I needed to start the year by sharing with you, my dear readers.
I hope this year you can apply everything you learned from the previous one.
Today, I won’t be philosophical; today, I want to share my experiences with you.
Did you know that life is 10% what happens to us and the remaining 90% is how we react to it?
When I learned about this fact, I found the complete meaning in the reality we design for ourselves.
It’s funny, yesterday on my IG account, I wanted to share a quote with my friends based on this fact, and I’ll repeat it here:
‘Life is what happens while we’re making plans.’
We worry too much about building that we forget to live.
Turns out, in all the short life I’ve traveled, I didn’t want the profession I achieved with honors (GPA: 3.9). I wanted to be an artist, and I’m pretty good at it!
However, to please my parents, I pursued a successful career, which, ever since I started, is your stamp of “triumph” according standards.
Finishing my academic journey, I realized how tough the world is for women in business; you have no idea of all that I understood.
You know, the more knowledge your mind holds, the more you understand how the system operates. I realized that the system wants to subject women in one way or another to the dominance of men. This world is built by men, with rules that only benefit them. Women inevitably have to serve the purpose of being an object of entertainment, an ornament, a companion, a tool for life, a fragile object… I could go on with the adjectives so unsatisfactory for a thinking woman.
I have a military father who taught me to be wary of this kind of world, to distrust the male gender, and never lose control over myself. This filled me with confidence and courage to prove to him and my brothers (who are the most important men in my life) that I am capable of being like them. However, last year was indeed a year full of challenges that I learned to shape into opportunities for my personal growth.
‘To be a woman is the greatest challenge for an intellectual mind and the greatest opportunity for a sensitive heart.’
A very thoughtful girl, anyone would say I am. There’s a friend in particular who says, ‘with very strong personal challenges.’ However, in the last months of 2023, something gave a different shape to my mindset.
Destiny was showing me that it was time to analyze if the concepts I had mentioned were truly as ‘unsatisfactory’ as I had believed until then. I faced the fact that I had never truly renounced the reality of being a woman. I simply refused to follow the standards that confine that concept, as part of my biological femininity.
However, this doesn’t mean that all this time I denied being a woman. I have always liked shoes, clothes, flowers, and everything that a woman should like from a young age, according to the stereotype designed to fulfill. But, you know, with the great requirement that Dad had imposed on me, that I had to literally survive in a cage of men who only sought to take advantage of me. I know, the world is full of such men, but I have also met sensitive men along the way who are worth rescuing.
So, as you can see, I did not renounce what I must naturally do and be. I simply haven’t given myself the opportunity to explore those ‘unsatisfactory’ things, as I had called them for so long.
‘Is a career wonderful, but is it worth it if you can’t embrace it on a cold night?’
Wow! This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning who I’ve built until today. It means life has been very accommodating with me and gave me the opportunity to realize this.
However, I swear I still don’t know how I’m going to face it. I just know I want to experience it, but it scares me because I usually only tread on ground where I know I can put on my best shoes and walk confidently. In contrast, all of this is new to me.
I have the ability to understand how life works from a rational standpoint cuz that’s how I was raised. I remember Mom trying to change that and make me more sensitive, but no, I’m very cold inside or I think so. That stage of my childhood, so close to pappa, watching his way of rationalizing and reacting to different situations, was fundamental in my life. It’s part of the pillars on which my mental foundation is built, what makes me have this “ninja mind” that no “smart” guy has been able to comprehend.
Isn’t it ironic? Haha.
I don’t consider myself superior to anyone; on the contrary, I’m quite open to meeting people from any social class.
However, it’s not my intention to influence anyone. Instead, I encourage everyone I know, and those I don’t, to have critical thinking. Not everything they tell you is what it seems. I always believe in double-checking, each person should seek to understand their world through individual validation.
The influence of all cultures has also helped me in the analysis I make about people. It allows me to understand them and facilitates my interaction with them. I have an affinity towards the male gender socially speaking; I understand them better. But it’s cuz in my family, I’m the only girl. So, I involuntarily understand the male way of thinking. I had to understand my brothers to be their friend and pappa to be perfect in his eyes.
