Most Important 433 Words to Read This Month

No matter how sophisticated and grown up we become, everyone has her insecure days. In this excerpt from her new book, Eve Ensler celebrates the true power of a woman.

"Dear Emotional Creature:

I believe in you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your wildness. I love the way you dye your hair purple, or hike up your short skirt, or blare your music while you lip-synch every single memorized lyric. I love your restlessness and your hunger. You possess the energy that, if unleashed, could transform, inspire, and heal the world.

Everyone seems to have a certain way they want you to be- your mother, father, religious leaders, politicians, boyfriends, fashion gurus, celebrities, girlfriends. In reporting my new book [I am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World], I learned a very disturbing statistic: 74 percent of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone.

I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please: to be the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please the fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please men, we push ourselves when we aren't ready. To please our parents, we become insane overachievers. If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? The act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We forget what we know. We make everything OK instead of real.

I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I meet teenage girls and women giggling, laughing as they walk country roads or hang out on city streets. Electric girls. I see how their lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. So many of the women I have met are still struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their way.

Instead of trying to please, this is a challenge to provoke, to dare, to satisfy your own imagination and appetite. To take responsibility for who you are, to engage. Listen to the voice inside you that might want something different. It's a call to your original self, to move at your own speed, to walk with your step, to wear your color.

When I was your age, I didn't know how to live as an emotional creature. I felt like an alien. I still do a lot of the time. I am older now. I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying, and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be OK with being different, with being this alive, this intense. I just don't want you to have to wait that long. "

Love, Eve Ensler

Take 'em by surprise

"Breaking news!" I tell my sister. "I killed a spider in the bathroom by throwing water around it so that it lost its footing and got swept into the sink & down the drain! That way I didn't have to clean up spider guts by killing it another way!"

Rebecca replies, "But it might survive and crawl out, so I always kill them."

At least I made sure so much water followed it down the drain that it couldn't possibly have survived.

somewhere sunny please?

Winter blahs -noun: often characterized by 1) lack of motivation, 2) mild depression, 3) low energy.

Oh, that's what's wrong with me! Here are some solutions that I so kindly plagiarized from the internet:

1) Exercise. Endorphins can make you feel better and happier for several hours after exercising. Don't feel like braving the ice to get to the gym? That isn't an excuse. Jumping jacks, pushups, yoga, and chin ups require minimal equipment & space.

2) Eat healthy foods. You might crave pizza and Nabisco iced animal crackers,

but these refined foods can contribute to depression, lack of concentration, and mood swings (exactly what you're trying to get rid of).

So eat those things sparingly, or at least paired with healthier items such as salads, fruit, fiber-rich breads (ie, 100% whole wheat), and vegetables. Try making your own soups, in order to avoid canned soups (which pack enough sodium to give you either a heart attack or thyroid cancer eventually).

3) Make self improvement goals and work toward them. You'll feel better because you will be better.

4) Plan something exciting- the anticipation will improve your mood. Ie. a weekend trip, spa trip, girls/guys night out, themed party, or sporting event.

5) Get enough sleep. People naturally desire more sleep in the cold months. It doesn't necessarily mean you're lazy.

6) Socialize. Insurance statistics say that good social connections can add as much as 9 years to your life expectancy (http://www.attitudefactor.com/socialties.htm). So go hang out with a good friend, or talk to someone who makes you laugh.

7. Relax. Take time to read a book, do nothing, even take a bubble bath.

8. Put these things into practice, don't just read them.

Goals

Sometimes I'm just so unsure of where my life is going. Or how to actually work toward the goals I have. Goals aren't hard to make. It's figuring out exactly to carry them out, day to day, without giving up before the month is over that's hard. Once you make it through a month of practicing a new habit, you're fine. But getting there is tough.

Sometimes I don't have the energy or space of mind to choose the decision I truly want to make. And then I just revert back to my lazy self and don't change for the better.. I end up swimming in the same problems because I lose the momentum of excitement that initially motivated me.

Some people are so good at taking something and working through it until it's finished. AKA my sister Rebecca. She is the most persistent person I've ever known. When she wants something done, she sees it through to the end. No matter how many hurdles she has to jump over, or how many people she has to convince to help her (or do it for her). I'm usually too impatient and afraid that things won't come out right or that they won't be worth the effort. Or that I'll prove myself stupid and worthless in the process. This applies to nearly everything I've come up against this semester: making friends with my roommates, getting enough sleep, studying for my chemistry classes, handling my relationships with males, etc.

Sometimes I wish I could just make a decision ONE TIME. Not each time I come up against it. The more times I have to make the decision, the more times I screw up. But hey, perfection isn't gain. Making mistakes is how you learn.

But I hate making mistakes. And the more leadership positions you take, the more people see your mistakes. I don't think I was cut out to be a leader. It doesn't come naturally to me. And I don't understand why in this culture it's valuable for everyone to bring leadership experience into their career. Why can't the natural born leaders just work together with us followers? Are there just not enough of them?

Anyway, I've made my goal of the week. And this time I'm going to be more persistent in achieving it.

