little less.

At least that’s what I am going in order to sleep at night.