Day 8: I am grateful for this new level of crazy cat lady.
“Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France
Day 7: I am grateful for 1,404,941 Virginian voters. And all those who voted blue today.
May kindness, compassion, and progressivism Bless America.
Day 6: I am grateful for my little bat who rarely leaves my side.
26 people. A 5-year old boy. A 14 year old daughter of a preacher man. A person born the same year the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Japan, 72 years old. Shot to death while attending Sunday services.
2017 Year-to-date: 532 people have died in mass shootings on American soil, 1,625 injured. These numbers will be higher by December 31st. This is our country.
I deeply respect our Constitution’s framework. The Bill of Rights is brilliant. I am particularly moved by the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eight Amendments (among others later ratified). All of these constitutional rights have limitations born of legislation and seminal Supreme Court cases. It is long past time that the Second Amendment “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” be fucking infringed. A 5 year old shot to death at church is not a partisan issue — it is an American issue.
As the battle cry for the right to bear arms wages on, let us not forget the Second Amendment was born alongside Article 1 that counted black people as three-fifths of a whole person. The right to bear arms, carved out for the purpose of a “well regulated militia,” was drafted into the same Constitution that did not give me the right to vote. And the very same Constitution that put the last two republican presidents in the white house without a majority vote.
Sometimes it is damn time to change shit.
I do not take it lightly to advocate for infringement of constitutional rights. Today a 5 year old was shot to death in church. Tonight two parents mourn the unspeakable. It is damn time to change shit.
“If fidelity to freedom of democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says we shall give our children better than we ourselves received.”
– President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing
Day 4: I am grateful for friends who get me. Most awesome birthday gifts ensued.
Writer’s Block… come on. It’s a bar of soap, not magic. Try vodka.
Sh*itting Glitter Magical Unicorn Lavatory Mist: This sh*it is MAGIC.
And the #NotoriousRBG socks – if I can’t be her, at least I can wear her.
Day 3: I am grateful for random acts of kindness and people who spread joy around like glitter.
Day 2: I am grateful for silence.
In a noisy world, one can find peace in silence. Against the harshness of humanity, one can have strength in silence and find power in the ability to hold one’s tongue.
Day 1: I am grateful for starlit nights. The vastness of the Universe and our relative insignificance is comforting.
Texas State Representative, Jessica Farrar, filed Texas House Bill 4260: “Relating to the regulation of men’s health and safety; creating a civil penalty for unregulated masturbatory emissions.”
Yes, you read that right.
This is the Man’s Right to Know Act and it serves as an important counterpoint to the Texas Women’s Right to Know Act. The Women’s Right to Know Act mandates that women considering abortion be given information at least 24-hours prior to abortion that, among other egregious things, contains medical warnings that are not supported by medical research.
The stated purpose of HB 4260, Man’s Right to Know Act:
“The purpose of this chapter is to express the state’s interest in promoting men’s health; ensure Texas men experience safe and healthy elective vasectomies, Viagra utilizations, colonoscopies procedures, and men’s health experiences; ensure a doctor’s right to invoke their personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs in refusing to perform an elective vasectomy or prescribe Viagra; and promote fully-abstinent sexual relations or occasional masturbatory emissions inside health care and medical facilities, as a means of the healthiest way to ensure men’s health.”
Here’s the deal:
Jessica Farrar, the bill’s author, said: “A lot of people find the bill funny… What’s not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare.”
Nonetheless, she persisted.
“The time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us today……some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Confidence in the self is a funny thing. When wielded properly, it has the power to get you what you want. It has the power to assuage a troubled soul. It is also something that can be faked. Even faked well enough to not just be believed, but faked well enough that it creates the genuine thing. Confidence can truly be a “fake it ’til you make it” feeling.
Self-confidence, noun, a thing you want, a thing you can have: the feeling or belief that you can rely on yourself, that you’ve got what it takes, that you can do it, a trust in the self and your abilities.
“Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.”
– Maya Angelou
How to be more confident, you ask? I’ve a few tips for the seeking-self-confidence journeyer!
Claim Confidence Tip 1: Decide to BE more confident.
Yup, it’s that simple. Decide to be more confident for no other reason than you simply want to be more confident. Don’t question it. Don’t hem and haw about it. Just decide to BE it. That is how powerful you are.
Are you internally rebelling against this notion? Are your eyes rolling and your mind reeling with a “no, it’s not that simple. I can’t just decide to be more confident.” Stop, just stop. Shut down your doubt. Have some faith – in yourself. To decide to BE more confident is actually quite powerful, quite profound, and quite possible. Just choose.
Claim Confidence Tip 2: Give yourself permission to BE more confident.
Are you waiting for someone to tell you that you can have more confidence, or that you can be more confident? Are you waiting for outside approval? Don’t. You have the power and the right to give yourself permission to be, do, and have anything you want — including permission to BE confident in who you are and confident in what you can do.
Couple CC Tip 1 & 2 – decide to be confident pairs well with permission to be confident. One feeds the other.
Claim Confidence Tip 3: BE a person who you like.
Do you like yourself? An odd question… a scary question…
This question serves as an awesome opportunity to really BE honest with yourself.
If your answer is not a resounding “YES,” then what is it that you don’t like? What can you do to become a person you like very much? This is your opportunity for growth, for evolution — this is your opportunity to seize self-confidence from its source.
I like myself when I’m kind and compassionate. I’m not a huge fan of the me that’s pretty much cold-hearted and lacks any sense of human decency. She’s a Shadow Side that rears her ruthless and uncaring head now and again.
I don’t like that I’m either messy or neurotically organized. I’d prefer to be organized-adjacent in most (or all!) areas of my life, as opposed to the what exploded in here Mess and the whoa, do you have issues Organization. While I’d prefer a happy middle ground between these two extremes, I can accept it as an area for improvement and like myself for being honest with me.
Figure out what you don’t like, and be something better. BE someone that you like.
Claim Confidence Tip 4: Accept that confidence has an ebb and flow.
Confidence can wax and wane. Consider that you don’t have to strive to be self-confident all day, every day, about all things.
Confidence feeds itself, and will grow over time. BE confident in your ability to figure things out… to grow… to learn… that is confidence enough.
Claim Confidence Tip 5: Honor your personal brand of confidence.
Recognize that confidence may not present the same in every person. It may not look the same in every person. Your personal brand of confidence may very well be a take no prisoners approach to life. It may be something more subtle, a softer confidence – maybe less fiery, but no less fierce.
What is recognized as confidence is faith in the self, assurance in the self, trust in one’s own abilities.
“A tiger doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.”
– Unknown
Inhale Confidence. Exhale Doubt.
Shine your confidence out into the world. BE confident in who you are and what you are capable of.
And above all else: Make no apology for believing in yourself.
~~~
“Confidence is not ‘they will like me.’
Confidence is ‘I’ll be fine if they don’t.’“
– Unknown
“With confidence, you have won before you have started.”
– Marcus Garvey