Thank goodness we don't always turn knowing into doing.
I'm five days from opening my new Sierra Club calendar, and I wonder if it's too late for a revolution. Not a cheesy potato revolution, exactly, but a movement, nonetheless, that could embrace an occasional cheesy-potato foray.
Beyond occasional bouts of bad eating, though, the real joy of this movement is that it requires very little, uh, movement. Mostly, it requires a person--a woman, really, because this is a female problem--to give up trying to be the be-all-end-all. That's right. I'd like to see women do a little less in 2013. A little less volunteering. A little less dieting. A little less sacrificing. A little less self loathing.
...because, really, self loathing seems to be at the root of so many of these sacrificial things women do. What else would make a woman spend money on makeup and personal trainers, slimming jeans and magical powders unless she was convinced she wasn't good enough already? What else could be driving a woman to give up all her free time, to take on another project, to raise her hand once more, unless she thought she wasn't quite up to snuff?
For a well-to-do society, we sure don't do "well" very well.
Some days, it seems that everyone's watching our every move and judging our every decision. Those cameras propped up on light poles at busy intersections? Yeah, they don't care about traffic violations. They're really recording our private faults--the secretive preening, the continual adjustments, the free hand slipping into the bag of Brach's candy corn. (Candy corn? My god, is this how low we've sunk? We'll cheat on our diets with the skankiest sugar hussies available?! Whatever happened to our good taste, our dignity?!)
What if, like merchandise in a store, we came with tags dangling from our arms? And what if those tags all read: "IRR....as is"? I'm pretty sure those tags would qualify as truth in advertising, considering I've yet to meet someone who was "regular" or someone who was anything other than "as is."
What if women decided to spend our time getting comfortable with our "as is"-ness as opposed to fighting against it so much? For starters, I'm pretty sure that some businesses would go under--businesses that, today, thrive because they convince us that our current selves are a little too eewwwy.
But I also think that, if we really loved ourselves--right now--just a wee more, the world would still be filled with women who volunteered and cooked for others, women who worked hard at work and then hard, again, at home, women whose bodies grew strong and whose choices made the world a softer, more lovely place. It's just that the fuel behind all of those things would be pure and lovely, too. It would be like wind power--energizing and free--rather than the sticky tar sands of judgment and loathing that fuel too many self improvements today.
So, here's to cheesy potatoes in 2013. Not so many that they ooze from our pores, but just enough to remind us of the richness of this world, the rightness of time spent together, the value of laughing and eating and sharing our stories, our irregular, as-is lives with each other.
Who Are We Not to Be Brilliant
"Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We
ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and
fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your
playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We
were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within is. It's not
just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are
liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others."
--From Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love. It was quoted by Nobel Prize–winner Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address.
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