Necessary Preferences: Why They Matter
“I don’t care.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
How often do we say these words every day? Sometimes they’re true. However, I have often found that I say them to avoid what I fear most—expressing my opinion which would require me to say what is valid and honest and true for me. It’s how I hide who I am.
When I was very young and living for a time with my grandparents while my mother was ill, they had a group of people over for a Bible Study. I recall being asked to sing. Somehow I ended up standing on a piano bench and fearlessly belting out, ‘This Little Light of Mine’. I loved to sing. I would have danced too but that was forbidden (which is why I am one of the first ones on a dance floor now that I’m an adult and I can do what I want to).
“…Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine!” I sang. The group was charmed. Yet as I grew up and learned what was acceptable and what was not, I found myself in very cramped quarters under that bushel, where my ideas, opinions, and yes, my preferences were stored instead of letting them shine.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned the consequences of not sharing my preferences—I become invisible to myself and others. The only way we become that unique and special person we are is by being it in daily life–by surrounding ourselves with what we love that makes us unique and different from anyone else.
In my memoir, “I Was a Yo-Yo Wife,” my co-author, Dr. Boris Matthews calls it ‘noticing’. “When you notice that you betray your truth…when you notice (again) that somebody else’s notion of who you are has more power over you than your sense of who you are…you begin to recognize the voice that says, “Something’s not right; something doesn’t feel right, something doesn’t suit me…”. That he says is an invitation to become who you are. The only other choice, he says, is to suffer.
Some call it ‘speaking my truth’ which is OK and sometimes necessary, but when someone uses that phrase I feel like it’s confrontational and oppositional. “I had to speak my truth,” which meant in doing so, I was offending others. There are times, absolutely when that is necessary but often speaking my truth is as simple as saying “I’d like chocolate, not vanilla”; “I’d like that sumptuous peach-colored sweater instead of that pale blue one.” Or even, “I prefer to refer to God as ‘The Source of Life’ rather than assigning a gender to All That Is,” as I told my father, a devout evangelical Christian. Stating our preferences is necessary for our personal growth.
There are safe and humorous ways to make our preferences known even though we know that we might not sway others. I am continually reminded that persuading others is not the point—the point is to be our essential selves.
Acting on our preferences takes time, patience, faith and consistency. I prefer that my novel, ‘Death by Roses’ become a movie. It’s absolutely liberating to be able to say that—it’s letting my light shine rather than saying “It doesn’t matter—I don’t care,” because in truth, I do care. I hope; I have dreams that I’d like to see come true.
Don’t let your preferences scare you. Don’t mock and ridicule them. Let them shape your destiny. It is the ultimate discovery of this lifetime—to know who you are and let that light that is only yours shine. Promise yourself that today, in even a tiny way, you will stand up on that piano bench and belt out your song.
Vivian!
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