“Be a Communist, a stamp collector, or a Ladies’ Aid worker if you must,” advised Marjorie Hillis in her 1936 bestseller, Live Alone And Like It, “but for heaven’s sake, be something.”
Today, a writer might overkill such a remark with an exclamation point. (It doesn’t need one!) Miss Hillis, however, was from a different time, although the advice she gives in her guide for single women is refreshingly frank, her opinions are CEO firm, and her perspectives are surprisingly modern and pragmatic.
Coco Chanel had a different view. “How many cares one loses,” she said, “when one decides not to be something but to be someone.” A woman who challenged the wearing of corsets, it’s no surprise she questioned the wearing of other assumptions.
I bring this up as part of a larger reflection on how many of us discover a tendency to define ourselves by our occupation. We are, in this thought pattern, what we do for a living; our jobs explain both our who and our what.
It’s a limited definition, just one part of a bigger, richer picture. We are also defined by how we respond to deaths in the family, our decision to lead a fundraising committee for the city dog park, the from-the-hip thoughts we record in our journals, the water temperature at which we most enjoy swimming.
It’s time to claim it all, I say, the whole shebang of who we are.
Your favorite editor here: it’s “quel” dommage! (The French care passionately about gender!)
Duly noted. Merci.
Sorry. Later I thought I should not be correcting people’s grammar, French or otherwise! Just ignore me. . . . .
Just noticed it looks as if we’re posting these comments in the wee hours. For the record, it’s not 1:14 a.m. here in Seattle. It’s almost dinnertime! Or it would be, if I were cooking dinner and not trolling blogs.