Alyssa’s 50th article｜Don’t be an ant, don’t be a god, be a writer

This is my 50th article. I am halfway to my goal of 100 articles. I want to write this article to remind myself that if I keep walking, I will see a different scenery. No one is born with a certain ability. As long as you have the desire to learn, anything is possible.

Although there are all kinds of unfairness in this era, I think this is still the best era because women are rising. Facing the changes to the new marriage law in 2018, women must continue to strive for self-improvement. Marriage itself cannot be an excuse for a woman not to work hard. Natalie Portman said, "Women are not just other people's wives and mothers." Only when women participate in society in more capacities will the world become more colorful and creative.

My mother is a typical housewife. She liked literature very much when she was studying. However, women's liberation was not promoted in the 1980s, and no one realized what they were. She once had a dream, her dream was to be a writer, and someone once invited her to study red science together. But she gave up because of her livelihood. She chose a job she didn't like and didn't stick to her dream. In this way, her dreams were shelved like dusty literary masterpieces in a bookcase.

However, one day in junior high school, the bookcase full of books attracted me. It was the first time I wandered in the ocean of reading. Although I was young at the time and couldn't understand why I was reading, those books accompanied me through my lonely days and planted seeds in my heart.

Parents will have a profound influence on their children, because they see their mothers complaining about housework and being immersed in housework at the same time. Therefore, I have a deep fear of being a housewife, and I even feared marriage. Later I understood that I was not afraid of being a housewife, but I was afraid of giving up myself after becoming a housewife.

When I told my mother last year that I wanted to become a writer, she didn’t believe it at first. Because she knows that road is difficult. I asked her why she didn't hold on a little longer, maybe she would have less regrets today. She told me that she gave up her dreams for me and my dad.

I don’t know why, but when I heard this sentence, I didn’t feel very moved. Instead, I felt a little sad. I think my mother represents thousands of women in Chinese society. They all worry about their families. Because they are worried, they give up on self-growth, and later they are not recognized by society.

People often say that evenly matched marriages are the strongest, and I firmly believe this. My favorite American TV series, "The Good Wife," allowed me to see how women can become independent and self-reliant. At the beginning of the first episode, Alicia received guidance from her "mentor" Diane, "Men can be lazy, but women can't." When we want to accomplish something, we must work harder than men. Therefore, I believe that what can protect marriage is the sexual growth of both men and women.

Many people would say that I have to worry about all kinds of things after marriage, and raising children takes up almost all of my time, so I have no energy for self-growth. But whose life is easy? There is no word easy in the world of adults, and there is no word easy in the world of women. Samuel Johnson once said, "A woman's preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. Although it is difficult, you will be surprised to find that it works." Women not only have to face the pressure of the workplace, but also face the pressure of their families. pressure. The world has high requirements for women, who must have both the strength of men and the wisdom of women. Just like Mary in Woolf's novel "Night and Day", she is portrayed as an androgynous. Everyone admired Mary and praised her personality as a combination of "books and stockings". Books are a symbol of men, and stockings are a symbol of women. If you wear stockings and a head full of books, you may be invincible.

Katharine Graham, an American housewife in the 1970s, loved her family very much and was very happy to contribute to the family. But life likes to joke, and her husband's cheating and suicide shattered her dreams overnight. Facing the family's newspaper industry, she had no choice but to go to the front of the curtain. From a woman who would tremble in meetings with directors to a female publisher who dared to expose the truth about the Vietnam War and the Watergate Incident, she was the former publisher and chairman of the board of directors of The Washington Post.

I think, I am a wife, a mother, and a writer. Society always sets boundaries for women, but we shouldn’t set boundaries for ourselves. If you always tell yourself that you can’t do this or that, then you really can’t do anything. Precisely because we have slowly learned not to set limits, there are more female identities in the world, including female directors, female writers, female CEOs, female presidents...

Me too I see many talented female friends around me. Some friends insist on painting by themselves, some friends start their own businesses, and some friends are shining in the workplace. In short, I feel that I live in a good era and can witness the growth of women.

This is indeed another anxious era. No matter who is selling what kind of anxiety, the only one who can save you in the end is yourself. No matter how many hundreds of millions others earn, we can only follow our own steps.

Find your true motivation instead of blindly following others. There are too many things we pursue in life, and there are too many temptations from the outside world. When we are in shackles, we still have to ask ourselves what we really want. Rousseau said, Man is born free, but he is always in chains. He who thinks he is the master of everything else is more of a slave than anything else. That’s why we need to always remind ourselves what we want and what is most important to us, instead of becoming a slave to life.

When we are doing something, we always think about how to do it, but not why. I have also been exploring the secrets deep in my heart. Finally one day, I realized that the reason why I write is because I want to deeply connect with the world. Only writing makes me feel alive. As a wave, it will eventually sink into the sea, but even if it is so small, I will make more waves before sinking into the sea.

Life is accidental, death is inevitable. Kafka said that life has meaning because it stops. Therefore, in 2016, I set a writing goal for myself to complete 100 articles within a year. Because of some things, I did not complete it. In 2018, I went on the road again and continued to fulfill my dream.

There is no shortcut to writing. I can only write one article at a time, from being unknown to the first article that has been read over 10,000 times, to being on the home page 7 times, and then to the article. Included in the monthly magazine. These little bits of recognition made me realize that I was making progress. Just like the movie "The Weather Guy," we, like David, are practicing archery. Although we haven’t hit the bullseye yet, that arrow makes us feel like we may be making progress.

During the Chinese New Year this year, when my family was immersed in the joy of reunion, I received a phone call. My best friend suffers from severe depression. I was shocked to hear her tell me this because I had never seen depression in her before. I just listened quietly, listening to her talk about her own experience, how she had been saved after committing suicide many times. At that moment, I thought that no one’s life is easy. But Romain Rolland said, "There is only one kind of heroism, which is to still love life after recognizing the truth of life." So, I encouraged her and supported her to follow her dreams, and I will always be with her.

What I like the most is what Feng Tang said:

Life is urgent and time is precious. I want to be a writer and deeply connected with the world.