The Resolute Woman

Category: confidence

  • The asparagus test

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    resolutewoman
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    Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics, had a friend who needed someone to fill a spot on “some sort of asparagus advisory board.” When the friend asked a few men and a few women to join the board, the women said, “I don’t know that much about asparagus.”…

  • T.G.I.F.

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    Do you think immediately, “Thank goodness, it’s Friday.”? That’s what I used to think. No more. Not since I saw a plaque in a store in Georgetown with “T.G.I.F.” in big letters and then underneath in smaller type: “Thank goodness, I’m female.” –Joy

  • Are you normal?

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    I don’t think I’ve ever been normal, but, more and more, I accept that it’s okay. In fact, Maya Angelou once said, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” I found this quote in Maya Angelou’s book Rainbow in the Cloud—The Wisdom and Spirit of…

  • Clothes are armor

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    Miranda, who is 27 and divorced, is taking classes and looking for a job. She spends money on expensive clothes because she has “come to understand that clothes are armor,” writes Emily St. John Mandel in her book Station Eleven. And how are clothes used as armor? I asked myself that question when I read…

  • A smart cookie

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    “’I could’ve been somebody, you know?’ my mother says,” Sandra Cisneros writes about Esperanza’s mother in her book The House on Mango Street, the story of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. The mother “has lived in this city her whole life. She can speak two languages. She can sing…

  • Ruthless?

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    “I think of Jeremy telling me I had to be ruthless to be a writer,” says Lucy Barton in Elizabeth Strout’s new book My Name Is Lucy Barton. “But, really, the ruthlessness, I think, comes in grabbing onto myself, in saying: This is me, and I will not go where I can’t bear to go…and…

  • The constant judgment in the world

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    resolutewoman
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    When the hospital nurse asked Lucy Barton’s mother if she wanted a “gossip” magazine to read, she declined. And, although Lucy took the magazine, she hid it—just in case the doctor came in. “So, I was like my mother. We did not want to be judged by what we read,” comments Lucy in Elizabeth Strout’s…

  • Dance first

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    I found this quote on a card by The Borealis Press. “Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”—Samuel Beckett. I like the quote, but a word of caution. Dance first, but remember to think, too. Like most things in life, the secret is finding the right balance between thinking and dancing. –Joy

  • Conquering my fears

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    Since my fall when I shattered my femur, I sometimes have been afraid—afraid that I’ll get too tired if we invite friends to our house for dinner and they stay too late, afraid that I’ll get too tired if I drive from Dallas to Denton to visit my daughter, afraid that I’ll be too tired…

  • Barrel through life with audacity

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    Lily Tomlin, the comedian and actress, has some advice that she would have given her younger self if she could. In an interview with Studio 360, a public radio program, Tomlin said: “Just barrel through life with all the audacity you can and be confident. “Where you can learn something, learn it, and where you…