entry points - by Ava - bookbear express

I would like 16 more people to fill out the Bookbear Readership Survey so please be one of them if you have a moment! We live in a society that shows us many paths to status but very few to meaning. As a child, I internalized that I should strive to be beautiful, thin, intelligent, accomplished and materially comfortable. Ways to accomplish this included eating less, exercising, undergoing various cosmetic interventions, going to a “good” college and working hard at a “good” profession that would allow me to make money. I was taught that doing these things would make me desirable to friends and to a romantic partner who possessed the same status markers; it would make my parents proud of me; I would therefore be “lovable” and “accepted.” As a child, I wanted to be happy, but the world around me assured me that only path to happiness was the one I laid out above; that if I worked diligently and was “good enough,” I would then qualify for joy. Happiness was the result of achieving, of co

saved by

• Mandy Xu
• s j
• Nhat Tuong Nguyen
• Sacha Martinelle