Ah, folk wisdom, I’m fond of thee!
Trying to be less cryptic: the base here is that good part of what and who we are know is due to the education we received. Not only school teaching though!
Children are like sponges: they absorb anything, and they carry it around also when they are grown ups.
And given we’ve all been children, we’ve all absorbed something.

Now, there would be plenty of things to say on this subject, but today I’m pointing my finger to fairytales.
It may seem I’m talking only to ladies, but I’ll show you how this applies also to boys.

Fairytales, the ones we know now, tell us to be kind and submissive, and that if we wish hard enough a good fairy godmother -whom was with us since we were born, like destiny stuff- will turn us into gorgeous and finds us a prince to save us and save the rest of our life.
Translation: do nothing, be miserable, and wait for somebody to rescue you, ’cause marriage is a woman only expectation in life (therefore dish out kids and serve your husband like a faithful geisha).
What do they teach to boys? That if you have a kingdom, a title, and are good looking, all you have to do is be a hero and rescue a beautiful miserable girl you met and saw just ONCE in your life.
Translation: you need money, a lot of, and a good looking body, because your one and only goal in life is living to make money, and then having a wife (any good looking woman is fine, there’s no need to know her at all) that serves you like a faithful geisha.

ARE WE KIDDIN’?

I always thought I was the only one seeing the problem here, and picturing other endings for these fairytales… Snowhite would have opened a Farm Holiday resort with the dwarfs, The Sleeping Beauty would become a fashion designer (you know, colour changing clothes do mark you), and Cinderella would be a lawyer, get back all her dad’s money and house other than defend women from similar abuse, and so on…
I found out that I’m not the only one, and Sarah Von did even better, also picturing their modern clothes!

But I’m going off my path… here’s the point: even if we were taught something and therefore we behave some way, we do have the chance to change.

What we need: self-onesty and guts to change.

Guts is the part I’m still a bit lackin of, but then again if I simply think about how it gets on my nerves when I hear talking about “what people should say-think-do” I find the will to change in a sec. After all what we have to change is simply a state of mind: who said what? and most of all, why can’t I say what’s good for ME?

If we choose not to be sheeps, if we choose to stop wishing for people to notice us, our “magical powers” and come to rescue us, if we choose to actually do something, with commitment.. things change!

I know, welcome to banality-fair, but here is where self-onesty comes in play: we are the first liers, we lie to ourselves a lot, ’cause we don’t want to see how things really are, because we reached some sort of balance in wich we try to be “happy”.
But I’m sure that there is something better to gain if we risk something (risking what after all? “what people say”? I’m ready to risk it twice!).
It’s still Obvious-festival, more! Reinventing-the-wheel-day, but there are things that need to be repeated over and over and over, untill our hears can actually hear it… and most of all because I’ve now learned (the hard way) that the best way to hide something sometimes is to put it in full light.