So I was walking around Miami airport & I was bored out of my mind waiting on them to call my flight and I went into the Hudson News book store where I bought a Hello Kitty mirror and this months Marie Claire. I was going to get Cosmo but how many more articles can they write about sex though? So if you do not have the December issue of Marie Claire magazine for 2012 then go out and grab it, I love this month so far.
It’s so funny that I was reading that article on the exact same day when I got an odd comment on my blog, and both things coincided with a blog I wrote last week about “Small Minded-ness” .
Women have advanced so much over the years, yet we never really out grow the need to put ourselves up against each other, it’s literally like High School never ends. How do you measure Success? How do can you tell if another woman is successful, we all have our idea of success. For some of us its the nice husband, for some of us its the career and the degrees, for some of us it’s owning our own property, to some of us it’s literally the material things like how many shoes do you have, what labels do you wear? “Oh she wears Gucci, she must be successful how can she afford that”?
All it takes is for Mariann who owns her own very successful bakery, to be at a party with her husband who she loves dearly but he has gained some weight since that day he proposed to her at her surprise birthday party that he organized over ten years ago. Mariann is wearing a nice dress from, lets say Bebe, black Christian Louboutin (Since everyone is obsessing with them now, lol) and her makeup that she got done by a makeup artist at the Mac Store for the extra cost of $50. It only takes Eva a lawyer who’s had twins yet her body looks like a swimsuit model, she’s wearing a custom-made Vera Wang, her husband who could easily pass for Brad Pitt and who everyone knows gives her a new diamond wedding band every year on their anniversary. That’s all it takes for Mariann who should be very comfortable with her own success to start questioning her worth.
“Yardsticking” as Marie Claire magazine describes it, is the impulse to privately pit yourself against your peers in order to determine your own social standing and self-worth. According to the American Economic Journal women’s Happiness has decreased greatly in the past 35 years, women have gotten unhappy especially with themselves.
We constantly measure ourselves to the other girl, How many red bottoms does she have? How many Louis Vuitton bags does she own, what is she wearing, where does she shop, she’s checking in on Foursquare at the Chanel store she’s eating at five-star restaurants according to Foursquare. Yes owning designer pieces is nice, they are also fun to have what girl doesn’t like wearing designer pieces, and eating at nice restaurants, we’d all be lying if we said we didn’t want to. But designer pieces don’t mean we’re successful, it could mean that you starved yourself for months to buy this purse, it could mean that you have a great boyfriend who thought you deserved it, some of us have amazing parents and some of us get paid quite well and we can just blow our money. Why is that the standard you are using to judge your own success?
What’s making it more stressful on today’s women are things like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and other social media culprits, we are inundated with so many cues as to what defines a successful woman today, but how many of these attributes are attainable?
Before it was just competing with the girls in the office, the women at church, the women at your kids pre-school, but we have come a long way from just living in our small pieces of the world.
“Yardsticking” or jealousy as I call it can be healthy for us as a form of motivation, it becomes a problem when it overrides our common sense and judgement. There is a fine line between Harmless Longing and Reckless Striving for example I have convinced myself I would love to be the next Rihanna. Because all I see is all the fun she’s having I don’t see how hard she works, all the shit she puts up with or all the things she deals with just being Rihanna, not to mention the fact that I can’t sing to save my life, it’s potentially a very stupid dream.
What is Success? I believe that success is what you have to show in your old age for, all the work you did while you were young.
There are four stages of life as far as I’m concerned:
CHILDHOOD
YOUTH
ADULTHOOD
COMING OF AGE
It’s how well you can transgress between all of these different phases, it’s like a relay you don’t win by just passing the first or second baton, you win when all four runners have completed their leg.
PS, Thanks for reading my blogs, it means more to me that you could ever imagine. Live your life by your own standards, not by someone else’s example. The two women I look up to most in my life and who I always try to copy are my mother and my older sister and occasionally I enjoy stealing things from their closet.
xoxoxox Lauren O Lauren
This is excellent! It’s still surprising that we all do this subconsciously. However, I like to check myself when the green eyed monster takes over – that way, I’ll remember to be grateful for where I am, what I’ve achieved, and that I need to work a tad bit harder if I feel I’m slacking. Good job Lauren!
Thanks Kathy I get like that too sometimes, have to catch myself and br grateful for my own blessings.
Reblogged this on lawjusticeandjamaica.