Don't Forget To Be Awesome

So a few days ago, my friend, who is having to make some tough life decisions right now, calls me, and asks me if the decision she made was selfish.

"Who am I to say?" I asked her.

"But I just worry that someone will judge me. I guess, I am calling because I need your validation."

I assured her that she wasn't selfish and that she was making a decision based on what she knew. (I didn't bother telling her it was the right or wrong one because, again, who was I to say?) And she said she felt better and we hung up.


As the next hour passed, our conversation replayed in my mind and I got a weird feeling inside me. Like empathy but mixed with pity. I knew I'd been in her spot before, but I'd never been on the receiving end of that validation question. That kind of power made me uncomfortable.

Did my opinion have the power to destroy her?  Because I disagreed with her choice? Was her foundation so shaky?

It worried me.

Because I knew I had that same need for validation myself.

And I didn't like that.  I don't want to live a beggar life waiting for someone to notice my value as a person. It was past time to take off that self-tied tourniquet I put on my ego sometime in middle school, and return to the self confidence I had as a child. The one where I danced in the middle of a shopping mall, not caring if a crowd formed around me, because the music was too good to walk away.

From here on out, I think I'm going to be more cautious of asking for validation again. Or at least be aware of some things when I do ask for it.

You know why?

Asking for validation makes you look weak.  It literally drains you of self confidence and makes you vulnerable to other people's virulent opinions. 

Everyone has a given amount of power. Self-value. Self worth.

I like to think of it as healthy versus unhealthy ego.

An unhealthy ego needs to be fed. It's usually waiting for someone to acknowledge them. Or if it's desperate, it would ask anyone and everyone to give them an opinion...because they don't want to hear the opinion coming from themselves.

"What did you think of what I did there?"

Which is basically "Please tell me I did good. I need approval to feel like I'm worth anything. If you say it's not good, I will be crushed and hate myself. But a drop of your approval will sustain me for a few hours until I'm hungry for more validation. Then I will find another person and get their opinion to feed my starving ego."

Now a healthy ego doesn't starve. It doesn't need to look for food because it's self-sustaining.  It's like a plant. It makes its own food, photosynthesizes 100% self love. It refuses to determine self worth based on someone else's opinion. It is independent of the good or bad opinion of others. It forms its own opinion about themselves as a person and is not swayed about other people's.

Once you choose to cut off your ego's food supply from other people, you are free. No longer will you have to wait and work to earn the public's opinion. You can do whatever the hell you want without that oppressive fear of judgement. I mean, seriously, why wouldn't you live to please yourself?

Do what you want and don't even care about who thinks bad about you. They won't hang around you. They're too busy judging you. Who wants that person next to them anyway?

So here are some new life rules that I'm going to implement. Most of these, I already follow but this makes it all official now.

I'm going to wear what I want.

Put on as much makeup as I want.

Wear hairbands and flower bands and wigs as often as I want.

Write what I want.

Read what I want.

Say what I want, even cuss as much as I want.

Go where I want.

Make huge life decisions that clash with society's expectation as I want.

All the while, not caring if someone says anything about it.

I even wrote a poem about it!

Go ahead,
Leave bad or good reviews on my life's choices.
I don't care. 
I didn't ask. 
I'm too busy being a frickin' badass. 

Okay, now your turn. I encourage you to say the following into a mirror:

"I'm done trying to please people. I ain't fittin' in your damn box. My awesomeness is indeterminate and it grows more everyday. There's only one me, and I'm made of the same things that stars are made of so move out of my way (optional to add 'bitch' here.), so I can shine!"

From this day forth, walk into a room, secure in the knowledge that you don't have to work to belong there because you belong to yourself. You don't need to explain yourself, unless you want to.

Own your power.

Get in touch with your self worth.

Have a daily reminder that says: "Don't forget to be awesome today."

Because you are. You truly are.




*Quick Note: Feedback is not the same thing as validation.