The day got away from me and there is baking to do for tomorrow, so I am reposting this little flash of insight from October 2012…
Last week in class, we were talking about the media. We talked about what it teaches us, what messages it gives off, why we engage, how it affects us.
As we mulled this all over, someone said something along the lines of “we are taught to be pleasing.” And that’s just it, isn’t it? We are taught to be pleasing– to please others with how we present ourselves, to please others in our relationships with them, to please, please, please.
I am not sure what my preamble was before I came to this but what I left my students with after that comment was this,
“Yes, we are enticed, instructed, coerced into being pleasing rather than particular. But the truth is that for a happy life, for a fulfilling life, for a life of meaning, we need to do just the opposite. We need to be particular rather than pleasing.”
How have you felt the pressure to be pleasing? How are you exercising particularity?
