I like to write about real people, real crimes. But what has increasingly come to interest me, and also appear to me as a challenge, is the idea of doing strange things with what is real. Take what is real and make it more or less real.
Our system rewards specific talents more than anything. I got pushed forward for having certain capacities. Others had their horizons systematically lowered for having capacities that our academic system had no use for. I've seen countless people lose heart and feel like they should settle for less, that they don't deserve abundance.
I didn't deserve to get my title stripped after three ACL reconstructions. I didn't deserve to be out for four years. But it happened to me, and so I definitely learned over the years that you don't deserve anything. Nothing you have is yours. Everything is up for grabs in this world.
Settling is about not embracing what is best for you and accepting what you really don't want. When you settle, you accept less than you deserve. Settling becomes a habit and a way of life, but it doesn't have to be. According to Maureen Dowd, "The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for
I'm a real person. I have real feelings. I have real thoughts. It's a quality people like about me. They can reach out and touch me. I wouldn't give it up for anything.
I, for one, am not nearly as engaged when I'm looking at something that's been completely drawn up on a computer that replaces anything that's in real time and real space. It just engages me all the less, rather than all the more.
Some claims deserve ridicule, and anything less falsely elevates them.
I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had, or maybe still had but that they didn't agree with.
In many ways, we've been taught to think that the real question is, do people deserve to die for the crimes they've committed? And that's a very sensible question. But there's another way of thinking about where we are in our identity. The other way of thinking about it is not, do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit, but do we deserve to kill?
My struggle now is with these red carpets. It is still really hard to get people to design for me. It's frustrating because you feel like you're the minority. You feel this pull of what it means to be "sample size" and you're not that and most designers don't have anything that fits. It's so important to continuously put billboards where people see curvy women and know that we are here and we deserve to be designed for. We deserve to spend our money on expensive stuff if we want.
I'll live for me and for other real people. Until some god gives me five minutes of their time...they deserve none of mine.
Believing you are worthy of love means that you believe I deserve to be treated well - with respect and dignity. I deserve to be cherished and adored by someone. I am worthy of an intimate and fulfilling relationship. I won't settle for less than I deserve. I will do whatever it takes to create that for myself.
Don't accept less than what it is that you know that you want. Don't allow someone to be a jerk. Don't allow someone to disrespect you. Listen to the bigger voice in your head telling you that you deserve the best, whatever that is whatever that is you decide you like for yourself. It may differ from what I like or what is ideal for me. But the bottom line is to never accept less than what you know you deserve.
The nation's children, families, poor, workers, and senior citizens deserve more than lip service. They deserve more than outrage. They deserve real support, protection, and solid action.
Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.
We get paid way less than we deserve. We deliver shows and deserve to get paid more. We practically pay to do this. You deserve to get better paid if you sell the fight.