During this year-end holiday season, life brought pappa to Costa Rica, you know, and we spent a lot of time together. It was quite a challenge to interact after more than approximately 15 years without having this kind of relationship.
Actually, It was sad to realize that sexiest, “machismo” in Spanish, envelops my brothers and clearly, pappa too. We were at the farm, and all the girls in the house were living their feminine roles. My mom unable to express an opinion on a topic cuz she fears the opinions of my brothers, pappa, and mom’s boyfriend. My younger brother’s girlfriend under the same scrutiny.
And there I was, evaluating these behaviors and refusing to accept that a woman can only express an opinion if she literally raises her voice (in this case, me). This was very tough, you know, cuz many women in the world society live under the same stereotypes. But that wasn’t the hardest part I experienced, especially on 123123 (yesterday), pappa literally hinted that “I should hold auditions for a boyfriend” just because a woman’s voice is not valid without a man by her side advocating for her… Hell no way!
I swear I was left speechless. It was a mix of emotions I never deal with, a reality check, you know, a confrontation with something I know I have to deal with but don’t know how.
I am a woman so independent, idealistic, intellectual, being incriminated by her Dad who told her that this is how it should be, telling her she should look for a boyfriend.
Damn! You know, you understand what the word ‘boyfriend’ means in a man as military as him. It’s my closure to exploration, cutting my wings and walking alongside someone when I don’t feel ready yet. Within my life philosophies, I believe that ‘love, in my case, a guy, is not something you seek, it’s something that simply appears in your life’…
Have you seen the movie ‘Inception’? Well, that’s what he did last night.
I think a woman should be dazzling, wildly, original, buoyant, enjoyable, stimulating, provocative, also very brilliant! Fresh, flashy, giddy, daring, contagious, joy!
And mostly not judged in man courts!!
Dear readers, throughout my day on 01012024, I’ve been thinking about how to achieve harmony between not ceasing to be myself and dealing with my father’s thoughts. To him, I’m a rebel who needs to be tamed… WTH!
Now, I don’t consider myself rebellious; I simply was born in a body that is beautiful, and for which I feel blessed. But I know it’s difficult for a woman with my physical qualities to face the world alone. I know he sees it this way, and that’s why he wants me accompanied by a guy. But come on, if I had taken it from an immature perspective, I would be depressed. But proof that I’m not rebellious is that I allow myself to analyze things from the other person’s perspective.
Here it’s not a matter of narcissism; it’s a matter of protection. But I believe in no one but myself, so I still don’t have that alternative I’ve been dealing with this beginning of the year. I just know that life has done much more with me than I could have experienced if I had gone from boyfriend to another boyfriend instead of studying, learning languages, or exploring my artistic side in my free time.
A woman is a being with the ability to be a portal of souls to this physical world. I know I am a portal too; I know I am sensitive, and I know all these concepts related to the essence of being a woman also belong to me.
Being a woman is wonderful, but this society conditions women as objects. Personally, I don’t want to be a ‘thing.’ I see so many friends showcasing their bodies like fruits in a fair, to be used as objects. Come on girls! You don’t attract the attention of any respectable man if you consider yourself a sex symbol!
Girl, explore your gifts, that which makes you special! Personally, I don’t seek to be loved for what the standards say I should be. I don’t need to be loved by pappa or any man who wants me to fulfill their expectations. If Dad truly loves me, he will accept me as I am. Similarly, if a guy crosses my path at some point and makes me drop my defenses, neither of these situations is something I actively pursue.
I have decided to dedicate 85% of the life that remains to fill my artist’s soul. I’ve worked for a long time on the gray matter inside my skull. It’s no longer a goal to meet anyone else’s expectations; the goal is to meet my own expectations. The remaining 15%, I want to dedicate to my businesses, but I am clear that as I approach the end of my twenties, the majority of my time will be spent satisfying my soul.
Dear readers, my lesson from this is that no one should tell you who you should be, not social media, certainly not your family, not even what paths you should take for ‘happiness.’ Happiness is not beside anyone. Happiness is be yourself!
I hope this year brings us all situations that lead us to our destiny.
💓’Women are always beautiful. It’s up to us to recognize our light and shine.’💓
Bye now!
