![This is not a tirade against the tabloids or the beauty industry. The tabloids produce crap, but people (mostly women) buy it: pictures of the overweight (they’ve let themselves go!), the enhanced and shapely (you, too, can look like this if you eat garlic and grapefruit!), and the shame-on-her-for-getting-too-skinny (as if no tabloid editor can imagine how a six-foot starlet came to think 130 pounds is obese). The beauty industry sees opportunity and shoots for it. The question is, how do we keep ourselves from being the opportunity, from seeing the mirror—and food, and other women—as the enemy? And how do we make all this stuff less terrible for our daughters, our nieces, the 19-year-old who feels her life will be ruined without breast implants?
I don’t expect little girls and teenagers to fend for themselves in this matter; we have to save them and—just as if we’re on a plunging airplane—we have to start by saving ourselves. We need to make friends with the mirror. Even if it’s DIY aversive therapy, in which you look at yourself in the mirror for one minute one day, then two the next, then three, you have to be able to bear the sight of yourself. (Must you bend over a compact and closely examine the drooping underside of your chin? No.) You cannot be a healthy person, let alone hope for healthy children, if you sigh and moan every time you encounter your own image, eat a cookie, or see an airbrushed supermodel on a billboard. Even if it amounts to wholesale pretending—go pretend. Walk around pretending to be a woman who likes her body. Pretend you think your thighs are not disgusting appurtenances but normal, flesh-covered limbs that help you get from place to place. Likewise your not-so-taut arms and not-so-flat tummy. Because every step toward self-love you take, and every inch of confidence you give someone’s daughter, makes the world a better place. [source]
I really wish that I had had more of this sort of positivity/strength/confidence in the women in my life growing up. Definitely one of the most important ideas/ideals I hope to promote if I ever have children.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lt6iw78KCR1qby08eo1_400.jpg)
We’ll see how it goes…my motto? I’m starting law school in August— make my hair as stupid as possible! It’s my last chance before practicality wins forever.. YOLO!
I got my BA and got a job so I could pay rent. Still can’t pay rent, even though I’m working 40+ hours a week.
Any suggestions?
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-23) -
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
house/of/bones: house-of-bones: i was sitting on the bus today after work in a haze; i... -
i was sitting on the bus today after work in a haze; i had just blitzed through a large mango bubble tea, picked up a tub of frozen yogurt to sooth my swollen throat, and i was propped up against the window while the bus idled in the center of the city. we were waiting those…
you’re a beautiful writer and i appreciate you so, so much. thank you for this.
^exactly. thank you.
(via nonicegirlz-deactivated20120206)
This is not a tirade against the tabloids or the beauty industry. The tabloids produce crap, but people (mostly women) buy it: pictures of the overweight (they’ve let themselves go!), the enhanced and shapely (you, too, can look like this if you eat garlic and grapefruit!), and the shame-on-her-for-getting-too-skinny (as if no tabloid editor can imagine how a six-foot starlet came to think 130 pounds is obese). The beauty industry sees opportunity and shoots for it. The question is, how do we keep ourselves from being the opportunity, from seeing the mirror—and food, and other women—as the enemy? And how do we make all this stuff less terrible for our daughters, our nieces, the 19-year-old who feels her life will be ruined without breast implants?
I don’t expect little girls and teenagers to fend for themselves in this matter; we have to save them and—just as if we’re on a plunging airplane—we have to start by saving ourselves. We need to make friends with the mirror. Even if it’s DIY aversive therapy, in which you look at yourself in the mirror for one minute one day, then two the next, then three, you have to be able to bear the sight of yourself. (Must you bend over a compact and closely examine the drooping underside of your chin? No.) You cannot be a healthy person, let alone hope for healthy children, if you sigh and moan every time you encounter your own image, eat a cookie, or see an airbrushed supermodel on a billboard. Even if it amounts to wholesale pretending—go pretend. Walk around pretending to be a woman who likes her body. Pretend you think your thighs are not disgusting appurtenances but normal, flesh-covered limbs that help you get from place to place. Likewise your not-so-taut arms and not-so-flat tummy. Because every step toward self-love you take, and every inch of confidence you give someone’s daughter, makes the world a better place. [source]
I really wish that I had had more of this sort of positivity/strength/confidence in the women in my life growing up. Definitely one of the most important ideas/ideals I hope to promote if I ever have children.
“Well, I’ve changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done except fuck the president?” — Miles Davis to Nancy Reagan at a White House dinner in 1987 after she’d inquired as to what he’d done with his life to merit an invitation. source (via marxisforbros)
(Source: theadrianflores, via baitandswitch)
(via nonicegirlz-deactivated20120206)
[video]
[video]
when customers sass me about the fact that their made-up stupid drinks are made-up and stupid
(Source: cuteandcountry, via waltjrsbreakfast)
(via stoned-exotica)
buy it here
please, i need this!
I am reblogging this solely for acidtooth’s benefit. KELSEY, BEHOLD.
(via turqnayuniverse)
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” —
- Steve Jobs [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]
(via yoganywhere)
I know the internet is like crawling and boiling over with Steve Jobs RIPs right now but I think that this quote, along with being timely, is really great. More mottos to live by FTW
by Fuco Ueda
(via wakeupdiana)
Constantly reminding myself/trying to live by this book…
(via pearadocks)