three measuring sticks with a white background
It’s better to be rich than poor. It’s better to be thin than fat. It’s better to be young than old. And as long as we’re at it, you better show up with gorgeous hair, with charisma, with success, but without scars, without feelings, without needs. With, with, with, without, without, without! We’ve been taught that certain characteristics make us more valuable, successful, attractive, or worthy of respect. But who decided that?
The things that make us valuable and worthy are not actually universal truths, but rather, they are part of societal norms and conditioning. They can be so deeply ingrained that we have adopted them into our own beliefs, not realizing the harm they cause to us or others. We seem to be trying so hard to bend and change to fit the standards, but we haven’t even questioned whether or not we agree with them.
Historically, society has valued the masculine energies of productivity, control, achievement, competition, and hierarchy. If you weren’t working full time, if you didn’t have goals and success, if you didn’t want a family with 2.4 children, then you were wasting your life. Not that it’s bad to want those things, but we haven’t left any space for people who don’t. Worse, we devalue or dismiss anyone who doesn’t want those things as being less than.
Any path that embodies feminine energy, like teaching, caregiving, or social work, is paid less and is not held in as high a regard in our masculine-focused society. But the feminine energies of compassion, cooperation, nurturing and creativity are a vital part of society. We need artists and creators to serve as spreaders of joy and reflectors of time.
Aging is the perfect example of how we have bought into the narrative. We are told we must fight, reverse, or defy aging. We must remain young and beautiful, especially as women. We also have to stay able-bodied and productive, or we may lose our value.
Then, when we get wrinkles, grey hair, weight gain, pains, injuries, and other physical limitations, we can only see ourselves as problems to fix. We internalize society’s judgment to such a degree that we may stop living and enjoying life—all because of the beliefs in our mind.
It’s a two-fold problem. Society tells us we can’t do certain things because we’re too old, and then we stop trying new things. Society builds the box, but we put ourselves in it.
Social media is full of viral videos of old people dancing, rapping, cussing, dopamine dressing, lifting heavy, and competing in marathons because it’s considered to be so unusual to do these things while old. They go viral because there is the underlying assumption that older people aren’t supposed to do those things. And that’s precisely the thing that we need to question! Everyone should be allowed to live life on their own terms, whether they run marathons or not, whether they need the help of a walker or not.
What if we were able to shift our perspective to see ourselves as just being human, and the human experience includes aging? It also includes differences in desires. I personally have never wanted to run a marathon, but if I want to when I’m 80, I hope I will. Being human also means we are all valuable. We all have something to offer.
The shift in perspective for all of society begins within each one of us. It is our responsibility to start noticing thoughts and asking if they are our own. We have to question these deeply ingrained beliefs when they appear in our lives, especially when they are directed at ourselves. We can’t change the planet overnight, but we can make shifts within that will ripple out.
Stop judging the appearance of ourselves and others. Stop equating busyness and productivity with value. Stop treating age as a problem to fix. Stop seeing weight as something to apologize for. And stop assuming everyone wants the same things.
You are a beautiful, perfect human because you are Divine Source. And Source doesn’t make mistakes. What if we extended that same belief to everyone around us? We could stop looking for reasons to judge, compare, or diminish and instead see the inherent value in every human being. It’s time to stop trying to fit inside the box society has built for us, and begin making room for all the ways of being human.