Stop Listening and Start Living...

Women...SERIOUSLY...can we just give the marketing and advertising execs and their fawning teams and minions the finger already?? Can we just tell them to get lost and get a life, and that we aren't interested in what they are selling? Do you really want to continue on some masochistic regimen to keep up with the Joneses...the Joneses in Hollywood no less??

I read an article tonight about women and beauty and how they are influenced by the standards that outside parties set, and very definitely by the small, and sometimes large, indiscretions that come out of the mouths of the people around them.

I wish more women would realize that they are fabulous just the way they are.
I wish that they would take confidence in the accomplishments that they have already had.
I wish they would listen less to the false clamorings of marketing and advertising and movie stars and rock stars and the talking heads on morning news talk shows.

Here is the article:
http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/worthless-women-and-men-who-make-them.html

Of course we want to look our best, but that's not what I'm talking about and everyone knows it. I'm talking about meeting up to some plastic infested expectation.

• I'm talking about a face and/or a body that is photoshopped to the point of "0" and anorexic fright.
• I'm talking about fear and loathing. I'm talking about fear and loathing to the point of anorexia and bulimia or overeating and other anti-social self destructive behaviors.
• I'm talking about being embarrassed about your body and missing out on life because someone might see your thighs jiggle while you are running down to the ocean or are hiking to a mountain top.
• I'm talking about being afraid that your spouse won't want to touch your post-pregnancy body or that they will be grossed out by the fact that **gasp** you've aged during the course of your 25 years of marriage.

Here is my opinion...tamed down from the bulletted peppering of adult words that this topic always brings to mind:

I learned a long time ago that you have to be happy with yourself because you will never measure up to the unrealistic expectations that some have of you. They make it unrealistic so you *can't* achieve it and so they will feel better about themselves.

In marketing and advertising they want your money--that's all. They don't want to be your friend or give you a leg up on the competition. They want your $$. If they make you feel less secure about yourself, or like you are missing some attribute, that if you can just reach whatever standard that they have set, that life will be perfect, that you will be eternally desired and sexy and that nothing bad will ever happen to you, they win.

They win because then you spend your hard earned money on their products which will never bring you eternal youth, or endless happiness, or perfection in your relationships with your loved ones. At the end of the day, you're still stuck with the juggling of your own life and trying to make everything balance out. You may have silkier hair or smooth legs, but you've still got your problems to solve, your relationships to manage.

You can't make anyone else happy, you can only be your best self, because you're the one who knows how best to be you.

I learned that even though words sting and bite and bruise, that it is only permanent if you let it take up residence and you start to believe it.

I don't know about any of you, but I don't have a personal trainer or chef, I don't have my own photographer who walks around with me making sure that I am always in the perfect light. I don't have a bank full of money to pay a posse of professionals to make me something that everyone else wishes that they were.

This doesn't mean that you don't take care of yourself the best you can, or that you don't try to improve on perhaps not-so-stellar habits that you've picked up along the way...it just means that you do your best, you are your best, and you're happy and joyful and you are confident in knowing that you are a wonderful human being.

For myself, at the beginning of the day...and at the end of the day...I'm just me. I'm just Tracy, and frankly, if that isn't good enough for someone else...I've realized that they can piss off because I'm not interested in the misery that they are selling. I know who I am and I'm happy with that person...even if she needs to exercise more and maybe eat more carrots and less chocolate. ;)