Pretty ugly: self esteem of YouTube girls
We are all beautiful.
So to these girls on YouTube asking the world if they are pretty or ugly, please stop and tell yourselves that you ARE pretty, beautiful, wonderful and fantastic.
I will make it part of my life’s purpose to instil confidence and strong self esteem in my daughter. I’m sure that as she enters her tween and teen years that she’ll have her doubts, just like her mom did back in high school, but that she’ll learn to grow and love herself for who she is.
Warming up to a life of purpose
I remember playing the game Hot or Cold as a kid. My dad would tell me to find something he was thinking about and I’d run around the house while he told me if I was getting warmer (closer to) or colder (further away from the object). Usually, I’d start off ice cold or something similar and then I’d get gradually warmer. Sometimes I’d swerve off course and I’d start getting cold again. I’d have to backtrack to where I was last warm and start my search anew.
I think in life we play the same game – get warmer and warmer as we get closer to finding our life’s purpose. And sometimes we get a little colder and have to find our way again. Here’s hoping I keep getting warmer.
This post was inspired by an article by Lisa Pool in Feelgood Style. In it, she suggests examining your life to see what makes you feel cool or warm. She suggests we eliminate the things that cool us off and replace them with things that warm us up.
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
What we learn along the way
I had a conversation recently with a new co-worker and he was intrigued, as people often are, to hear that I was once a reporter. He asked if I would ever go back. My emphatic, “No” probably surprised him. (Being in broadcasting is glamorous and exciting—that’s the perception, at any rate. The reality is much different as my thread-bare apartment and extra part-time job working evenings and weekends at the local A&W can attest.)
This conversation got me to thinking that I’ve learned a lot about myself since those early days as a young, tireless reporter. It’s been an interesting journey. With every curve in the road, I have learned something that has helped to define me as a person and helped me to realize what I do and do not like doing.
Respect, credibility and knowledge
I enjoyed the respect and attention that came with being a broadcaster. I had credibility at a very young age and I loved being a know-it-all. I was curious, and was able to find out everything I wanted to know about anything. I was in learning heaven. If I had a question, I simply called up the mayor or whoever had the answer and (usually) got one. I also loved knowing pretty much everything going on in the world at any given moment.
Teamwork
Reporting is solitary and competitive. I enjoy competition, but I found I was often competing against my co-workers to see who would get the best story, the best scoop, the next story, the fastest. I didn’t realize this bothered me so much until I switched lanes from broadcasting to communications.
I felt the difference immediately. Now I’m in a field where we all work together to achieve a common goal. We each bring unique strengths to projects to make one cohesive whole. We are stronger when we work together. That’s very powerful and I love that.
Self-awareness
While I’m still on the same road, it has curved again and I have joined the great squeeze known as middle management. It’s fair to say this role is going to challenge me in ways I can’t anticipate. I’ll probably have some blinding moments of self-awareness – some great, some harsh. (Hello 360 degree review.) Ultimately, I’m going to come out a stronger, smarter person for it.
I’m looking forward to finding out what else I’ll learn along the way.
Life purpose – a life-long quest?
My husband and I recently wrote out our list of what we’d like to do this year.
We’d love to take a couple of trips, landscape the front yard, landscape the back yard, put a turnaround in our upper driveway, redo the kitchen, refinish the floors, redecorate and redesign the living room, get new windows, get new blinds and window treatments… The list goes on.
And then we compared that list to the amount of money we have. There is quite a gap between the two.
But I want it all now!
The nice car, the finished house with spacious kitchen, the yearly vacations, the ski lodge.
I wish I could have it all now; however, it’s going to take several years before we can do and have all of these things. And I’m sure that once we accomplish one thing on our list, another will take its place.
The desire to improve our surroundings will likely never go away.
I suspect it will be the same in my quest for purpose.
Where is the magic wand?
Sometimes I wish someone would say, “Erin, your purpose is _____. Go forth and fulfill it.”
However, reality reminds me that this hunt for purpose will likely be a life-long quest. Because I grow and change every day. We all do.
My wants and desires today will be different from my wants and desires in ten years, and different again in 20 years. Even if I were to pin point a life purpose right now, it will evolve over time. Just like me.
