I haven't written in a while and I am afraid that the saying: If you dont use it you lose it- is starting to kick in. I had some free time and I wanted to clear my mind, meditate and do a mental exercise. A friend suggested I write about something arbitrary and meaningless. So here I go.
My eyes gandered to all the clutter on my desk and for a while now there's many a debate that goes on regarding peoples work desk and what it looks like and how it is related to who they are and their general psyche. Well, judging from what it looks like now, I must be a disturbed person with organizational problems. Which brings me to, not giving a snap judgment and perhaps giving someone the benefit of the doubt but then again people say first impressions lasts. How does one overcome a bad first impression? How can I still be efficient, get things done and keep an orderly desk throughout the day? I suppose, I can slow down and tidy up every few minutes, but I am a go-getter and very task oriented which means, I cannot leave my desk without getting everything done on my checklist that day, which doesnt leave a lot of room for cleaning up - I do try and clean up after work, that way tomorrow when I am coming in to work, I am starting a fresh slate - all these questions - make me tired, it's like juggling way too many balls all at once, and being a woman, I am all but too familiar with juggling balls and multi tasking. I have to make dinner, do laundry, fold the clothes, be a good mom, go to PTA meetings, plays, assemblies, help my daughter with homework, be at work on time, produce excellent, impeccable projects, finish my to do lists at work, manage workers, stay svelte and slim, never get wrinkles, eat well, stay grounded, go to yoga, read, don't ever let my boss down, don't get sick, be loving and rational at the same time, get groceries, plan the week's meals, be happy, be strong, stay positive, have my own interests, call my parents, spend time with my friends, BE PERFECT- HOLY $hit! That's a lot of pressure for one person. No wonder, there are a growing number of mental institutions and a growing number of pain medication addiction in women. They all just want to drown that pain and go back to being perfect. We like most women are ashamed to say, I can't do it all. I need help, instead we look at ourselves as failure if we can't accomplish all of these things. Our bars are set too high and it's not like it stays there, it gets higher and higher, it seems. What are we to do?
Did we really liberate ourselves through Women's Rights? We are able to vote, we are able to hold jobs in the work force, we are even CEOs now - was that a wise choice or did we just (like typical women) create more work for us? I am sure while they were fighting for women's rights before they didn't think it was going to be this hectic. Boy Oh Boy! Were they ever wrong. Wrong in a sense that - in my humble opinion, being a woman these days - you have to be thick-skinned but sensitive, passionate but removed, submissive but not domineering, smart but not too intelligent and a list of contradictions go on. Look, all I'm saying is - society expects us to be a lot more which feels nice in some ways, because at least they know that we are capable. But on the other hand, this produces a lot of issues with women, perfectionism is not a strength neither should we strive for that, it is impossible to be perfect and that should never be a standard for anything and anybody, it is a recipe for failure and disappointment.
As a society, I urge us to slow down and look at the casualties of all this mess. We are breeding over achieving, pill popping, instant gratification, over stimulated, eating disorder daughters. Children don't do well listening, they follow what they see. We need to set examples for our daughters and for them to have realistic expectations of what and how a woman should be. Yes, she should be strong, intellligent, articulate, and well-adjusted but she should also be given some room for growth and improvement, room to make a healthy amount of mistakes. She should learn that it's OK to make mistakes, as a matter of fact, many an invention are born this way. Trial and Error is what makes us human and what helps us learn and grow and thrive and develop. We have got to slow down and simplify. Simplify our life, simplify our children's lives. Stop packing soccer lessons, piano lessons, ballet lessons, french lessons, violin lessons, basketball practice, football practice, chess, homework, into one week - let us all unencumber ourselves with all these expectations and just take what you need. Our kids will be fine - trust me. Like most adults my age, when we were kids, we didn't have all of what kids nowadays have, we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have internet (atleast for some part of our childhood and even then after that, we had dial ups and modem, can you imagine your son/daughter getting a cable and hooking it up to a phone line and waiting for a tone? ha!) we got fed junk, we watched tv but we also got left alone in our rooms with our imagination, we got to run around in an open field to play with friends and only came home when it was dark outside, we got to play under a full moon, we got to bike/walk to our friends house with no worries, we got to imagine our dream homes, we played in the rain and flood. We were connected to what was around us. Let's give the same thing to our kids, let's let them be kids, let them struggle, let them be alone and bored from time to time, let them be. Let's stop living vicariously through them. Let them decide - if they want to learn to play the piano or the violin, let them decide if they want dance lessons - when they're older, when they're brains are more equiped to make decisions like this. Don't decide for them. In the meantime, the best we can do for them is to spend time with them and nourish them and let their self shine through, let them be who they will be but with gentle guidance from their surroundings, from what they see from their mom and dad and everything else around them. Let them see that this world doesn't expect for them to be perfect, in fact, they expect for them to just be themselves and love themselves. The world, doesn't expect anything else from you but to just be happy so that in turn you are able to infect others around you. Strive to be happy. In the end, it really is all there is.
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