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I took a big step and quit my career and marriage because they didn't feel authentic to me. I had no idea what to do next, but I knew I didn't want to live for anyone else's validation.
As a young girl, I yearned for my parents’ validation, especially from my mother. All I wanted was for her to look at me and say she loved me and accepted me for who I was.
I knew I wasn’t the type of girl who fit into society’s expectations of what it means to be feminine, such as the way we sit, stand, walk, talk, and behave. I fell short of those standards. To earn my mother’s validation, I decided to do what she expected of me, including taking the job she wanted me to have and getting married. However, nothing felt right until I realised that this wasn’t who I was, and she needed to accept me for who I am.
I took a big step and quit my career and marriage because they didn’t feel authentic to me. I had no idea what to do next, but I knew I didn’t want to live for anyone else’s validation. My mother even kicked me out of the house when she found out, but I knew that the little girl inside of her wasn’t happy either. She, too, was living for someone else’s validation and approval. She didn’t have the love and acceptance that I had been seeking from her.
So, I decided to move on in life and share my experiences with the world. I wanted to showcase how it feels to live a life where you are not accepted, versus living a life where you are accepted for who you are, your authentic self. When we live authentically, we don’t do things to please or displease anyone else. We do what feels right for us.
Life gives us choices, and we need to choose what we want to live with. Every choice we make has rewards and consequences associated with it, and we must accept them in their entirety. When life’s undesirable things happen to us, we can become bitter and resentful towards people. However, we need to remember that not everything we desire is good for us. If we got everything we wanted, life would be a mess.
In conclusion, we must all learn to accept and love ourselves for who we are, and not live for anyone else’s validation.
Image source: screenshot from Tamil short film Maa
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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