GirlTip #36: Do You Idealize Another Girl or Woman’s Life?
Do you idealize a certain girl or woman in your life & imagine her life to be perfect? It’s a subtle, painful attack on the self. If you could have whatever it is she has, do you think the wanting would end? Would you be “happy?” Likely, you’d want something else. Pursue your dreams because YOU want them. Don’t worry about her. And remember: HAVING doesn’t always mean HAPPY.
I was a music director’s assistant at a high school in Southern California for their marching band. The flute section’s leader was one all the girls envied. All the girls looked upon her as the one to admire and to become. She was attractive, thin, athletic, because, mind you, she was captain of her soccer team and flute leader and AP scholar and almost had a 5.0 G.P.A. However, her life was not what most girls assumed. She confronted me one day about a bad day she had and just broke down. She told me that it was one of the worst days of her life. This girl had supposedly everything that everyone wanted. She came from an upper-class family. Everything was available to this girl yet she was miserable and needed someone to see her as she really was. I think she just wanted to be someone’s baby for a day and to be fallible.
After many of these moments, I coaxed her into talking to her parents and a counselor. She asked if I could come with her to confront her parents…sort of like backup to validate her claims. If her section, or the band knew that this girl was just as vulnerable and fallible as the next, perhaps they would idealizing someone else.
It’s so true that things are often not what we believe — most of the time we are just imagining what people are like based on our own fears, hopes and insecurities. This is a great example – thanks for sharing!
Often, I’ve felt that someone is doing something or has done something that I wish I had done. I re-frame it as that’s great that someone is doing that already and I need to stay true to myself and keep going down my path to do whatever is my work in the world.
Hi Martha…I totally agree that it’s about staying true to yourself…staying connected. Idealizing someone else is actually a sneaky way to disconnect and focus on someone else. Thanks for this advice!
Rachel, why do you think you act the way you do? Not in a maliscious way. Is it confidence or is it know how? please reply.