Role models can be great. They provide wisdom for how to get where we’d like to be.
Take care, though.
In our eagerness, we risk blindness and deafness to how sometimes they’re better examples of what not to do. Of the ones we love, those who are closest to us, their familiarity can feel like normalcy.
The amazing poem posted by afroliz of Zimbabwe that follows illustrates what I’m trying to say.
I believe we must all continually work to be our own best role models. Let us be lighthearted in working toward that goal. Let us be as serious as happiness when it comes to understanding which role models we might already have unwittingly chosen.
In these places where women come to die
My mother’s words take turns to hit my ears:
“When you find a man, carve a home beneath his pride and
learn to make homes from nothing.”
Then I screamed: Mother this is not my home!
This is not a home!
It carries the weight of a man’s pride
the same way corpses carry the weight of tombstones
In silence.
Mother did not listen.
She too found a home
In these places where nothing remains
but a swam of men urinating on the flame of our souls
She said: that is how we make homes out of nothing
By carrying the weight of a man’s pride
In silence.
© Elizabeth Semende
A wonderful post and very true x
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thank you!
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx so welcome x
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❤️
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‘Let us be as serious as happiness’ – I love this, such a poignant message and I agree, we should try and be more lighthearted in life 🙂
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😀
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Okay. That is intensely moving.
“By carrying the weight of a man’s pride
In silence.”
Now it makes me kinda glad, for the first time, I am often really bitchy to my husband.
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Haha Cindy. Am sure he doesn’t mind. 😀
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I am sure many things my Mom said to me taught me a lot. I’m glad to say my grandmother and mother were “liberated” and married to men who respected their minds. I was lucky, I guess.
I have accidentally chosen friends who did not have a good influence on me. So, I do agree, be cautious and listen to your mind when a friend is speaking. Examine people who try to influence you. They may have ulterior motives.
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This is not just a place specific but common the 👨 ego. Very powerful message
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I agree 😀
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I agree, Namrata. It is far too common.
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