But that’s all right. I would much rather be dynamic and growing than static and unchanging.
And maybe that’s what I need to learn with this hunt for purpose—that it may take a lifetime. And I’m OK with that.
The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
The whole coulda, shoulda, woulda thing is closely linked with life purpose in my mind. Interesting TEDTalk.
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We’re taught to try to live life without regret. But why? Using her own tattoo as an example, Kathryn Schulz makes a powerful and moving case for embracing our regrets.
My one-word theme for 2012
Image by Linda W1
I’m not one who makes New Year’s resolutions.
I didn’t care for them at all. They seem to focus on the things we don’t like about ourselves, the negative. Instead, I like to set out the goals I want to accomplish for the year and focus on the positive.
I haven’t done this for a while. Last year, I didn’t because I my world was going to change. I was about to become a first-time parent and figured I would take the year as it came. I figured if I made it through the days without collapsing from exhaustion, I’d be doing a terrific job.
Now that I have a better handle on parenthood, I feel like I can focus on getting back to setting some goals. What do I want to achieve with my career? With my family? With my spare time (ha!)?
Choose one word to guide the year
It was with interest that I read this blog post by Mari Smith. In it, she talks about choosing one word to help guide her through the year.
When I thought about choosing a word for myself, several came to mind:
- Change
- Adapt
- Transform
- Grow
- Learn
I’ve had a lot of change in the past year: new child (new body), new job at a new company, new routines. I do not need any more change in my life, so I will not be choosing that word to guide me through 2012.
Transformation
I think transform will be a good word for me this year. I’ll be responding to the changes in my life. I’ll be growing and learning in my new job and that’s all part of transformation. I’ll also be figuring out how to redefine myself now that I’m a mother. How does that fit in with the life and career I’ve constructed to this point?
Transformation also seems appropriate to the other questions I have been asking about my life purpose and what I want to get out of being here on this earth.
So transform it is.
Hello, 2012. I look forward to a transformative year.
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What about you? If you could choose one word to guide your year, what would it be?
Life Purpose According to Rita Chand
I got hugged, and it made my day (you can see it in my face). Making people’s day is the goal for Rita Chand, who is on her own quest. In her “year of hugging fearlessly,” Rita aims to hug at least one new person every day. More than 1,000 hugs later, Rita says this year has helped her find her own life purpose and explains that each of us already has what it takes to find our own life purpose.
Visit Rita’s Facebook page
Regret
Photo credit: Katie Tegtmeyer
In thinking about life purpose, I have thought a lot about regrets. I don’t have a lot of regrets, but the ones I do have are centered around the words that do or do not come out of my mouth.
You know how you hear the things you’re saying as you’re saying them and it sounds totally different than how you heard it inside your head? That happens to me. All. The. Time.
And once the words are tumbling out it’s as if I can’t stop them. And then I can’t get my hand over my mouth quickly enough.
Regret
Not for the words I’ve said but for the way they can make people feel. I haven’t ever intended to make someone feel badly, but that has happened. And then I’ll try to explain what I meant but then I end up sounding like an even bigger ass. So sometimes, because of this fear of making things worse, I stop. I don’t say anything at all.
It’s so simple though. I just need to say,
I am an idiot. I heard the way that sounded as it came out of my mouth and that’s not what I meant at all.
But I don’t.
Regret
I have another problem. I have a habit of forgetting to say the things I need to say.
I love you. Thank you. You are so very important to me.
Sometimes, the words in my head are so loud it’s as if I have said them. I think them and feel good for thinking them but don’t realize until later that the other person didn’t hear them.
Regret
And that’s where my baseless fear comes into play again.
It’s almost as if saying these words acknowledges that life is short and eventually I’m going to lose the people I love. It hurts, and I hate being a drama queen, so I tuck those thoughts away. Heaven forbid I show some emotion.
But that keeps me from fully sharing myself with the people I love and saying the most important things to the most important people.
I love you.
Thank you.
You are so very important to me.
Blogging it is the first step. Now I need to say it out loud.
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How about you? What’s the most asinine thing you’ve ever said? Or what things do you keep inside that you should share?
