Live
Out Loud
“We
are here to live out loud.”
Balzac
I
recently had a conversation over dinner with a woman who had just
delivered her daughter to college a week early so that she could go
through sorority rush. She told me how many sororities the girl had
visited so far (26), and how many (6) had sent her a letter of
invitation “to continue the conversation.” This mother spoke of
receiving a panicked phone call from her daughter saying exactly what
brand of dress the sorority girls wear, and what sort of purse they
carry. She had neither, though she certainly had charming clothes and
accessories. Her mother said, “She's going to be crushed if she
isn't invited to join at least one,” and then added, “but we
can't afford to pay two hundred dollars per dress and purse.” The
mother and her child were equally distressed.
Perhaps
they will realize that she will survive, receive an excellent
education, and create valuable friendships even if she's rejected by
the Greek apparatus on campus. I wish I could say that we get over it
when we're rejected by such a system, but many of us don't. We carry
that need for recognition, that concept of ourselves as a reject,
into adulthood. It stretches beyond our social lives, and into our
work, and our intimate relationships. We spend so much time and
energy trying to please others, trying to be accepted as “one of
them,” that we completely lose touch with ourselves. It's hard,
isn't it, to realize that we can live quite well without fitting into
a mold designed by others.
When
Balzac said that we are meant to live out loud, he didn't mean that
we are to sing in a chorus, though that is sometimes fun to
do. He didn't mean that we're supposed to spend our precious lives
trying to wear the right clothes, say the right words, and join the
proper clubs. He meant that we're to find our own voice, our own
style, our own way of being in the world, and then live from it
authentically. We're not to live in the shadows cast by the “right”
people.” We're to stand in the light of our own gifts and abilities
and add our own voice to the conversation.
Live
out loud today. Be who you are.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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