We live in a world where everyone likes to think “less is more”. But really, let’s just say it how it is – MORE is more. Our society has a fascination with more. We are a consumer-based society for a reason. Our generation of millennials aren’t any different than other generations in the sense that the government and big corporations need us to subscribe to certain beliefs in order to keep things in line with their plans. I’m sorry, but I hate doing things just because society tells me to, how about you? Stay with me …
If you are trying to let go of anything this year, let it be all of the pressure that comes along with these beliefs.
I can’t tell you how many times I am faced with these pressures on a daily basis, and it’s kind-of stressing me out. Perhaps it’s because I decided to grow up only a few years ago, but everything is piling up fast! Questions I can’t answer, plans I don’t have, goals I haven’t met, etc.
Maybe it’s time we all stop believing that these unhealthy beliefs that define us. It’s the tangents in conversations, and the dirt roads that aren’t on our GPS that give us real, raw, unplanned life. I’m here to tell you to stop believing in these things. And, well, I am sort of telling myself that, too.
Come on peeps, yeah, I just called you peeps …
LET GO OF THESE 4 UNHEALTHY BELIEFS:
1. Body image.
I could dedicate a whole website just to talking about our society’s unhealthy body image. I’ll spare you and cut it short for the sake of your sanity, and also I have class in an hour so here’s the condensed version.
I’ll open with this; fake asses are just as fake as photo-shopped flat stomachs, and make other women feel just as insecure when they don’t have them. So don’t believe the hype, the new ‘butt’ craze is just as body shaming, but it has disguised itself as empowering women with big butts.
From someone who has a big butt, and comes from a family of women with big butts, they don’t naturally look like Kim’s, or Nicki’s, or Iggy’s. Sorry to pop your balloon, they just don’t. They’ve got dimples here and there, and we don’t have designers to tailor our clothes to make them look as good as J Lo’s. So I tell those ads: don’t empower me and then make me compare.
We need to stop being ashamed of our bodies, because guess what? The Victoria’s Secret fashion show is strategically scheduled after we all shoved our faces with Thanksgiving dinner a week before. They want us to buy from them, in hopes to look like an Angel. Magazines with bikini-clad bodies are put at the checkout lines so you see them and look at your food and think, Oh my god, I need their latest workout tip to look like her.
No girl, you don’t. You need to do what is best for you, and all I’m saying is that sometimes that means a big bowl of Mac N’ Cheese after a long day. Don’t let anyone take that from you. Do what makes you feel good, not what will make you look like someone else.
Whew. Now that we’ve got that one out of the way …
2. Careers based on money rather than passion.
I think part of this stems from our parents. As a parent now, I can honestly see how people say they always want better for their kids. But somehow, we always associate it with money. I know you can make things a lot better with money, but I don’t know if that’s 100% what they meant.
We see our parents’ salaries and careers, and there’s this unintentional comparison that happens. We think that financially we have to do better. We don’t factor in happiness or fulfillment, or maybe we do, but we don’t prioritize it before money.
So my fellow millennials, maybe we should sit back and realize that our parents just want us happy. So many people sacrifice happiness for money, let’s not be them. Sorry Diddy, sometimes it’s not all about the Benjamin’s.
What do you love? What are you naturally good at? We should follow these cues rather than what career will make the most cash, or get you out of college the fastest. These will lead us to a happier life, what we all ultimately strive for.
3. Relationship timelines.
This one freaks me out. So many are willing to settle for people that don’t open up their full potential as a human being because it is ‘the time’ to get engaged and married. It’s never the time to get engaged, or to get married, or to have babies, because it’s all freaking madness whichever slot you decide to schedule it.
Those types of plans don’t prepare you for anything, and I don’t care who says they do. Plans like that prepare you for divorce, and sad kids, because when people go into something that monumental thinking it will be great because they ‘planned for it’, they learn otherwise really quick. (I do want to point out, this isn’t directed at all people with a plan, this is to all people who settle to make that plan happen.)
We have to stop doing this. Let life happen a little. I’m sorry all your friends are getting engaged, buying houses together, and having babies, but your story is going to be so amazing if you just let it be. Don’t rush it for the sake of having what everyone else has. If you do then it won’t be as good.
4. “I have to have it all figured out.”
This one is my worst enemy. All the time I ask myself, You have a daughter, are in college, unmarried, renting a townhouse, what are you doing? To that voice I say, (most days), F off – I am doing everything I can.
Because I am. And you are too.
Sure, I don’t have a mortgage, or a husband (just a kickass fiancé!), or a degree. But I will, just not when society tells me I need to have it by.
You will have those things when you are ready, when the universe is ready, and when you have planned for it the least. That’s when the real growth happens, when you don’t know what you are doing, and you just do it anyway.
That’s the only time you can be your true, authentic, self – when you haven’t practiced.
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