Re: Giving it all away

I was so, so happy to read and hear in person so many responses to this post. It's a topic I feel increasingly passionate about, and I think it's one we need to address more often and in greater depth. The fact that so many people I know, male and female, are thinking about these same issues is heartening.

A segment of the last response, from Karen, resonated with me:

Stop looking to find someone to make you happy. Not anyone else's job but yours.

Hear, hear. Karen, I completely agree with you. Only we are ultimately responsible for our happiness. I wish we could teach young people this. It would have to start early, though. How young were we when we learned that some day our princes would come? That some day we'd be rescued from the tower and that only then would our real lives begin? That only then would we live happily ever after? That our crowning achievement would be to capture a man's fancy, to be chosen?

I realize that I'm hardly an expert here. Women and men make this topic their life's work, for God's sake. And you know, it's a pretty damned great cause to devote yourself to. How I wish I felt called to teach at this point in my life. And how I wish I had the means and the know-how at this point to start my own magazine for young girls. But in the meantime, I hope I can put in my 2 cents here and there and perhaps provoke other people to consider this, to talk about it and to write about it. We can change things if enough of us work to do so.