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Is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! So the issue of size and women was (ha, ha) weighing on my mind as I flew home to Edinburgh the next day. Once up in the air, I opened a newspaper and my eyes fell, immediately, on an article about the pop star Pink. Her latest single, ‘Stupid Girls’, is the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness. ‘Stupid Girls’ satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models: those celebrities whose greatest achievement is un-chipped nail polish, whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day, whose only function in the world appears to be supporting the trade in overpriced handbags and rat-sized dogs. Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it’s really not. It’s about what girls want to be, what they’re told they should be, and how they feel about who they are. I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over.
J.K. Rowling
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Post reblogged from Losing the Wobbly Bits
It is far easier to be bitter rather than brave…
To be a cynic rather than an altruist …
To be ugly towards others rather than letting them see your tears…
These things are truths and your fears give them power. Today is a day for change. I challenge you to find the beauty within a stranger, to do a good deed for an unknown human on the street and to face your greatest fears.
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Photo reblogged from The Tumblr Gym
Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But she with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but she would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till she’d tried.
So she buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On her face. If she worried she hid it.
She started to sing as she tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and she did it.Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it”;
But she took off her coat and she took off her hat,
And the first thing we knew she’d begun it.
With a lift of her chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
She started to sing as she tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and she did it.There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it. -
Link reblogged from The Tumblr Gym
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others, Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
(Source: detruisez-tout)
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taken from Paulo Coelho’s book “Like A Flowing River”
THE STORY OF THE PENCIL
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked:
“Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?”
His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
“I am writing about you, actually. But more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will like this pencil when you grow up.”
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
“But it’s just any other pencil I’ve seen.”
“That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities, which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
First Quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and he always guides us according to his will.
Second Quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because that will make you a better person
Third Quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it just helps to keep us on the road to justice.”
Fourth Quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
Finally, the pencil’s Fifth Quality: it should always leave a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be cautious of that in your every action.”
