Women's Bodies and 2nd-Best Friends: paradigms change your life, yo

I think a great deal of my angst comes from my chronic tendency to see things in black and white. This means, for example, that for a long time I assumed that participating in things meant I should be the best at them, and if I would not be the best, I was failing and it wasn't necessarily worth it to continue in what I was doing. A nice thing about improv is that it's so thoroughly a team sport that this way of thinking about it doesn't make any sense. I am more than lucky (I call it providence) that that was my main college "sport."

But now I believe the only thing I should aim to be the best at is being myself. Frankly, I don't have the self-discipline to be the best at singing or ice-skating or graphic design, though I like two of those things. There is no such thing as a best writer, because everyone's style is so different, though admittedly writing seems like a weird thing to do when you consider that everyone who is literate is capable of it, and there are thousands (more, even) of very talented writers out there doing their thing. Does the world need another one? Well, no and yes. No other writer is me. Thus no other writer has been and lived in all the exact combination of places I have physically and emotionally. And no one else has my mind. If writing was purely for entertainment value, well, no one will ever run out of things to read in their lifetime, so I'm adding to the noise. But if writing is to share viewpoints in a world where literally no two people have the same one, then it's not a useless pursuit.

This is meant to illustrate the importance of paradigms. I will take two personal examples to show how a correct vision of something can bring peace of mind, perhaps even joy, though the situation has not changed in any other way.

When I was, oh, I don't know what age(s) exactly, an adolescent, my body changed from that of a child to that of an adult. Pretty cool, huh. The thing was, though, that for years I didn't understand what a woman's body should look like. Or I will rephrase, the shape a woman's body normally has, on average. I never thought about it at all, and then when my body started looking different, I suddenly cared. But I was all wrong. I cannot imagine where I got all my warped views, but I thought the waist was located at the hips, and that it was supposed to be so small you could almost span it with your hands. I thought that thighs were to be completely straight with no roundness to them. I looked at my body and thought, "What the heck is going on here?! Why do I look like this?" I hated the tops of my little legs for each having one long curve down the front of them, because I thought that roundness was an indicator of fatness, and I didn't want to be fat. In retrospect, I guess most of the women I'd seen were curveless models, broken up by the occasional Disney princess. In fact, I'm sure that if I had tried to draw my mental image of what women look like (a combination of those two), it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have more quickly discovered my error. As it was, I don't remember how or when I was put right. I think I read something somewhere that jolted me out of my preconceptions. After this, I do remember noticing the hourglass shape on basically all women, once I started to look for it, and being surprised every time that we all look like that! But when I finally got it, I stopped being bewildered, confused, and vaguely resentful of my body. My body hadn't changed, but when my perspective finally did, it changed everything.

These are the waists I grew up seeing (the words I could take or leave, they're funny but not essential):

[source]

My second example is shorter, and I'm keeping it vague. Basically, I often get jealous of other peoples' friendships. I make progress in this area, then regress again, and I don't know where I'm at with it now. But recently I had the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, I am not meant to be best friends with a particular one of my dearest friends. Maybe God chose before the foundations of the world that I would only be her 2nd or 3rd best friend. This changed everything for me. If this is the case, I don't have to waste one more second wishing I were different, or competing with (any) other girl (or guy). I can be exactly myself, and love my friend in a specific way, without constantly measuring the strength or closeness of our friendship against any other. I can stop keeping score and just do my thing. I don't have to be best friends with all my friends.

This is what I think life is about: we can stop keeping score and just do our thing. [Warning: the rest of this paragraph is repetitive.] God has put us in a position where our task is to love him the way only we can love him. At onething the year I went, 25,000 people sang a song together (to God, obviously): "No one else can love you like I love you, Lord, cause I was made unique in your heart, I was made to bring you joy." The first many times I tried to sing this, even in the privacy of my room, I cried. It's true, though.* No one can love God the father like I love him. No one can love Jesus like I love him. No one can love and honor the Holy Spirit like I love him. If I were missing, if my voice weren't here, speaking, something would be missing. I was meant to be here, and to love him. I was made unique, and my function was, and is, and always will be, to be me. No one is better at that than me. Others might be better at golf, or writing, or speaking French or German, or small talk, they might date or marry sweet people that I would not have said no to, they might even be better friends with friends I love, but no one can take my place. And God does not, will never, love them more than he loves me, no matter what goes down (or up) in our respective lives.

I want everyone to know that this is true of them, too. I will put it in the second person, to this end. God made you to be you. No one can be better at your primary task in life, which is to glorify God using your unique gifts. No matter what others have that you don't, be it adventures or money or relationships, they have not taken it out of your pocket, because you're not competing with them. You're not even to be compared to them. God sees to it that you have enough of the right things for you, for now. You are never short-changed if Jesus is your king; you can't be. He doesn't make mistakes, and he's an abundant giver.

Viewing life through any other lens (as I admit to doing like 90% of the time) brings anxiety, jealousy, perhaps self-disgust, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes even shame. And this, my friends, is why I think healthy paradigms are essential.

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*Also the melody is charming and somehow lends itself to tears with all its high jumps.