People Suck

You know what? People suck. More specifically, roommates. And even more specifically, roommates who do the following:

1. Has her boyfriend sleep over 2-5 times a week. In the same room as you.

2. Doesn't notify you at all that their boyfriend is going to sleep over, even though you pay just as much rent for the room as she does. And he doesn't pay any rent.

2.5 When she thinks you suspect the boyfriend is coming over, at 1am she tells you "bye, i'll see you tomorrow" and comes back 20 minutes later with the boyfriend. Just to keep you guessing.

3. Brings her boyfriend over to help her make a present for a gift exchange (because she can't tie knots on the edge of a BLANKET on her own?) and argues with with him the first 10 minutes. Even though he came over to help.

4. Sprays perfume that smells like a prostitute with STIs. In our room. On days it's cold outside and opening the windows is not desirable.

5. Talks so loud you sometimes think she's addressing the entire apartment complex, minus you.

6. Tends to talk non-stop only when you're trying to get homework and 2 million other things done. When you have time to talk to her, she is busy..

7. Interrupts every 2.5 sentences you say. Or stops listening at the 2.5 sentence limit.

8. Doesn't respond when you mention anything related to women not needing men or I don't need a boyfriend right now. It's absolutely foreign ground to her.

9. Asks how your day was/what you did, but stops listening as soon as you say anything (apparently the 2.5 sentence limit is generous sometimes).

9.5 Doesn't show adequate, if ANY acknowledgement that she hears you when you tell her: you're going to bed early, need her to put her phone on silent when you sleep, or that you need to get better quality sleep.

10. Texts even more than you, so that you start to wonder who she is txting every 1.7 minutes

11. Sleeps so restlessly that it makes you sleep restlessly.

12. Makes it so hard to get to bed at a reasonable time, that it's not worth trying.

13. Sleeps peacefully through the night and into the morning, through your alarm as you get up to go to class in a zombie state day after day.

14. Still manages to make you like them for who they are.

Still don't get it..

Yes, I love being single.

Yes, I tell people to enjoy their single years, to enjoy friendships with guys, and besides, that we don't need men to be happy.

But sometimes it's not the fact that I don't have a boyfriend. It's more the concept that I can't just choose one. And then I start comparing myself to other girls. You know, the girls that go from relationship to relationship without blinking. Or the ones that have had the same boyfriend for the past 3 years. Or even the girls who have had what I call "1 yr +" boyfriends, whether they're still together or not. At least they've proved to themselves that they're capable of relationships.

I've come to believe I'm not cut out to even be in a relationship. Yes, I can get one night stands, but those get old after a while. When people tell me "but you could have any guy you want" they never realize they actually mean one night stands. Anyone can make a one night stand happen as long as you have relatively okay looks and alcohol. One night stands aren't what girls sit around aching for with their emotions.

Girls do, however, sit around wishing they had boyfriends. And to me it seems like there are way more girls that do this than guys. The million dollar question is WHY? Why do a larger percent of girls waste happiness wishing for a relationship compared to guys? Don't ask me. But let me know if you find out.

I'm happy being single.. for the most part. It's in my weak moments when I want someone to cuddle with or give physical affection that I get frustrated and ask "What's wrong with me, that I'm still single?" And I have yet to find the answer to that question.

Hate List

1. Cell Bio (this class is actually satan)

2. When people are too busy txting to realize you just asked them a question in person.

3. Towels that are always damp

4. When your roommate's txt tone sounds like a train

5. COLD RAINY DAYS

6. Being so tired you can't function properly

7. Roommates preventing you from getting sufficient sleep

8. Mud on white sweatshirt after just bleaching the sweatshirt the day before

9. The way my face only breaks out when I'm stressed (right when I need more stress)

10. Only getting 2 days off for thanksgiving so that it's not worth flying home

11. The fact that words mean almost nothing these days.

12. Having to endure New Years with your family in bum fuck nowhere.. when there are a million fun things to be doing back home

13. The inability to be invisible (people you don't want to talk to always find you.. even in the strangest places)

14. Getting stuck in an elevator and the awkwardness of the fire dept having to break the elevator door open (because a dumb, rude boy jammed the door).

15. When your roommate uses perfume that smells repulsive & its cold outside so opening the windows is not an option

16. Big sisters who would rather someone else be their little sister

17. Craving sweets but not having any in the house

18. Hearing people talk badly about you (misconceptions of you) when they think you're asleep

19. Confusion resulting from overly thorough naps

20. The way that ONLY ugly boys ask me to dance with them

21. Realizing the window of opportunity has passed.. for any situation...

22. ..But especially when you could have opened the door for a hot male trying to bring his bike inside

23. MENSTRUAL PERIODS.

24. the idea of eventually birthing children

25. How some people think PMS is not avoidable.

26. The ridiculous cost of Microsoft Word 2007

27. Trying to work in a group with someone who tells your that their work is perfect & doesn't need editing

28. When people buy you something you don't like, and the awkwardness of wondering whether they'll notice if you give it away

To be continued.. possibly.