“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.” - Dr. Seuss

As an authority on love (go with me on this one...) As another woman and a romance author I feel I can speak openly to you on this matter.

We are inundated with the idea that to be desirable we must change who we are. Whether it be your interests, your ideas, your likes or dislikes, your looks, your make-up, your weight, your shape, your hair color...
We get it coming at us millions of times a day, at work, from family, from friends, from flyers in the store window, in your mailbox tucked under your windshield wiper. We're bombarded at the checkout lane at the grocery store, we're reminded at home via the radio, internet, the television...

8 Steps To Get Him To Notice you 
Catch Him With Ten Simple Steps
11 1/2 Things You Never Knew He Liked

7 Ways To Be Sexier
22 Moves To Rock His World
How To Keep Him Interested
How To Fake Interests In His Interests

Belly Blast Your Way To Dates
Lose Weight To Gain A Man (in just 6 weeks)
Make Up Tricks To Make Him Lose His Shit

 

Okay so I made these up but we've all seen articles titled like this. Headlines on our favorite magazines and once we break it down that's all the magazine is, an instruction manual on how to be anyone but yourself.

 

 Enough.

We've got to stop this. You want to know how to keep him interested?

Do you, because I'll tell you.
The answer is not really a secret.
You've got to stay interesting.
Want me to tell you how to do that?
Stop exhausting yourself with unrealistic goals. Stop wasting your precious energy and time worrying about being perfect, losing those last three and half pounds, squeezing into those jeans from middle school. It's time to give it up. It's time to stop looking at each other and gauging our worth in a once-over comparison.

Once we give this up imagine all the time we'll have to do the things that actually matter. To take that yoga class you've been wanting to take because it interests you - not because some magazine told you that doing yoga would instantly increase your sex appeal.

You'll have more time to peruse the library, reading whatever it is you want to read -- not whatever you think he might have read, what will make you seem intellectual, or whichever book screams SEXY to a man if he catches you reading it in the break room.

You'll have more time and energy to spend on truly getting to know yourself, time to fall in love with yourself, date you. Discover your likes and dislikes on your own. Who are you? Not who do you think you should be but who are you really?

& if the upside to this is that men find a woman who knows herself, appreciates herself, and takes care of her needs, and spends time doing things that honest to goodness actually interest her, to be incredibly sexy ... well, hell - look at that. A cherry on top.

 

Our worth is not skin deep, it is not measured in the number of dates we have, or catcalls we get walking down the sidewalk - it's really not. We should really try to stop dragging each other down because that doesn't actually build any of us up.

 

We all have strengths, we all have things that make us different, interesting, extraordinary. We all hurt, we all worry, we all have our insecurities - stop playing in to them. We all love, we all hope, we all have dreams. Let's stop clawing each other's eyes out to reach those dreams and goals, and most importantly let's stop beating ourselves up trying to get there.

 

 

 

Try loving you  -- I already do <3   

So this happened ...

A couple weekends ago I stood up in my cousin's wedding and I'm very good friends with the bride. The ceremony was beautiful and perfect, the reception was a blast. I gave a fantastic speech :)
and then later in the evening I was approached by one of the bride's cousins, but she didn't approach me as the bride's friend, Matron of Honor, or even as a cousin of the Groom. She approached me as Kelli Evans.
As in the author version of me!
"Kelli Evans?" she asked, "As in the author Kelli Evans?"
Shocked, I nodded. "Yep, that's me."
This has never happened before... and I don't know when it will happen again but it made me feel as if I'd finally arrived which was a much needed reaffirmation during a time when Chasing Dreams, my latest release is collecting polarizing reviews -- which incidentally also makes me feel as if I've arrived.
It was strange and wonderful being recognized as an author. It definitely blew up my ego a little ;)

What about you? Have you ever been recognized for what you do versus who you are?