The new year is almost here and many people are preparing to put their New Year’s resolutions in action. For many women, their resolution will be to lose a certain amount of weight, or perhaps they’ve made the more general resolution to “get in shape.” Of course, being healthy and trying to make positive changes in ourselves is good. However, I worry about the root of so many people’s — especially women’s — desire to be thinner. In a culture where women are held to impossible standards of beauty and where everywhere women are given the message that their value depends upon their “sexiness,” I wonder how much such resolutions are rooted in shame, rather than a free choice rooted in an attitude of self worth.
It seems so many women have convinced themselves that if they achieve their weight-loss goals, get that dream-job, find the right man, or whatever else they may have told themselves, then they will have value. Then they will be worthy. But the truth is that each of us is already valuable and worthy. It has largely been the job of women the world over to take care of vulnerable people. We grow the unborn; we tend the sick; we are often the caregivers of infants, children, elderly, and handicapped. We are relational and we see the value of people just for being people. Each time we tend to the physical needs of people, or lend an ear to someone sharing their problems, we proclaim that they have dignity and their lives matter. Perhaps we understand this because we often know vulnerability long before we become elderly. We may be physically smaller than around half of the other adults on this planet. We may have experienced the vulnerability of pregnancy, being unable to perhaps cook for ourselves if we’ve had strong morning sickness; or due to our changing bodies and energy levels, maybe we have felt ourselves unable to charge ahead full steam as we normally would. Our life experiences often teach women that we need other people. They have taught us that we are still persons with the same dignity even when we need others to care for us. They have taught us that being physically able doesn’t determine value.
Though our society is big on self-improvement, it often borders on proving to ourselves or others that we have worth. Parents who receive news that their unborn baby has developmental or physical conditions are often pressured to abort. In hospitals, sometimes the amount of life-saving treatment patients receive depends upon the “value” that others think their lives will have with their new circumstances. In authentic feminism, no quality-control-like standards of assessment can be applied to persons, which brings me back to the topic of New Year’s resolutions. I wonder how much we apply such quality-control-like standards to our own lives and our own selves.
If you find yourself being unkind to yourself at times, I’d like to provide a different kind of resolution for the New Year. What if instead of telling yourself that you will have worth when you achieve whatever goal, what if you tried instead to comprehend the truth that you already have inestimable worth? What if you tried to live now as if you already believed in your great dignity?
How would you live differently if you knew through and through that you had dignity? Would you be gentler with yourself? Would you try to get enough sleep? Would you eat healthier food or make other healthy lifestyle choices? Would you have the freedom to make up your own mind about what clothes you would like to wear, instead of always going for the “in” clothing? Would you value your own thoughts and feelings as much as those of others? Would you be more encouraging and understanding of others? Would you stop trying to mold yourself to be the woman your boyfriend will want and instead try to determine if he respects you as much as you deserve — and have the strength to walk away if he doesn’t? How would you live differently?
There is an adage that says if a person believes, yet behaves as if she doesn’t believe, she will stop believing. If she doesn’t believe something, yet behaves as though she does, she will start to believe it. So this New Year, instead of the same old things that we’ve already tried, why don’t we instead try to live the truth of who we are. We are unique, strong, and amazing persons. So let’s act like it.