It is important for Nigerian women not to conform to societal expectations and live life on their own terms.
Getting to the point where they don’t live to please society may not easy for some women but it will be the best decision they will ever take in their lives.
In this world, you must not conform. You will get lost in the crowd of conformers heading nowhere. You must stay true to yourself. You must define your own path and stay on course.
When people tell me I don’t talk like a woman, I laugh. I laugh at this people because they are ignorant. I laugh at them because they lack the mental capacity to accept that a woman can live her own life without panicking about pleasing society.
I talk like a human being full in my own glory. I don’t need others to tell me who I am because I know who I am, where I am coming from and where I am going.
For me, being true to myself, my passion and goal in life is far better than fitting in to the expectations of people who really don’t matter.
You have to be yourself if you must excel in life. If you water yourself down so that others can like you and accept you, you are just existing.
If all you do is desperately try to fit in so that you won’t offend others, you will lose your power and uniqueness.
If you keep pretending to be a good girl so that the world won’t call you names, you will lose the freedom and joy of being uniquely you.
Being a good girl to everybody won’t make you great. That’s what we have been told and it hasn’t helped us.
Woman, be yourself. Embrace yourself. Let the world know who you truly are. Take off the masks so that you can breathe and truly live. Live. Breathe. Be free.
Here are three reasons why Nigerian women shouldn’t conform to societal expectations:
1. Your life becomes meaningful
You won’t live a meaningful life if you keep doing things to please society. You won’t achieve your dreams if you are afraid of what people will say about you.
You are not in this world to please society because society doesn’t care about you. You shouldn’t live in a cage society has provided for you. Live your own life. Go after the things you want as long as you are not hurting people or committing crimes.
2. You become confident and strong
As a Nigerian woman, going against societal expectations is hard. Some men and women will hate you for standing up for yourself. They will call you names for refusing to fit in. They will call you bitter, angry, unsubmissive, proud, arrogant and unteachable.
Don’t feel bad about this. You should know that the worst conditions in your life help you create the best version of yourself. You will feel empowered and confident.
3. You will become an inspiration to other women
When you don’t conform to what society expects from you because you are a woman, you inspire other women to be true to themselves too. You show them by the way you live your life and going after the things you desire that they can live free too.
Inspiring these women to chase their dreams by not following the path society already set for them because of their gender is a feeling which cannot be described in words.
Woman, why do you conform to the rules of society when you can live free?
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